Want expert eyes on an audio build

If you have the base audio system, there is no factory-installed amplifier. The head-unit pushes ~12w RMS per channel out to 4 channels (2 front and 2 rear), to which 6 speakers are wired (2 per channel up front and 1 per channel in rear). The speakers’ impedance is a mix of 4 and 8 ohm.

If you have the Alpine upgraded factory system, there is a factory installed amp that pushes ~20w RMS per channel to 6 channels, each connected to one speaker. The channels are crossed over inside the amplifier so as to attenuate frequencies the channels’ respective speaker cannot play. All speakers are 2 ohm IIRC.

Your best approach for upgrading the speakers will depend upon which of those two systems you have. You mentioned Alpine in the OP, so I’ll assume you have the latter one. This presents some challenges to upgrading that must be kept in mind.

A) you are stuck with the factory amp and it’s non-adjustable LPF/HPF settings for any channels you want to use on it.

B) you will have to purchase the necessary adapter(s) to interface with the factory amp and bypass it to use an aftermarket amplifier while still keeping the warning chimes and steering wheel controls in tact.

C) any signal you feed the aftermarket amp will likely be incomplete (not a full signal) and require some sort of summing to be of much use.

Keeping all this in mind, I would say your planned audio upgrade should be heavy on the planned part and multi-staged on the actual upgrade part.

By that I mean it is going to require a lot of research and planning just to figure out which components you need to buy to make the upgrade happen. Once you have that list, then you can start figuring out what brand/model of each component to go with (where applicable, some pieces may only have one option).

After all that has been decided upon, you might go ahead and do the install of the equipment to make sure it all works as you expected it to. Once you have things that far, then a speaker upgrade can be done to finish off the upgrade.

IDK, you can certainly try to do everything all at once, but that’s going to be a lot of work and labor and uncertainty for one upgrade, and it just strikes me as a daunting task to hope you get right in one shot.

Or maybe the smart way forward is to buy and install the speakers first and then go after all the other hardware to finish out the upgrade. Six one; half dozen the other I suppose...

Good luck with it either way!
Nuke

My mistake then, I had assumed the 6 speaker alpine system was in fact the base one...I didn't realize there were so many tiers of audio options on the challengers I guess. I'm glad to know about the integration between the amp and head unit, I wasn't aware the steering wheel and door chime functions and the like were not just a part of the head unit alone. That would have been too easy eh.

Sooo. The way I see it that leaves two options. I can either use something like FiX-86 to sum and even out the signal after the stock amp, or a PAC so I can just bypass the stock amp entirely. In the end they seem similarly priced so I guess it has the same impact budget wise. Do you think one offers an advantage over the other? I see the JL FiX is classified as a DSP and that it has customization via PC. Would that pass as a decent tune? Could I get away with just going with that directly into an amp or would I really need another DSP either way I go?



For reference of the last time I bought any equipment...my last remaining amp is currently Kicker ZX550.2. I found it new in the box on ebay years ago for 90 bucks... I think they stopped making it in '05 lol.

I sold my challenger like a fool about 4 years ago, and I'm not up on the 2015+ interfacing, but from the sound of your ambitions, a DSP would be a worthwhile upgrade if you ask me. I ran a 3 way active front-page in my '12. Running active through a DSP eliminates all of the crossover physical components and replaces them with one larger brain that can mount along side your amplifier. The only drawback to all of the flexibility that a DSP running active is that you must have a channel of amplification for each individual speaker/driver.

The custom tuning flexibility can feel daunting at first, but after an hour or two with a laptop plugged in you'll have this blanket grin on your face. DSPs typically come with long, detailed guides on setting them up, and many of the newer options on the market make it much easier to have a 90% tune within 5 minutes.

We did a kappa install in my GFs Honda Civic with a 2 way component set up front, stock rears, and a pair of my old Perfect 10.1s in the trunk, all powered by an Infinity Reference 5 channel suspended from the bottom of the rear deck. The amp, box, and speaker install only took about a half day, but I'd already gotten a head start on installing a Pioneer double din and sound deadened the doors. I've had infinity kappa 6x9s in an old Ram and wasn't a big fan of the midbass response, but these kappa 6.5" components sound much better than those did. Before adjusting the subwoofer crossovers and high passing the midbass, they put out a reasonable amount of punch down low. They're still a more treble focused set in my opinion, and don't rise to the level of my current Dynaudio 3 way setup, but with a sub and depending on musical taste, they're a very detailed set for the price point.

