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Kicker KSC350 (SKU - 47KSC3504) 3.5" Dash Speakers & Wiring for Front Dash Speakers (non JBL)

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aalj

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Discussion starter · #1 · (Edited)
Hi Everyone, I have a 2021 Venza, which, as many people know, is very much a RAV under the skin.

I wish to replace the 4 ohm tweeters in the dashboard of my non-JBL equipped car with something that has a bigger midrange presence. The car is built much like the RAV4, and the wiring to the stock tweeter has four wires going to it because the tweeter is wired in parallel with the door speakers.

There are two colors - white and grey. However, I don't know which one is positive and which one is negative. Would anyone know either:

1) Which color (grey / white) is positive or
2) How to test to find out which is positive? (without opening up the front door panel) ?

For what it is worth, I have been watchin @rav4gen5.com 's excellent videos here:
and it appears that his colors are slightly different. His colors are :
  • Closest to the Clip - 2 white wires w/ red stripe (mine are grey)
  • Farthest from Clip - 2 white wires w/ black stripe (mine are white)
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#4 ·
aalj said:
Thank you! so grey is positive and white is negative! I will try reverse the colors of the red wolf harness!
Click to expand...
To double check, if there is a big enough speaker cone, once the speaker is hooked up correctly, the cone should be pushing forward when bass is applied. If it's being pulled inward, then it's hooked up incorrectly.
 
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Discussion starter · #5 · (Edited)
For what it is worth, I used Kicker 3.5" KS Series 47KSC3504 Coaxial speakers in the dash:

Amazon.com: Kicker 47KSC3504 KS Series Car Audio 3.5 Inch Coaxial 15 to 50 Watts RMS Power Factory Replacement Car Audio Sound System Speakers (Pair): Electronics

I used these instead of the more common JBL Club 322 / 3020 & Infiniti Reference 3022CFX / 3032CFX speakers for two reasons:
  1. The Kickers use a silk dome tweeter and I wanted to avoid some of the "harshness" that some have written about when using the JBL / Infinity speakers with their PEI dome tweeters
  2. The Kickers are a 4 Ohm speaker --- the factory used a 4 ohm tweeter in the dash, and I did not want to use anything less (The JBL / Infinity speakers are 3 ohms) in order not to stress the factory amplifier built into the headunit.
My goal was to increase the perception that vocals were coming out of the dashboard. For instance, vocals from Norah Jones / Diana Krall should be coming from in front of you, not from your ankles! Anyways, after I hooked everything up and backed off the treble by one notch, I was very pleased with the sound. The vehicle is certainly not audiophile quality by any stretch of the imagination, but now it is good enough for an everyday driver (as opposed to sounding like mud), and the total cost of < $100 made the change worth it.

I'm kind of OCD when it comes to wiring, so I socketized everything with 2.8mm 2-pin Molex-style connectors for easy assembly / disassembly. I have an absurd hatred of crimp-on butt connectors, spade-connectors, and vampire taps. I did procure the "Red Wolf" Toyota adapters (so as to interface with the Toyota connectors and not have to cut wiring) that are notorious for being wired in reverse. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RMZ4CR6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 At first I tried to remove the terminals inside the connector, but even with specialized electrical-terminal removal tools, I was unable to do so. So, to address the reverse wiring, I reversed everything again with my molex-style connectors.

Note that the Kickers are a tad more cumbersome to use with the "Red Wolf" adapters because the Kickers do not let you use the spade terminal on the speaker basket itself to make a connection. The Kickers utilize a non-integral crossover - meaning the cross over is supplied in a small wiring harness that you must plug into THREE terminals on the speaker basket. On the other end of the wiring harness are two tinned ends of bare wire.

You can see the work below. Note that I tried it with and without the bass blockers, and I preferred the sound without the bass blockers as I felt that the 600Hz bass blockers removed too much vocal sound-information. It was easy to remove the bass blockers since I had socketized everything.

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#6 ·
hey @aalj
this is impressive— thanks for sharing! i’m interested in using replacement speakers that match the impedance of the oem’s and with silk tweeter— so the kickers seem like the right choice. if i’m less meticulous (and much less adept) than you regarding wiring, can i still make this install happen on my own with just the speakers and the red wolf harness, correcting polarity and making correct connections? hoping not to have to do any soldering.

would you be willing to ELI5 (explain it like I’m 5 years old— or maybe 12)?
 
