Shelby Kicker Door Sub Wiring question

[WJBertrand]

I'm planning to install the Shelby Kicker door speakers and subs into my '13 Premium (standard Shaker system) this weekend. Regarding the subs, I've been reading that since you only use two of the four leads that are attached to the OEM subs, which evidently have two voice coils, that you loose some power there. The other two leads are left unused.

Has anyone tried connecting the two pairs in parallel, i.e. connect both (+) leads to one terminal and both (-) leads to the other on the Kicker subs?. I've no idea whether both leads carry the same signals or different signals. I can't think that it would cause a short circuit as long as you don't connect negative to positive.

Thoughts?

 

[BadHabit2Break]

If you take both + and - and put them together....you are probably going to fry the amp as it is not made to handle that.

I have done a write up on the sound of the Shelby/Kicker subs. Basically you are going to cut the sound in half as you are going from a dual 1ohm sub to a 4ohm sub.

I ended up buying a dual 1ohm Kicker sub and put in there. Works great. I also have the whole Shelby/Kicker setup in my car.

 

[WJBertrand]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I installed the Kicker's today and got to say I'm well pleased. The subs I received were 2 ohms according to my ohm meter and the upper speakers measured about 3 ohms. I only hooked up one set of leads as advised to the subs and the improvement is pretty close to what I was after. The OEMs may have been a little louder but it was noise not sound. I turned up the bass EQ a bit and maybe run the volume a couple bars higher but the bass is much more of a tight thump than a loud boom. I was afraid this change would leave me wanting to add some amplifiers, but I don't think I'm going to bother. With the new Kicker door speakers as well, the clarity is vastly better, especially at high volumes.

 

[MikeGT]

Congrats on the mod... The kicker sub mod is something i've been fearing, since there are a lot of negative reviews. Maybe I should reconsider.

You won't believe the vast difference it makes, changing this crappy ass paper-cone OEM speakers. If you really want to improve the clarity, have a go at that.
You won't regret it.

 

[RetiredSFC 97]

A 2 ohm should work ok but a dual 1 ohm would work better. Glad you're happy with it. As an FYI I was amazed at the change in sound quality by just replacing my front speakers with a set of JBL 2 ohm 6.5 components and the rears with some JBL 638's. Totally different sounding stereo. I do want to replace my front subs at some point but it's not pressing.

I don't listen to rap or hip hop but I was pretty impressed with everything when I did try the new speakers out with some hip hop. I find hip hop is the best way to truly test a stereo and especially subs.

 

[Mr. Q]

just curious why you went with 6 1/2's instead of 6x8?

 

[WJBertrand]

Congrats on the mod... The kicker sub mod is something i've been fearing, since there are a lot of negative reviews. Maybe I should reconsider.

You won't believe the vast difference it makes, changing this crappy ass paper-cone OEM speakers. If you really want to improve the clarity, have a go at that.
You won't regret it.

Well, I got caught up in the whole thing and ended up installing the Shelby/Kicker amp and sub woofer, so now my whole system has been upgraded. The amp really added a lot of clarity to the front and rear Shelby/Kicker speakers which were a distinct step up from OEM already. The sub adds enough extra thump that I could back the EQ down to pretty much flat.

The upgraded system really exposes some of the older classic rock stuff I have that wasn't recorded very well or was recorded with much narrower dynamic range than these days. Couldn't really tell the difference as well with the lower performing system. Newer recordings however sound fabulous!