I custom fabbed my midrange and tweeters into my challengers A pillars. It was vastly superior to installing them into the dashboard, but it can be very driver specific. My tweeters and mids were dome style and forgiving of off axis response. They still benefitted quite a bit from being brought on axis and aimed at the opposite side's headrest. The dash location for the mids in my challenger created some harsh "constructive interference patterns" in the 2-4k range, right in then middle of some of the harshest guitar and vocal sounds. I no longer install domes in dashes firing up at windshields.

I have a 2018 Challenger with the Alpine 6-speaker amplified system.

Originally, I took the cheap route and went with a Rockford Fosgate DSR-1, which handles the OEM integration as well as the DSP aspect in a single box - and it's only ~$260. While it works and it a great price for the amount of functionality you get, the tuning app is mobile-device only and it pretty limited when compared to a "real" DSP.

I also originally replaced all 6 speakers with Infinity Reference speakers.

I've since replaced the DSR-1 with the PAC AmpPro for integration and a Helix DSP.3 for DSP. This combination is WAY better than the DSR-1 solution - but it's also WAY more expensive. Instead of ~$260 for the DSR-1, it's about $250 for the AmpPro and the Helix DSP.3 retails for $700. However, the Helix is a top-of-the-line DSP. I bought mine from an out-of-country Ebay seller for $535 shipped.

I also replaced the Infinity Reference speakers with Kenwood Excelon speaker - and what a difference they made! The Kenwood KFC-XP6903C component set is a "drop-in" set that is made for Dodge vehicles (and a few others with the same setup). It comes with 6x9 midbass speakers for the doors and a 3.5" coaxial for the dash. Once tuned with the DSP, the speakers sound fantastic. I also put the KFC-X174 6.5" coaxials in the rear deck. Again, MUCH better than the Infinity Reference speakers they replaced.

As good as the Kenwood setup sounds, I've been buying up some "high-end" speakers when I find good deals - and will be replacing the dash speakers with some Illusion Audio C3CX point-source coaxial speakers (~$900) and some CDT Audio 6x9 midbass speakers. Honestly, I probably shouldn't even mess with it, because the Kenwood speakers sound fantastic, but I like exploring some of the "higher-end" options. I'm deep in the car audio rabbit hole right now.

Lastly, I didn't want a "real" sub, so I went with a JBL BassPro 8" under-seat powered sub. Believe it or not, with the Helix and it's "Augmented Bass Processing", I have that little self-powered sub playing down to 35hz cleanly - pretty impressive for what it is.

I'm powering the dash, door and rear-deck speakers with the JL Audio XD600/6v2 (6x75W RMS at 4 ohms). It does an excellent job and the system gets louder than I can play it at.

I would NOT mess with summing and all of that crap. It's much easier (and you'll get significantly better results) with the PAC AmpPro 4 device. It basically just gives you clean line-level outputs from the stock head-unit. It also supports an optical digital output. I'm using that optical output going to my Helix DSP.3 and I can say that it's well worth it. Nice clean signal with no noise - all with a single, thin optical cable.

I have a thread on how talking about my install in detail (in the audio section). I have everything installed in the trunk spare-tire well. Picture below.

Amp board is secured to the spare-tire hold-down bolt - so I didn't have to drill into the car body at all. Worked out REALLY well. Again, more details in that audio thread.




Hope that helps - don't hesitate to reach out if you have any specific questions.


EDIT: If you want a "real" DSP, but don't want to spend the $$$ for a Helix, the Dayton Audio DSP-408 is the best on a budget. I think it's about $150 new. No digital input though.

I will jump in on this one. Been in car audio since the 80's so I have done this a time or two as well as many others. There is some good advice above but I will share some of my knowledge as I was heavy into car audio through the 90's until I moved to home AV in 2000 to present. Car audio can get very expensive real quick so here are a few things to guide anyone looking to dabble in car audio.

