I have a 05 Sedan. Will these fit, and are they any good?

Kenwood Excelon KFC-XT14

 

It looks like they probably will fit, might take a little mounting creativity, but they should fit.

I just installed this set of Kenwood components in my coupe, the tweeters fit just fine. I glued them in place using black silicone aquarium sealant.


Also check out this writeup I did a couple years ago when I installed new speakers in my sedan.


If I were you, I'd replace the mids and the tweeters with this set of Kenwoods. They're the ones I just installed in my coupe and there is serious improvement in sound. I'm using the stock bose amp, I simply replaced the speakers. I bought them from Etronics, as they were $80 less than crutchfield and I got them in 2 days via DHL for $99 shipped.

 

Slinkyboi,

Would you happen to know the specs (speakers/amp) on our stock 05 Sedan?

Is Kenwood the best speakers for our cars if we do not want to replace the CD-Player unit? Or the model speakers you showed are a good alternative between price and quality (let's assume money isn't an option here)?

Thanks!

 

I'm not sure on the non-Bose system, but the Bose system has 4 ohm tweeters and 2 ohm mids. If you go aftermarket, most likely you'll have to replace them to all be 4 ohms b/c 2 ohm speakers just aren't very common.

Any 6.5" component speaker should work ok, though (mounting depth should be under 2.5" for the mid). Polk, Alpine, Infinity, Kenwood and Kicker and the brands I would stick with. If money is no object, I'd probably go Kicker or Polk, they just suit my tastes best. Also, get speakers with the highest efficiency rating you can find. It's measured as dB and usually ranges from 85-93 or so. I would get a minimum of 91. The higher that number, the more efficient the speaker is at using the actual power sent to it from the amp.

In my sedan, I used Polks to replace the speakers, but the model I used (EX3560) was discontinued, so I decided to go with Kenwoods for my coupe. I almost went with the Kenwood XR61P set, but I decided not to spend the extra money at the last minute. I am very, very happy with the ones I did get, though. When I only had one side installed, I tried listening to Green Day and shifting the balance from all Left to all Right to see what difference I could hear. It's really amazing. I heard guitar bits and background voicing that either didn't come out at all or was sloppy sounding on the bose speakers. The lows are crisper, too...not nearly as muddy sounding.

Of course you aren't going to get as much of an improvement if you were to also swap the amp for a better one, but for $100-$300 and a couple hours of work, it's a definite improvement.

 

Thanks slinkyboi, that's the kind of response I was looking for.

I have the 05 Sedan with the Bose system. Just not happy with it at all. I am curious why you preferred to get Kenwood set because it's the only one with the pair of tweeters?

If the stock is 2 ohm and I replace it with the 4 ohm, will that create a sound differential?

Thanks!

 

That looks like a really good (and cheap) solution. Thanks. I really just want to be able to get rid of the muddiness.

The DIY install looks pretty intimidating.

I've never done a car audio mod/installation before. Is there anything I should know before I begin (things like: should I disconnect the battery prior to starting?)? Are there any other accessories that I need? What kind of speaker wire should I get (how thick)?

 

 

Is there a write-up for the coupe - or are they very similar (tabs, notches, etc to remove trim)? I know there was one in the DIY, but the pics are all broken in that section now.

 

On the Ohm difference: A 4 ohm speaker will be slightly more quiet than a 2 ohm speaker with the same power going to it. On my car, I usually listen at 16/17 with the stock bose setup. With the new speakers, 17/18 gives the same loudness to my ears. So, there is a small difference.

I comtemplated many component sets before settling on the Kenwood. Pretty much any of the sets on the this page would be a great improvement, they are all high quality (although some people say Blaupunkt is only so-so). Many, many people like Infinity, as do I, but I don't like their tweeters, the sound is a bit too high/tinny for my taste. I think Kenwood and Polk make more rounded-out sounding tweeters. But, of course, everyone's musical listening preference is different, so you may want to head down to Best Buy or somewhere that you can demo the speakers before ordering them.

On the DIY: The kenwood install is slightly different, I did not need to use any extra speaker wire b/c the kenwood crossover comes prewired, with clips that go to the speakers so you can't get the connections wrong. The polk did not and that is why I had to install with my own speaker wire. On the kenwood's, I simply cut the wires going to the bose mid and attached them to the input wires on the kenwood crossover. I highly recommend getting some zip-ties or even twist-ties and bundling all excess wires to any of the stock wire bundles to minimize and chance of vibration.

You do not have to disconnect the battery, but I did just for safety sake, no sense in accidentally damaging something. All you have to do is remove the negative terminal from the battery.

Unfortunately, the coupe install is different and requires a good bit more work. The sedan has those white mounting baskets built-in and the speakers are mounted to them in standard 6.5" fashion (at least they were on the '03s and '04s, I cannot vouch for an '05 sedan 'cause I haven't seen an '05 sedan without the door trim). Anyway, the coupe does not have them (bummer!). The coupe speaker is this horrifically cheap PLASTIC speaker mount where the speaker is built right into the plastic mount. The speaker even has a plastic basket, so there is no rigidity to it at all (if you overtighten any of the stock screws, you can actually see the speaker deform it's so flimsy). Because of this mounting system, the holes are NOT correct for a standard 6.5" speaker. So, I had to figure out a way to mount them. What I did was to cut out round sections of MDF that were large enough to mount using the factory holes (I refuse to drill into my car, especially the metal parts, where rust can be a factor). Then, I mounted the speaker into the center of the MDF circle and attached the hole thing to the door. If anyone is interested, I can remove the door trim again and take a picture of the finished product on my coupe (I'm no professional, it's not pretty, but it works damn well!).

 

slinky...thanks for all the information man. You're awesome!

You listen at 16/17 with the stock setup?! Holy crap man...I can't listen above 13 without blowing my ears out! I have treble at +4 and bass at +1. I wonder if they changed any components in the sound system for the 05 so that it puts out more juice. Hmm...

 

How many watts are the stock tweeters and subwoofer/mid speakers? Any specs you can give us bud?

Thanks!

 

DBear...I tried replying to your PM, but it says your box is full...

 

I don't know wattage ratings on them. But, most all component set speakers have a wattage rating that 90% of the time is 5-50 watts RMS and 150 or 200 peak. Most any commericially available 6.5" component speakers fit those guidelines. The RMS rating simply means that the speaker will make audible sound with as little as 5 watts power and continue to do so safely up to 50 watts. The bose system puts out somewhere around 25-35 watts RMS per speaker if I had to make a rough estimation (that is only an estimation on my part based on the number of speakers and the wattage rating of the amp).

 

Thanks slinky! Did you install dynamat?