Change Harman Kardon speakers Kia Stinger

[Tangent52]

It takes guts to tear apart a brand new car. KUDOs to you. Me, I'll wait till it breaks, then do something about it (or have someone else do it for me).

 

[mfenske]

Nott happy with the sound system even after installing sub. Taken the door card out. Found all speakers are really average quality, labelled hyundai. Time to change them.

Thanks for posting this Andrew-I'm really leaning towards a Stinger and, like you, I'm never happy with the OEM system so having some info about upgrading is really appreciated.

 

[KLR STINGER]

This post had helped me in selecting my upgrade path. I'm been building two fiberglass enclosures for mtx shallow mount 10" subs and have purchased CDT audio 2 ohm components with the Melo David 3" mids and tweets suggested by Andrew. Enclosures should be done next weekend and finished with 4*4 twill carbon fiber and Alcantara then I'll get to speaker replacement and amp mounting

 

[andrew tay]

This post had helped me in selecting my upgrade path. I'm been building two fiberglass enclosures for mtx shallow mount 10" subs and have purchased CDT audio 2 ohm components with the Melo David 3" mids and tweets suggested by Andrew. Enclosures should be done next weekend and finished with 4*4 twill carbon fiber and Alcantara then I'll get to speaker replacement and amp mounting

Exelent choice of subs. I had those subs before and i think they are excellent sounding subs par with the JL version (which i also have) for half the price.

 

[392DCGC]

Removed the felt from my front doors today and added a sheet of 80 mil butyl rubber behind the woofers (e.g. dynamat). Haven't listened to the speakers much, except I did have both front doors open and walked back and forth comparing how the driver side sounded vs passenger side (before I worked on it). Definitely a difference in sound... not sure why they put that material in there, unless they felt the speakers were too harsh/bright without it. Certainly not a "dust" cover - that is an absurd thought. I didn't notice any rattling with the volume up yet either. As long as the clips are tight, it should be fine, but easy to fix if it does rattle. I did have part of a few clips break. They were still usable, but I'm not sure if they would be if I took the panel off again. May need to order some more just in case. Tweeters seem to be 1" dome textile, mids are strangely small at about 2" (probably paper), woofers seem to be about 5.5" paper, but with a decent sized magnet. I'm pretty happy with the stock stereo and will likely leave it alone. Paper woofers can still sound great. The $3,200 Bowers & Wilkins system in Volvo's use paper woofers (though the mids are 3.5" kevlar), and people rave about the quality of that factory system (myself included, I've had it).

 

[PUNKIN]

I think we have a agree to disagree. If you record yourself talking through a face mask, it will sound different compare to not wearing a facemask, even when you turn it up to equal volume.

Have you had any dealings with Digital Designs? Their VO line has the clearest most insanely good mid and highs. The only thing I’ve heard compare is MB components.

 

[392DCGC]

After a bit more listening I've now found that removing the felt covers makes the music way too harsh & bright at louder volumes. I've had to turn down the treble to -5. It seems like the audio system was tuned with the covers in mind, because I was happy at treble 0 (and I usually prefer a brighter sound). I'd imagine removing the covers still has some benefits though as the highest notes probably don't pass through it well. But just be prepared to turn the treble down if it's too much to bear.

 

[andrew tay]

The harshness i think is distortion from the class D amp. I fix that by replacing with a tweeter with 4 ohm (original was 2 ohm) and a better crossover. I then added a class AB amp in for the extra smoothness....

 

[andrew tay]

Have you had any dealings with Digital Designs? Their VO line has the clearest most insanely good mid and highs. The only thing I’ve heard compare is MB components.

DD design is good for loud R&B music. Not my cup of tea. MB was good years ago. On a budget i will get danish speaker like vifa, scanspeak etc from Aliexpress. If you are willing to pay, Italian speakers such as Audison, Hertz or Morel are the way to go. If you like the clasic 'american sound', then you cannot look pass JL. Phoenix Gold and Rockford are solid cheaper options.