1. Come up with a realistic budget.
2. What are your goals. SPL, sound quality, a combo of both?
3. Electronics, you get what you pay for. That doesn't mean there isn't some good equipment for a budgeted cost.
4. First thing to buy is sound deadening. This is the single most important thing anyone can do to improve their system. Road noise and reverberations from body panels you can't overcome with the most expensive equipment. There has been huge amounts of money spent on noise canceling tech. A mic is placed in the car to pick up noise then a 180 degree response is played through the speakers to cancel that noise. Kinda works but a much better solution is to get rid of the noise altogether without interrupting your sound system. The factory system will greatly improve just from doing this. Yes, it is a royal PITA to do but well worth the energy. More the better but does add weight.
5. Driver selection/speakers is somewhat important but depends on budget and system goals. Don't pay much attention to the wattage a speaker can handle unless you are building a true SPL car. Do pay attention to the sensitivity and ohms if you are building a passive system or just planing on replacing the factory speakers. Passive being you are using passive crossover networks vs an active system with dedicated amp channels per driver. Passive systems can perform just as good as an active system but they are much harder to get right. Personally, I prefer passive but I am old school and been doing this a long time. Also own an AV company and build custom speakers for clients. If you are just replacing factory speakers, make sure to replace with the same ohms as you don't want to overdrive the factory amp. Also, a 2 ohm speaker will be louder than a 4ohm but sensitivity also plays a roll. Stick with the same brand and series will help here.
6. Playing off #5, amp selection depending on active or passive. You can get more out of an active system but there is a huge amount of adjustments that can be a very daunting task to get right and then one often questions if it is meaning that they are constantly trying to tweak it. For some, that is the joy of having an active DSP system. Active can also be quite a bit more expensive. Anyway you look at it, a good amp to run the whole system is going to be $1k or north of that depending if it has DSP. Multiple amps can cost less but there will be more expense in cables and take up more room and often require more battery power as well as produce more heat. All-in-one digital amps are the way to go for most. Spend more money here than on speakers! Keep in mind, you will do more damage to speakers under powering than over powering. You are looking for a clean 75-100 watts per channel on mids and highs and a good 500 watts for a sub. There is a reason a JL HD900/5 is $1200. That is just power, no DSP in that one.
7. Sub or subs. Bass is often an overlooked area of a system. Personally, I think it is super important to get right. Way too much to get into in this post to go over subs and type of enclosures. There is a ton of good info out there on the subject. This area depends on system goals, SPL or SQ. A single 8" is more than enough for SQ but not gonna cut it for high SPL but you can get a good amount of SPL out of an 8". I currently only run a single 8" and it hammers but it is a JL8W7 in a ported enclosure with a solid 500w running it. More than enough for most people though. Again, what are your goals?
8. Factory integration. This is a tough area depending on the vehicle. We are lucky with what we got. As mentioned above, summing does work but not as good as say the PAC unit that grabs the signal off the CAN Bus. Most if not all of factory systems you have to leave the factory amp in and grab the signal after the amp. Some manufactures will cross over and DSP before the amp or in the amp itself. If you have to grab the signal coming out of the amp, summing is all you can do. What it does is takes all of the different signals/channels and "sums" them together to make a 2 channel full range signal. The JL Fix mentioned does just that. It does it well but not as good as grabbing a full range signal off the can bus before it get processed. The PAC ap4-ch41 does just that and is the way to go if compatible.

With all that said, I will list my system that is more of an SQ setup but has a good amount of SPL. I do have a 2015 STR with the HK system not the Alpine so keep that in mind.

Pac from the head unit AP4-CH41
JL HD900/5
CDT HD 6x9 mid bass in the doors (playing 60hz up to about 800ish)
CDT Unity 7.5 in the factory dash location (800ish and up)
CDT Unity 7.5 in factory rear side locations but have turned them off (just running front stage)
CDT CH-2 2" center channel passive with volume control on crossover (combined with the front channels)
CDT MX-1000 crossovers for front stage
JL 8W7 in ported enclosure with volume knob next to gear shift. (super important)
Dynamat extreme everywhere but ceiling as it was too much to get to.(at least 2 bulk pacs)
Lizard skin spray sound deadening where I couldn't get to with Dynamat (wheel wells inside)
Street Wires cables
Host of Steve Mead products for setup and gain adjustments
Hours and hours and hours of adjusting crossovers to get leveled and blended

I will be building a JL 13TW5 in a sealed fiberglass enclosure soon in the rear left corner. This is for trunk space reasons. For most, the prebuilt JL sub for the Challenger is more than enough.
There is a ton of equipment available. Come up with goals and a budget and go from there but seriously consider doing Dynamat or some equivalent of it. Got to get rid of the road noise!

Story said:

With all that said, I will list my system that is more of an SQ setup but has a good amount of SPL. I do have a 2015 STR with the HK system not the Alpine so keep that in mind.

Pac from the head unit AP4-CH41
JL HD900/5
CDT HD 6x9 mid bass in the doors (playing 60hz up to about 800ish)
CDT Unity 7.5 in the factory dash location (800ish and up)
CDT Unity 7.5 in factory rear side locations but have turned them off (just running front stage)
CDT CH-2 2" center channel passive with volume control on crossover (combined with the front channels)
CDT MX-1000 crossovers for front stage
JL 8W7 in ported enclosure with volume knob next to gear shift. (super important)
Dynamat extreme everywhere but ceiling as it was too much to get to.(at least 2 bulk pacs)
Lizard skin spray sound deadening where I couldn't get to with Dynamat (wheel wells inside)
Street Wires cables
Host of Steve Mead products for setup and gain adjustments
Hours and hours and hours of adjusting crossovers to get leveled and blended

Click to expand...

