I should've took heed of the forum's wisdom and went with the polks.
Speaker Uprade 2015 Grand touring with Bose
- Thread starter JimKJSVTCX-5
- Start date
I should've took heed of the forum's wisdom and went with the polks.
RichardCX5
Member
- :
- 2014 CX5 Sport Nav (GT) MT 2.2D 150ps
It might be a bit late - but I have 41KSC354s in the dash of my CX-5!
I went with them on the recommendation of a post on a Jeep forum where someone had tested a dozen or so different 3.5" speakers in the dash of his car and rated the Kickers amongst the best, so I decided to give them a try. The fit is tight but didn't seem any more difficult to fit than the GTO329s I had there before (which are now in the D pillars). The Polks are difficult to source over here in the UK which is why I decided to go with the JBLs, and then the Kickers.
The sound is great, they are nice and smooth without being in-your-face as long as you turn the treble down three or four clicks from the middle.
Any questions feel free to ask!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I went with them on the recommendation of a post on a Jeep forum where someone had tested a dozen or so different 3.5" speakers in the dash of his car and rated the Kickers amongst the best, so I decided to give them a try. The fit is tight but didn't seem any more difficult to fit than the GTO329s I had there before (which are now in the D pillars). The Polks are difficult to source over here in the UK which is why I decided to go with the JBLs, and then the Kickers.
The sound is great, they are nice and smooth without being in-your-face as long as you turn the treble down three or four clicks from the middle.
Any questions feel free to ask!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
- :
- 2015 CX-5 Grand Touring AWD w/ Mazda3 18 rims
I think the Polks may be a discontinued item where once they are sold out they are gone. How would you rate the sound of the kickers VS the JBL gto329?
RichardCX5
Member
- :
- 2014 CX5 Sport Nav (GT) MT 2.2D 150ps
The Kickers sound brillIant and very natural, the JBLs I found to be too harsh even with the treble turned down - I wouldn't really recommend them for the D pillars either, they're not sensitive enough to be heard and aren't a great fit, but I thought I'd put them in anyway since they must be better than the Bose ones.
The specs for the Kicker 41KSC354 are probably more of what I'm seeking. The Kicker 41KSC354 much like my NVX N-series both use silk dome tweeters. Metal dome ones are known to produce shrill highs. The Polks use a silk/polymer composite which may give you the best of both worlds. The Mazda BOSE eq is already high freq. biased. So I figure the silk dome's smoothness would help balance things out. It appears those kickers' specs might be better than my NVXs for the Mazda BOSE application due to a tab bit higher sensitivity spec (1W at 1 meter method). (88 vs 85). That said the NVX's I have produce a really nice silky smooth sound that easily handles the BOSE amp's power at high volumes. It wants more power so drawback is its not as loud as the BOSE paper speakers. One thing BOSE does well is make cheap paper $2 speakers sound better then you'd thing.
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- 2015 CX-5 Grand Touring AWD w/ Mazda3 18 rims
It's weird how sometimes the Bose can sound excellent but other times it sounds like exactly what it is - a paper cone driver with no tweeters for the highs. Some tracks are just muddy and unclear. Mankind invented tweeters for a reason!
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- 2015 CX-5 Grand Touring AWD w/ Mazda3 18 rims
Has anyone here heard the lower priced Focal speakers or the MTX Thunder?
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- Plano, Texas, USA
Here is another opinion comparing between Polk Audio db351 and Kicker 41KSC354:
Anyone know or wants to take a stab of guessing what the aprox. frequency range is for the BOSE front dash and middle twiddlers? Or better yet what Hz range are you guys blocking out (with bass blockers) from your aftermarket 3.5 speakers?
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- 2015 CX-5 Grand Touring AWD w/ Mazda3 18 rims
The General consensus is that you don't need to use bass blockers IF you are using the Bose amp if that helps. My guess is if you were powering them with a conventional amp to go to 200hz or higher. Crutchfield support should be able to tell you which bass blocker you need if you are doing that. The bose amp isn't a flat signal. It's already EQed and or filtered.
Ok thanks. I may experiment using sensitive speakers from Parts Express.
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- 2015 CX-5 Grand Touring AWD w/ Mazda3 18 rims
I haven't used them enough to make up my mind except to say anyone with CX-5 with bose or anyone who wants to put 3-1/2s in their CX-5 should buy 2 pairs of Polk db351s and put 3 of them in your dash. You won't be sorry! I put a kicker ks in my center channel position. I might have to swap for Polk if I really wanted to hear the difference. So far I think I'm happy enough with the sound that I'll probably never make the swap. As far as I'm concerned with the Polks swapped in to the Bose that 25 years ago it would have been considered competition level sound quality.
