2018 CX-5: Speaker upgrade help and what's under the dash grill

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2018 Mazda CX-5 Sport, Soul Red
So I have to start with something and the "easiest" should be to upgrade the speakers. I haven't found much info on the 2017+ so I decided to start a new post on this.

First just the doors. These are the affordable ones which I've listened to:

JBL GX602, which are a 2-way 6.5" - $50 per pair straight from HarmanAudio.com
Frequency Response50Hz 21kHz
Power Handling (Peak)180W
Nominal Impedance2.3 ohms (although website advert says 4-Ohm, and some things say 3-Ohm)
Sensitivity92dB

Alternatively, I could buy those for the back and buy the JBL GX600C which are the same but with separate tweeters and I could put the tweeter in the pillar. - $70 per pair straight from HarmanAudio.com

Then there's Kicker 43CSC654, also 2-way 6.5" (although maybe 6.75" will fit too-webpages vary on which actually fit)
DC Resistance | ohm
3.3
Peak Power | Watts
300
Continuous Power | Watts, RMS
100
Sensitivity [SPLo] | dB @ 1W, 1m
90
Effective Frequency Range | Hz
40-20k

Alternatively I've found the KS series of the Kicker for about the same price online. It may be an older version though, but the Frequency Range about the same. That's the 41KSC654 at $55/pair at VMInnovations. Or the current version for $80 44KSC6504. Both have Frequency Response [Hz] 43-21k and oddly enough peak power on those is 200W. Also odd is that Crutchfield says they don't fit yet they're only 1/8" deeper than the CS Kickers.

So between the JBL and Kicker options, the lows on the kicker are better, and the peak power on the CS Kicker is higher but the same on the KS.

I would say the Kickers would be better because of the frequency response, but I've never bought car speakers and not sure what may be more reliable.

I also found this thead with those JBLs just now and other than saying there are better (more expensive) options, and that the back doesn't need tweeters and a 4" would have done as good or better job, I think it seems like a good option.
https://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?123859489

However, there's a chance that the Kickers will fit better. Anybody use those?

Now for what I found when I opened up the grill in the dash. Easy to open, used a metal credit card and some pulling to get one corner up and then worked the card and some pulling around to the other corner. No problems. Was hoping to find some speaker wires, but nope just holes. Upon further research, these may be more for center channel that probably won't help sound in the car much. Any thoughts? As a side note, I think I got some good pics of the headunit connections.

https://ibb.co/cObbjn [url]https://ibb.co/e28p4n https://ibb.co/iMmLAS https://ibb.co/eFdp4n https://ibb.co/eS4e4n https://ibb.co/k9xXPn https://ibb.co/mWWFc7 https://ibb.co/drmsPn https://ibb.co/m9Jvc7[/URL]
 
I though the dash speakers are gone for Gen-2 CX-5, only the center channel 3" mid-range Twiddler in the middle of the dash on Bose system. I don't believe there're 2 speaker grilles on two sides of dash like Gen-1 CX-5, other than 2 tweeters on A-pillars.

You have a Sport so definitely you won't see any wirings under the center speaker grille as Mazda has always done excellent job not giving you any extra wiring harness.

Have you checked Poll Audio 6" speakers as Polk Audio speakers were very popular for Gen-1 speaker upgrade? Are you going to take the door panel off first and see what kind of speaker adaptor is from factory? Is it possible to use different or larger sized speakers as door speaker opening on Gen-1 is 9"? And do I need a new speaker adapter by replacing factory door speaker?

Make sure post some pictures if you decide to do that. ;)
 
Yeah, I'm surprised nobody has put the info on the door panels and what's behind there. I've looked and looked. I might do that today to see before I buy. I'll look up the Polks and see what they're about. There isn't anything on my pillars, but supposedly there are on the Touring 6-speaker setup so I figured I'd surface mount or cut into it. Been reading up on that too. We'll see.
 
If you’re not planning an amp upgrade as well I’d look for higher sensitivity. The lower that number is the more power it takes to drive them.
 
If youre not planning an amp upgrade as well Id look for higher sensitivity. The lower that number is the more power it takes to drive them.
I believe high sensibility and low impedance are a couple of main reasons gen-1 CX-5 owners preferred Polk Audio for speaker-only upgrades.
 
I believe high sensibility and low impedance are a couple of main reasons gen-1 CX-5 owners preferred Polk Audio for speaker-only upgrades.