Discussion starter · #7 ·
kingsco said:
hey @aalj
this is impressive— thanks for sharing! i’m interested in using replacement speakers that match the impedance of the oem’s and with silk tweeter— so the kickers seem like the right choice. if i’m less meticulous (and much less adept) than you regarding wiring, can i still make this install happen on my own with just the speakers and the red wolf harness, correcting polarity and making correct connections? hoping not to have to do any soldering.

would you be willing to ELI5 (explain it like I’m 5 years old— or maybe 12)?
Click to expand...
Hah - sure - you can make it work. The Red Wolf Wiring Harness looks like this:

TOYOTA CONNECTOR THAT CONNECTS TO OE PLUG TO OE SPEAKER ---------- TWO SPADE TERMINALS

The Wiring that comes with the Kickers looks like this:

TWO BARE WIRE ENDS ------- THREE SPADE TERMINALS THAT PLUG & PLAY ONTO KICKER SPEAKER

All you have to do is connect the TWO SPADE TERMINALS end of the Red Wolf Harness to the TWO BARE WIRE ENDS end of the wiring that comes with the Kickers. You could crimp on on spade connectors to the Kicker wiring to do so, or you could hack off the spade terminals on the RW wiring harness and twist and tape if you want!
 
#8 ·
thank you @aalj —that’s perfect!

last question: do i get the polarity correct by connecting red wolf’s positive-labeled end to the negative-labeled wire on the kicker, and negative-labeled red wolf end to positive-labeled kicker wire?
 
#11 · (Edited)
I upgraded the six speakers plus a Bose powered amp subwoofer on my non JBL system.
I went back in forth using a JBL 3.5 inch two way dash speaker LINK HERE meaning I connected and then disconnected them to hear a proper sound. At the end I ended up using the stock twitters (3.5 inch).
The reason? to me the sound was overwhelmed by those dash speakers. It took away the sound away from the other door speakers, specially the bass, it was almost gone.

Now, the way that my subwoofer is setup is just two wires (sound) and I used a + from the FR and the - from the FL speakers.

And now that I'm using the stock dash speakers, sounds is really good to my taste, and even my rear view mirror shakes with the bass at the volume level of around 15.
With the upgraded JBL 3.5 speakers the system sounded with lack of bass by a big margin. I tried different setting but no matter what I did, most of the sound came from the front.

I believe the sound from the unit/radio goes to the front/dash speakers and then it it sends to the front doors, taking most of the bass out. Just my observation.

In conclusion, I'm very happy with the sound with the upgraded speakers, powered Bose amp/subwoofer and the stock front/dash.
 
#12 · (Edited)
@silverboy what speakers did you use (in addition to the 3.5 oem tweeters that you decided to keep in there). curious to hear more about the process of upgrading, wiring, etc. for the door speakers as well as for the sub, if you're open to sharing!

also, from what i've read, the jbl 3.5's tend to draw more signal, resulting in less response from the door speakers, because their impedance is not matched to the oem tweeters. it's only different by 1 ohm, so perhaps that's not enough to make an impact. so far, the Kicker 3.5" speakers, which are 4 ohms (like the OEM's) don't seem to be causing that issue. But, I just installed them today, so I'll have to really listen more.
 
#13 ·
kingsco said:
@silverboy what speakers did you use (in addition to the 3.5 oem tweeters that you decided to keep in there). curious to hear more about the process of upgrading, wiring, etc. for the door speakers as well as for the sub, if you're open to sharing!

also, from what i've read, the jbl 3.5's tend to draw more signal, resulting in less response from the door speakers, because their impedance is not matched to the oem tweeters. it's only different by 1 ohm, so perhaps that's not enough to make an impact. so far, the Kicker 3.5" speakers, which are 4 ohms (like the OEM's) don't seem to be causing that issue. But, I just installed them today, so I'll have to really listen more.
Click to expand...
I used a JBL set of speakers, front and rear doors. Very happy with them and the installation wasn't too bad, I used videos from youtube as a guidance. I used this set JBL GTO629 Premium

And as far as the subwoofer, I used a Bose that seats inside the spare tire. One wire goes to the battery (constant power) another one to the ACC, a negative and then a two for the sound. I always have used the front speakers, the + to the FR speaker and the - to the FL speaker for sound. No issues and the entire floor shakes big the bass.

Keep in mind that I love Jazz and Techno as well, loud noises is not my flavor, I like decent sound. I think the loudest I use my Rav4 radio, the volume is at 20-25 when I'm on the Hwy.

Picture of the actual Bose amp powered sub is HERE

You can find those subs on Ebay, but keep in mind that most of them have no amp built in. The way you can check is by the number of wires the sub comes with, 5 instead of 2 being used for sound only(2 wires means no amp).
Good luck and let me know if you need further assistance.
 