 

[andrew tay]

Removed the felt from my front doors today and added a sheet of 80 mil butyl rubber behind the woofers (e.g. dynamat). Haven't listened to the speakers much, except I did have both front doors open and walked back and forth comparing how the driver side sounded vs passenger side (before I worked on it). Definitely a difference in sound... not sure why they put that material in there, unless they felt the speakers were too harsh/bright without it. Certainly not a "dust" cover - that is an absurd thought. I didn't notice any rattling with the volume up yet either. As long as the clips are tight, it should be fine, but easy to fix if it does rattle. I did have part of a few clips break. They were still usable, but I'm not sure if they would be if I took the panel off again. May need to order some more just in case. Tweeters seem to be 1" dome textile, mids are strangely small at about 2" (probably paper), woofers seem to be about 5.5" paper, but with a decent sized magnet. I'm pretty happy with the stock stereo and will likely leave it alone. Paper woofers can still sound great. The $3,200 Bowers & Wilkins system in Volvo's use paper woofers (though the mids are 3.5" kevlar), and people rave about the quality of that factory system (myself included, I've had it).
View attachment 31657 View attachment 31658 View attachment 31659 View attachment 31660 View attachment 31661

The best woofers are all paper. At home all my speakers have paper woofers. I don't use anything else. But i have not heard a good sounding system in car with paper woofer recently, B&W system included. Missed the old time.I think because paper is lighter and more sensitive than other materials, so it play out all the high pitch distortion that you get from class D amplifier and distortion caused by engine. In general paper woofers also like to be in a box. With the woofer made of synthetic materials, you can just turn the music up to drown the noise, and they are happy 'free air'.

Saying that though the original paper speakers in the stinger are poor quality speakers. Get some cheap vifa from aliexpress and you will hear a day and night difference.

 

[Jammers]

Just checking the peek at 8000hz, Its coming from the midrange. Cannot fix that. Need to change the mids. At the mean time you can increase the mids by around +3 and set treble down to -6 and you will get a pretty neutral sound. I think a lot of kia owner has already figure this up.

So in conclusion, IMO the best upgrade path for Kia HK in order to sound improvement and value for money would be:

1) remove the felt filter of the tweeter and midrange. You will get an instant improvement in sound.
2) replace the door woofers. Those original woofers has paper cones and get wet everytime in rains. Would not last long anyway. At the mean time make sure that they are all connected in phase. Improve bass and midrange quite considerably. Does not have to be expensive woofers. You can even use coaxials as they are generally cheaper.
3) install amp for the door woofers. I will recomend JL 4 channels because you can feed speaker output directly into the amp and does not need a line converter like the audiocontrol that I used. just make sure you turn off the high / low pass filter because the filter seemed to make the output noisy. I can confirm that they go down to a nice 30Hz so you don't really need a sub.
4) install a sub and amp. I disable the sub and other than the most bass heavy tract I could not really hear much difference in sound quality.

So which wires did you tap to feed signal to your 4 channel amp? I am looking at installing my Audison bit ten and JL HD600/4 From my old system to power a set of Hertz Milles in the front powered by 2 channels and powering the stock subs with the second set of channels. Ideally would like to tap into a full range signal plus the sub signal since the bit ten can reconstruct based on multiple input combinations (front tweeters + front woofers, Full Range front + sub signal, etc.) but since you said the front door woofer is low passed and the tweeter is high passed I’m wondering if there is a full range signal coming out of the stock amp at all!

 

[WildBill]

So which wires did you tap to feed signal to your 4 channel amp? I am looking at installing my Audison bit ten and JL HD600/4 From my old system to power a set of Hertz Milles in the front powered by 2 channels and powering the stock subs with the second set of channels. Ideally would like to tap into a full range signal plus the sub signal since the bit ten can reconstruct based on multiple input combinations (front tweeters + front woofers, Full Range front + sub signal, etc.) but since you said the front door woofer is low passed and the tweeter is high passed I’m wondering if there is a full range signal coming out of the stock amp at all!

The amp has has a single output per door. The crossovers for the mids and tweeters must be passive.
You should be able to reconstruct the signal using the front doors and the sub channel.

 

[Sime]

I’ve got a system at home worth 60k, including Bowers & Wilkins 805D3’s, and for a stock system the stinger has (Harman Kardon) it’s more than good enough. Even me who has been fussy with sound doesn’t feel the need to change it. Sure, it’s not up to what I listen to at home, but it’s pretty dam good for stock.

Now if your goal is to play at extreme loud levels, sure maybe, but if you have the volume around 1/2 way at most, it’s fine.

As far as bass is concerned, it’s pretty honest. A good system only plays bass when bass is present, a bad system just plays bloated bass.
If you think the stock system has no bass (depending on what music you listen to) play daft punks “doing it right” track.