I'm curious what you think of the CDT speakers. I'm in the process of installing the CDT CL-69S midbass speakers in my doors today (replacing the 6x9 midbass speakers from the Kenwood Excelon KFC-XP6903C component set, which I have to say, provide some really good, deep midbass. With only an under-seat sub, I'm playing the midbass speakers pretty low (I'm running fully active) to help compliment the under-set sub - and I'll tell you what, those Kenwood midbass speakers are impressive. I'm currently high-passing them at 45hz (24db Linkwitz-Riley slops), believe it or not and they sound fantastic that way! Originally, I was high-passing them at 65hz - but found that running them down to 45hz works so much better in my setup.

However, I just wanted to try something else and CDT had a sale last month - only $99 for a pair of the CL-69S midbass speakers (slim, 2-ohm, carbon-fibre midbass speakers). I liked the idea of running 2-ohm midbass speakers as well to get a little more power to them from my amp (although, I really only gain 25W RMS by the switch from 4-ohm to 2-ohm speakers with the JL XD600/6v2).

Anyway, like I said, I'm curious what you think of the CDT speakers in general. I'm hoping they will handle the midbass as well as the Kenwoods, if not better.

Also - are you running a DSP at all? For me (my first DSP experience), a DSP just provides so many benefits - but does take a LOT of time to learn to tune properly. I learned Room EQ wizard and got a decent measurement MIC (MiniDSP UMIK-1) - I have learned SO much about audio while tuning the DSP. Such a rewarding experience.

Like I mentioned, for those on a budget, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a better set of speakers than the Kenwood Excelon KFC-XP6903C - especially if you have a DSP. They were my first Kenwood speakers and I was really impressed with them. I'm crossing over the door 6x9's with the dash 3.5" speakers at 450hz (24db Linkwitz-Riley) and that really keeps the stage up high and with the DSP.3 tuned well, the staging and sound-quality is excellent.

ShakerScat said:

I was big into car audio in the 90s. This thread gives me a headache 🤕.

Miss the days of bolting in a new deck, 4 new speakers, an amp and a sub myself and calling it a day (with pretty decent sound for what it was worth).

Click to expand...

We can thank the car manufacturers for making all this such a ****-sandwich to try and upgrade.

But as bad as it seems with these Challengers, it could be worse...like with my Charger for example. It came with the base audio/uConnect setup, which means no amp, CD player, and 4.3” touch screen.



Now you would think since it is the base audio setup, a headunit upgrade would be minimally invasive. You’d be wrong, too!

There are all kinds of vehicle settings and HVAC functionality integrated into the head-unit and accessible only via that touch screen. Yet the touch screen is separate from the head-unit. The head-unit is behind the CD player (behind the keyboard in my pic). So if I replace the headunit, I HAVE to keep the touch screen and it has to continue to function.

Okay, surely there is a PAC device or something for that, right? Not exactly...Metra does make a kit which will allow me to run an aftermarket headunit where the CD player is now, and it includes a new trim piece with all the buttons that would go away if I removed the CD player face. This kit also has an adapter to allow the touch screen to continue to work for the settings and HVAC controls it has now.

The catch? It’s over $400 just for that kit. Throw in the steering wheel control adapter, the antenna adapter, and other associated necessities, and I’m looking at $500 or more BEFORE I have even purchased the head-unit.

Back in the (good) old days, $500 would have purchased me the head-unit AND speakers I’d be upgrading to. But those days are gone, and never to return I’m afraid...

Yeah, it's almost impossible to replace the head-unit in the 2015+ Challengers (while still retaining all functionality). Luckily, the stock 8.4 head-units are actually pretty good in terms of functionality (supports all sorts of file formats (FLAC, WAV, MP3, etc), iPods, USB, aux-in, XM, HD radio, etc.

At least for now... However, five years from now, there will probably be some new "best" format and we'll basically be SOL at that point - without an upgrade path (since you can't just plop in an aftermarket head-unit) - unless someone comes up with an aftermarket unit that supports ALL stock features.