Yup I remember them being popular in other cars as well for the same reasons. Sound good even on a stock head unit.

I’m also a fan of Polk in general and have RTi A series in my home theatre.
 
Yeah, I'm surprised nobody has put the info on the door panels and what's behind there. I've looked and looked. I might do that today to see before I buy. I'll look up the Polks and see what they're about. There isn't anything on my pillars, but supposedly there are on the Touring 6-speaker setup so I figured I'd surface mount or cut into it. Been reading up on that too. We'll see.
So for gen-2 CX-5 Sport you don't even get a fake tweeter grilles on A pillars? Actually that's fine as I'd get a good quality 2-way coaxial 6" or larger door speakers instead of getting separate tweeters for high notes. If you prefer additional tweeters located high at your ear level, don't put them on A pillars like Mazda did. You should put them at the front-door window corners just inside of rear-view mirror where the most other auto-makers have been doing for tweeter location. tibimakai here has done this way for his component speakers with good result:

I have a set of Infinity Primus PR6500CS components, front and rear. I have placed the tweeter on the little triungular plastic cover, next to the mirror.

And this discussion should be helpful to you although it's for gen-1 CX-5:

Left and right dash speakers replaced with components.
 
I want to add I think you’re going to be happier with separates in front raising the tweeter into the triangle piece by the mirror as suggested. Most auto makers use that position on premium sound systems as it places the tweeter near ear level which is ideal.
 
Does anyone have the spec's on the speakers of the stock Bose system in the 2018's, size, sensitivity, ohm's...etc ?
 
Yup I remember them being popular in other cars as well for the same reasons. Sound good even on a stock head unit.

Im also a fan of Polk in general and have RTi A series in my home theatre.
Yep, I have CSi5、RTi8、PSW111、PSW125 etc. Polk Audio speakers at home ⋯ :)
 
Does anyone have the spec's on the speakers of the stock Bose system in the 2018's, size, sensitivity, ohm's...etc ?
I don't think Mazda or Bose would give any detailed technical specs on Bose speakers. The closest thing we've seen is the impedance which is about 2.35Ω on most speakers. And this:

From speaker setup point of view, 2017 10-speaker Bose system with 2 new A-pillar tweeters and a new spare-tire sub-woofer is definitely better than 2016 9-speaker Bose which doesn't have any of these! No, the new sub-woofer won't make big difference as it's has a small 5" speaker which has to be the smallest speak/driver I have ever seen as a sub-woofer! Remember, No highs, no lows, must be Bose!

Here are some info from Mazda Japan website about new CX-5 Bose system translated by Google. 10-speaker Bose system in 2017 CX-5 has two 1" (25 mm) tweeters at A-pillars, two 6" (165 mm) mid-range speakers on front doors, two 5" (130 mm) mid-range speakers on rear doors. Finally a sub-woofer with 5" (130 mm) speaker is located in spare tire area. Since it says two front tweeters and two corner dash mid-range door speakers form a 2-way configuration front speaker setup, we lost two corner dash 3" mid-range speakers but the center dash 3" mid-range speakers stays for surround sound effect. The 3" speaker with red border shown in the picture is the center dash speaker, the other two 3" speakers are rear fill-in for surround sound. Personally I'd prefer no Centerpoint 2 Surround Sound System like CX-3's since we don't watch movies while driving anyway! :)

理想の「マツダサウンド」をBoseと共同開発

Enjoy the high-quality comfort of the new CX-5 with five senses.
I thought about functions and equipment that can feel usability without being caught by common sense.

Developed ideal "Mazda sound" jointly with Bose
functionality_img01_1612.ts.1612150201269930.jpg

In Mazda, "Clarity: Clear sound without distortion" "Imaging: accurately reproducing all the sounds of music from bass to treble" "Power: sound that feels heavy bass energy" is called "Bose Mazda sound "value and definition. Since this idea overlaps with the idea pursued by Bose, we collaborated with Bose from the early stages of vehicle development and realized an ideal sound system and 10 speakers for the new CX-5.