 

[WildBill]

I’ve got a system at home worth 60k, including Bowers & Wilkins 805D3’s, and for a stock system the stinger has (Harman Kardon) it’s more than good enough. Even me who has been fussy with sound doesn’t feel the need to change it. Sure, it’s not up to what I listen to at home, but it’s pretty dam good for stock.

Now if your goal is to play at extreme loud levels, sure maybe, but if you have the volume around 1/2 way at most, it’s fine.

As far as bass is concerned, it’s pretty honest. A good system only plays bass when bass is present, a bad system just plays bloated bass.
If you think the stock system has no bass (depending on what music you listen to) play daft punks “doing it right” track.

What is your music source / file format and what are your EQ settings?

 

[Sime]

What is your music source / file format and what are your EQ settings?

I use my iPhone, with Tidal as the player in Hi-Fi mode (cd quality.

Bass +1
Mids 0
Treble -5

Quantum SDVC and clari-fy all off.

 

[andrew tay]

So which wires did you tap to feed signal to your 4 channel amp? I am looking at installing my Audison bit ten and JL HD600/4 From my old system to power a set of Hertz Milles in the front powered by 2 channels and powering the stock subs with the second set of channels. Ideally would like to tap into a full range signal plus the sub signal since the bit ten can reconstruct based on multiple input combinations (front tweeters + front woofers, Full Range front + sub signal, etc.) but since you said the front door woofer is low passed and the tweeter is high passed I’m wondering if there is a full range signal coming out of the stock amp at all!

There is no full range signal coming from amp. it will be very difficult to recon full range signal. it have already been fully DSP'ed. if you combine (1) front mid/tweeter, (2) front woofer, (3) subwoofer and (4) middle channel then re-eq the signal you probably come pretty close to getting a full range. If you really want to do it that way then you better off tapping the digital input from the stock amp and leave the middle channel for satellite navigation guidance and handfree phone conversation.

Have a thought. The main issue of the signal is the mids and high. So its probably easiest to tap the mid/high channels with bit one, get another JL 4 channel to power the woofers connect directly to the stock amp's woofer outlet. if the gain from the amps are the same, you can still eq the system at the end with bit one. Then you still need a single channel amp to power the middle channel....

 

[Jammers]

There is no full range signal coming from amp. it will be very difficult to recon full range signal. it have already been fully DSP'ed. if you combine (1) front mid/tweeter, (2) front woofer, (3) subwoofer and (4) middle channel then re-eq the signal you probably come pretty close to getting a full range. If you really want to do it that way then you better off tapping the digital input from the stock amp and leave the middle channel for satellite navigation guidance and handfree phone conversation.

Have a thought. The main issue of the signal is the mids and high. So its probably easiest to tap the mid/high channels with bit one, get another JL 4 channel to power the woofers connect directly to the stock amp's woofer outlet. if the gain from the amps are the same, you can still eq the system at the end with bit one. Then you still need a single channel amp to power the middle channel....

Yeah I discovered that all of the speakers are actively crossed over at the amp (which is actually pretty cool for a stock system). However, the issue is the bit ten only has 4 high level inputs, which you can configure via the PC software. It does a decent job of reconstructing a full level signal from whatever you feed it, but I'm not sure there's a combination of channels that would actually contain all of the frequency range without a portion being significantly cut by the amp's processing. (tweeter + woofer would be the best bet at first, though).

I'm probably just going to leave it stock for now and look at maybe getting an Audition bit one or another higher end DSP with the capability of digital input in the future. I was just trying to figure out how to make use of what I had from my old system, and it appears there just isn't a good way to do it.

 

[MrSmoofy]

Your sub box is really what I want either both sides or one side so I don't lose trunk space.

 

[Jeffrey bailey]

Nott happy with the sound system even after installing sub. Taken the door card out. Found all speakers are really average quality, labelled hyundai. Time to change them.
View attachment 15301
Made spacers as above. 25mm / 1 inch thick with mdfs and foam sheets cutout top and bottom. Took me half a day. Now all ready to go. View attachment 15300It will take any 6.5 inch with mounting depth of up to 7cm at the front door. The back door has no window in the way so any depth. I use these steg speakers st650 as these speakers are excellent in playing full range without crossover. I suspect those bass channels are running full range from the HK amp. Correction : those output are low passed, not full range.

Would you be interested in selling a set of the spacers?

 

[andrew tay]

Would you be interested in selling a set of the spacers?

No sorry.