It is what it is, I guess. You really can make these stock head-units sound awesome with the AmpPro device, a DSP, an amp and some good speakers though. DSP is the way of the future. They are so powerful now - and easily obtainable now. You have almost unlimited control over the sound (phase, time alignment, EQ, speaker levels, etc). The Helix DSP.3, for example, has over 240 bands of parametric EQ (30 bands per channel). Compared to the 3-bands of "global" EQ with the OEM Bass, Mid and Treble control. HUGE difference. TIme alignment really makes a huge difference as well.... Good stuff.

jtrosky said:

I'm curious what you think of the CDT speakers. I'm in the process of installing the CDT CL-69S midbass speakers in my doors today (replacing the 6x9 midbass speakers from the Kenwood Excelon KFC-XP6903C component set, which I have to say, provide some really good, deep midbass. With only an under-seat sub, I'm playing the midbass speakers pretty low (I'm running fully active) to help compliment the under-set sub - and I'll tell you what, those Kenwood midbass speakers are impressive. I'm currently high-passing them at 45hz (24db Linkwitz-Riley slops), believe it or not and they sound fantastic that way! Originally, I was high-passing them at 65hz - but found that running them down to 45hz works so much better in my setup.

However, I just wanted to try something else and CDT had a sale last month - only $99 for a pair of the CL-69S midbass speakers (slim, 2-ohm, carbon-fibre midbass speakers). I liked the idea of running 2-ohm midbass speakers as well to get a little more power to them from my amp (although, I really only gain 25W RMS by the switch from 4-ohm to 2-ohm speakers with the JL XD600/6v2).

Anyway, like I said, I'm curious what you think of the CDT speakers in general. I'm hoping they will handle the midbass as well as the Kenwoods, if not better.

Also - are you running a DSP at all? For me (my first DSP experience), a DSP just provides so many benefits - but does take a LOT of time to learn to tune properly. I learned Room EQ wizard and got a decent measurement MIC (MiniDSP UMIK-1) - I have learned SO much about audio while tuning the DSP. Such a rewarding experience.

Like I mentioned, for those on a budget, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a better set of speakers than the Kenwood Excelon KFC-XP6903C - especially if you have a DSP. They were my first Kenwood speakers and I was really impressed with them. I'm crossing over the door 6x9's with the dash 3.5" speakers at 450hz (24db Linkwitz-Riley) and that really keeps the stage up high and with the DSP.3 tuned well, the staging and sound-quality is excellent.

Click to expand...

I am actually a dealer for CDT so I am a little biased but I am a fan of their drivers which is the reason I became a dealer. You should have good luck with the CL series as they are a little more sensitive and lighter so should be snappier with less power vs say the HD series. I have the CL line in my work van and happy with them. Keep in mind that not only are you getting more power out of your amp but the 2ohm driver is about 3db louder with the same power as a 4 ohm but your dampening will be lower at 2ohm which is the amps ability to control the cone. I doubt you will even notice though. I found that my HD 6x9's need power to shine. I have my dash drivers cut way back but they are 2 inch 7.5 octave drivers so they don't need anywhere near the power as the 6x9's. Being an active system, you have a ton of options to play with now that you took the time to figure it out. It is super easy to get it all out of wack. If you haven't Dynamated your doors yet, do that. The back side of the outer doorl and the surface behind the door panel. Also, use a foam gasket between the driver and the panel. BIG difference as you are sealing up the door making it a box/enclosure. The foam will keep the sound from bleeding into the back of the door panel. You want the sound to come directly from cone to cabin. The 6x9's will come alive and pull the bass forward where it should be. They are basically an 8" driver. Cutting them off at 450 is a good point to pull up the staging but depends on the upper stage drivers. Play with it though. Every driver is different. I haven't played with Kenwood in years so I can't say anything about the Excelon series but sounds like you had great luck with them.
To answer your question about if I am using a DSP, not at the moment. I am old school and I honesty have my system damn near spot on to my liking with passives but I am sure I will go down that rabbit hole one day. I just know myself and I could never leave it alone. Honestly now that I am thinking about it, I have turned off my rears and could use a DSP with my amp but not sure about my center channel. I guess I could remove that and just try my doors and dash and see if I can get it tuned where I want it. I may give it a go once I build my new sub enclosure. Working on the kids bathroom remodel then I need to install and tune a Procharger so it will be after that.

On a side note, not trying to push CDT but... That Unity 7.5 and 8.0 is one hell of a driver. It is a mid tweeter with no crossover between the mid and tweeter. That has been one of the biggest game changers I have ever come across in car audio. It completely changed my system. My staging has greatly improved without having to build pods for more direct axis. I have them in the factory positions off the glass. I have been down the road of pods and fiber glassing all kinds of pillar tweeters and rear view tweeter firing backwards out of phase and whatnot. These drivers are something else. Just putting that out there.