Bose sound system (AUDIOPILOT (TM) 2 + Centerpoint 2) +10 speaker
functionality_img02_1612.ts.1612150201271330.jpg

A silk dome adopted 25 mm tweeter in the front pillar to reproduce a smooth and clear high tone. This 2-way configuration with tweeter, 165 mm speaker of the front door to properly localize vocals and each instrument. A 130 mm woofer built-in base box under the luggage room floor that produces superb heavy bass.
And rear door 130mm speaker. These 10 speakers realized a balanced, clear, realistic sound that sounds like coming from any stage anywhere on the stage. We also have a Surround System Centerpoint 2 function that reproduces with a stereoscopic sound image even with a stereo sound source, and a running noise compensation system AUDIOPILOT (TM) 2.

* Built-in woofer built-in base box of Bose sound system is installed under the trunk board.
(Maker Set Option: 20 S PROACTIVE, 25 S PROACTIVE, XD PROACTIVE, 25 S L Package, XD L Package)
 
I don't think Mazda or Bose would give any detailed technical specs on Bose speakers. The closest thing we've seen is the impedance which is about 2.35Ω on most speakers. And this:

It sure would be nice to get the spec's so we could have a better starting point to upgrade the speakers but thanks for the info above.
 
Ok, so I took the doors out and looked in there. Only 6.5" possible from what i could tell. Also, the front grille only has 6.5" of opening within a ring that probably fits right over the speaker. The back is similar, but is smaller, like 5" or 5.5". It takes a 10mm to take out the speakers. The doors have two screws, one under the mat in the door pull, and one behind a piece of plastic that can be easily pulled out behind the door latch. The front door was a bear to pull off and after I put it all back together I found a clip that I'll have to put back in when I do the speaker change. There is also a clip on the outside corner near the window that needs to be put back together before putting the rest of the door in place and pushing all the normal clips back in. There are two connectors that come off rather easily once you find the right clips on them to push in. The gray one is easy, the white one is towards the back of the door. The glass comes down past the speaker hole somewhat, so whatever speaker you put in shouldn't be deeper than that.

The back door was normal, just pull it away from the door from the bottom, then pull up. The door latch comes right off by itself on both, just clip it back in when you're ready to put it back together. The back has one connector to the window up/down button. The back glass does not come all the way down to the speaker hole, but there is a cross bar behind the speaker hole.

Note that the auto-down/auto-up (on 2018) won't work after you've reconnected this until you've rolled it all the way up and down.

I'll post pictures with dimensions and more info soon.
 
If you’re not planning an amp upgrade as well I’d look for higher sensitivity. The lower that number is the more power it takes to drive them.

I believe high sensibility and low impedance are a couple of main reasons gen-1 CX-5 owners preferred Polk Audio for speaker-only upgrades.

Looks like the Polk DB 651 has the same sensibility of 92dB as the JBLs, and the JBLs are a lower impedance of 2.3 Ohms (unless they're up to 4, info is still sketchy) whereas the Polks are 4 Ohm. So I'm ordering the JBLs as the Polks are discontinued and we'll see how they sound and fit. One pair will be component and if I can surface mount with some good 3M tape I'll try to put them in the little triangle or move them around and find the best spot. Thanks for the advice everyone, I'll keep this updated.

Also, there's replacement to the Polk of DB652, but on paper they don't seem any better to me than the JBLs. Today we had some long drives and so I took the opportunity to play Pandora through the Aux and 320kbps MP3s and my wife noticed that there is some missing middles/the middles are muddy. She didn't mind the lows, but I don't think they're clear either.
 
Sounds like a good plan! The Polk and JBL are probably pretty similar. And is bet the differences are probably in the subjective range of personal preferences anyway.

I don’t have as much recent car audio experiences as it’s been over a decade since I messed with it. Got the premium factory sound system on the last few cars and was satisfied enough with it leave it alone.

Had a good friend in college that competed with his system so I’m sure following your progress will bring back fond memories from my youth.
 
Ok, so I took the doors out and looked in there. Only 6.5" possible from what i could tell. Also, the front grille only has 6.5" of opening within a ring that probably fits right over the speaker. The back is similar, but is smaller, like 5" or 5.5".

I'll post pictures with dimensions and more info soon.
Yep looks like for gen-2 CX-5 the door speaker sizes are the same between Bose and non-Bose: two 6" (165 mm) speakers on front doors, and two 5" (130 mm) speakers on rear doors. For gen-1 CX-5 there's an adapter between front door speaker and metal opening on door frame. The metal opening can take almost 9" speaker and the adapter is used to adjust between Bose 9" (23cm) Nd woofer and non-Bose 6" (165 mm) dual-cone speaker located at the same door location. For gen-1 CX-5 the rear doors have 5" (135 mm) speakers.