Discussion starter · #14 ·
silverboy said:
I upgraded the six speakers plus a Bose powered amp subwoofer on my non JBL system.
I went back in forth using a JBL 3.5 inch two way dash speaker LINK HERE meaning I connected and then disconnected them to hear a proper sound. At the end I ended up using the stock twitters (3.5 inch).
The reason? to me the sound was overwhelmed by those dash speakers. It took away the sound away from the other door speakers, specially the bass, it was almost gone.
Click to expand...
kingsco said:
...also, from what i've read, the jbl 3.5's tend to draw more signal, resulting in less response from the door speakers, because their impedance is not matched to the oem tweeters. it's only different by 1 ohm, so perhaps that's not enough to make an impact. so far, the Kicker 3.5" speakers, which are 4 ohms (like the OEM's) don't seem to be causing that issue. But, I just installed them today, so I'll have to really listen more.
Click to expand...
Well, firstly, the JBL GX328 as mentioned in your post @silverboy are rated at a 2.3 ohm impedance (as opposed to JBL Clubs which are 3 ohms). 2.3 ohms is almost half the impedance as the OE tweeters and door-mounted midbasses which are 4 ohms. Putting a 2.3 ohm JBL in parallel with a 4 ohm OE midbass in the door is going to cause the headunit amplifier to sink a lot more current that what is was originally designed for ---- hence my intention to keep with a 4 ohm speaker in the dashboard (like the Kicker).

Secondly, the JBL GX328 are rated at 89 dB sensitivity, as opposed to the Kickers which are rated at 88 dB sensitivity. This means the JBL GX328 will output more sound per unit of input power than the Kickers .... thus causing the front dash speakers to sound louder relative to the OE door mid-basses. 1dB doesn't sound like a lot unless you focus on the fact that this is a logarithmic scale, not a linear scale.

Thirdly, in an ideal scenario, once someone replace the dash tweeters with a full range speaker, one would close off the open holes around the speaker --- ensuring that it is not in an open baffle arrangement. If you are searching for bass, having a open-baffle installed woofer cone will kill the bass.

My intention was not to start a science project of a stereo system that had great and ample bass with optimal imaging / etc. If I had intended to do that, I would start with active amplification wherein each driver in the car were given its own amplifier channel, where I could level match all the drivers. Then, I would ensure the proper time alignment to the driver's head with tweaking of levels as well and phase matching mid basses to ensure there are no nulls in the overall frequency response. All this would require a DSP and lots and lots and lots of tuning time and dollars ------ (I've done this before on some hobby cars) ...... but for this Toyota, my goal was really simple:

I just wanted to have more midrange presence coming at me from the windshield / "hood area"...... because most of it seemed to come from my ankles. For less than $100 (and with proper expectations going in) I thought the Kickers fit the bill. Cheers.
 
#15 ·
Also, I ordered the radio below but I cancelled the order because the long shipping wait, coming from china.
The reason I was gonna purchased that radio is because the amp built in (decent chip TDA7851) and the DSP-36 Equalizer, that along would improved the sound and I'll bet the farm that it would sound better than the JBL system.

I selected the A17, with a decent processor and RAM 4G and ROM 64GB, price is $260, shipped 10 inch radio
 
#16 ·
aalj said:
my goal was really simple:

I just wanted to have more midrange presence coming at me from the windshield / "hood area"...... because most of it seemed to come from my ankles. For less than $100 (and with proper expectations going in) I thought the Kickers fit the bill. Cheers.
Click to expand...
yes to this. did the trick for me. i’m much happier with how the stereo sounds and it took all of 5 minutes.
 
#17 ·
aalj said:
Well, firstly, the JBL GX328 as mentioned in your post @silverboy are rated at a 2.3 ohm impedance (as opposed to JBL Clubs which are 3 ohms). 2.3 ohms is almost half the impedance as the OE tweeters and door-mounted midbasses which are 4 ohms. Putting a 2.3 ohm JBL in parallel with a 4 ohm OE midbass in the door is going to cause the headunit amplifier to sink a lot more current that what is was originally designed for ---- hence my intention to keep with a 4 ohm speaker in the dashboard (like the Kicker).

Secondly, the JBL GX328 are rated at 89 dB sensitivity, as opposed to the Kickers which are rated at 88 dB sensitivity. This means the JBL GX328 will output more sound per unit of input power than the Kickers .... thus causing the front dash speakers to sound louder relative to the OE door mid-basses. 1dB doesn't sound like a lot unless you focus on the fact that this is a logarithmic scale, not a linear scale.

Thirdly, in an ideal scenario, once someone replace the dash tweeters with a full range speaker, one would close off the open holes around the speaker --- ensuring that it is not in an open baffle arrangement. If you are searching for bass, having a open-baffle installed woofer cone will kill the bass.

My intention was not to start a science project of a stereo system that had great and ample bass with optimal imaging / etc. If I had intended to do that, I would start with active amplification wherein each driver in the car were given its own amplifier channel, where I could level match all the drivers. Then, I would ensure the proper time alignment to the driver's head with tweaking of levels as well and phase matching mid basses to ensure there are no nulls in the overall frequency response. All this would require a DSP and lots and lots and lots of tuning time and dollars ------ (I've done this before on some hobby cars) ...... but for this Toyota, my goal was really simple:

I just wanted to have more midrange presence coming at me from the windshield / "hood area"...... because most of it seemed to come from my ankles. For less than $100 (and with proper expectations going in) I thought the Kickers fit the bill. Cheers.
Click to expand...
Aalj,
I like your logic for selecting the kickers for the dash speakers.

Did you ever upgrade the door speakers?
 
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