Hope you have taken some pictures on OEM door speakers (should be a dual paper cone type?) on your CX-5 Sport.
 
I'm replacing my non-bose 6 speaker setup with some Hertz MLK 165.3's in the front and an Alpine PDX-F6 powering them and they're all tied into a JL Audiofix 86
 
I'm replacing my non-bose 6 speaker setup with some Hertz MLK 165.3's in the front and an Alpine PDX-F6 powering them and they're all tied into a JL Audiofix 86

Holy hand grenades that's a lot of money! I started putting in the JBL GX600c in the front and GX602 in the back and although I'm missing front driver's still, it sound 100% better. Got them "refurbished" straight from Harmanaudio.com on some extra sweet Easter sale or something for about $127 shipped. Other than the messing with making door mounts for them which was a pain and took all day, I can't imagine anything sounding better at volumes I'm willing to listen to. I would love to hear what yours sound like, so if you're ever vacationing in Fort Myers we've got to meet up.
 
New speakers

So as mentioned, I've been putting in the JBL GX600c 2-piece component and the GX602 2-way speakers. The included brackets were useless so I made a template:

20180401_112725.jpg


I then transferred it onto a piece of plywood using a jigsaw and then sanded it down to make it a bit smoother. It didn't come out nearly as good as my cereal box template :( , but then I used it as a template onto some 1/2" acrylic I had laying around. Here it is for my first one where I screwed it onto the plastic to then use my table router to cut it out "quicker".

20180401_151437.jpg


And here it is started.

20180401_154251.jpg


Here's a quick test-fit onto the left-rear door:

20180401_164130.jpg


And finally here's the finished product. I ended up routing a spot for the speaker cable to sit behind the mount.

20180406_212111.jpg


I was able to take out the speaker connector clips using an exacto knife to push the pin holding each connector in that clip (two per clip). I then was able to just use some 18-gauge wire I had laying around to connect each speaker to the existing connectors. I first tested for negative/positive using a volt meter and then put red wire into the positive and red heat shrink wrap on that, then black for the negative. I just soldered the wires to the terminals on the speakers as I didn't have the appropriate connectors. Mounted it all again. It sounds great even though I've still got to do the front-left combo.

I mounted the tweeter on the triangle in the corner of the front windows with snips of 3M command strips I had left over. It may have been better if I put them in the A-pillars, but hey, no cutting the car works for me!

I'll post more pictures once I do the driver's door. I'm waiting on that one because I will also be installing a proximity sensor for the door unlock.

As far as a subwoofer, I don't think I'm going to bother as I didn't want to take up any trunk space and there isn't enough room to get a custom-built 10" unit under the seats. I measured it out and max I could do was external dimensions of 15"x16"x5" with a dip in the middle of 6". That didn't get anywhere near the .75 ratio I kept reading about. So I don't feel like putting more money into this as it sounds leaps and bounds better than factory. Only thing I may still do is add some foam rings around the speakers to direct the sound all into the cabin instead of it rattling into the space between the door and door panel.

Oh, and I purchased a car trim removal kit from Amazon for like 8 bucks that helped get the clips off the door and back onto the door panel so I could get it all back together. Otherwise it seemed like I was going to tear those clips apart before I would be able to remove them from the door if they got left behind when I removed the panels.

If anyone else is thinking of changing their speakers on a non-bose 2017/2018, I'm willing to answer any questions to the best of my knowledge. What I did was nothing special, (although it was my first time using a jigsaw since shop class, and first time using my router table), I think it's just what the car should have sounded like and I would have been willing to pay an extra $200 for it to have come that way from factory. I doubt any car sales would have been lost to the competition. It's a shame Mazda decided to go that cheap on such a nice vehicle. I'm assuming all base model Mazdas have crappy speakers.
 
⋯ It's a shame Mazda decided to go that cheap on such a nice vehicle. I'm assuming all base model Mazdas have crappy speakers.
Well, even Bose speakers are cheap paper-cone crappy speakers and people are making speaker upgrades for better sound quality. ;)

Appreciate your write-up especially many valuable pictures. Looking forward to seeing more pictures from your front tweeter and front-door speaker installation.
 
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