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- South Carolina
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- 21 CX-9 13 CX-5
Obviously you have to keep the factory headunit. With today's technology, that's not a problem. We have tools to overcome this limitation. I used my D'Amore Engineering SMD DD-1 and found that the head unit starts putting out distortion at 53 at 1kHz, so I did all of my tuning at 52 on the volume dial.
To get a clean low level signal, I used a Kicker KeyLoc. It's kinda a pain to set up, and it took me SEVERAL tries to get it right. I almost gave up, walked away, ate lunch, ran some errands, got a haircut, and when I came back, I don't know what I did differently, and honestly I don't think that I did do anything different, but it set up on the very first try! Weird. Anyway, I do like the product, and I recommend it. I mounted it right next to the factory amplifier under the passenger seat.
I know I wanted a DSP, and obviously we need an amp as well, so why not get an all in one? I chose an Alpine PXE-C80-80. OUTSTANDING purchase in my opinion! Made the installation very easy, because you're only dealing with the one single component. Also less chances of ground loop noises like that. I mounted it where I can get to the USB a mic ports at the top of the unit for tuning, and at the back, the fuse is also pretty easy to get to. I have the OEM all weather floor mats, and I did have to trim the rear one just a bit to make room for the amp and fuse. Just a regular pair of scissors and it was done in 30 seconds. For ground, you can see that I wire brushed the seat mounting boss for a clean path to ground for the amp.
I used 4 gauge OFC welding wire for my power wire, and there's a perfect spot under the hood directly behind the battery in the shape of a "dogbone" that is perfect for punching through the firewall. There's absolutely nothing on the inside anywhere near that spot in my car, but check yours to be sure. I used a rubber grommet to protect the wire.
The fuse I simply attached to the side of the factory fuse box lid. I used short machine screws with red loctite so they won't back out.
It's almost like Mazda knew that I can't leave a stock stereo alone! They have a large lug on the terminal for attaching accessories, so yup, use it!
Rear door speakers are JL Audio C2-650X coaxes. Honestly? This was a waste of money. The factory speakers back there would have been fine, and I'm being serious. Don't make the same mistake I did. Luckily, I got these used off of eBay, so I didn't spend nearly as much as they would have been new, fact is, about 1/3rd the price as new.
Front door speakers I went with Linear Power LP8.0's. These speakers are nothing short of incredible. Absolutely mind boggling. They are so damned good, you absolutely, DO NOT NEED any type of subwoofer at all. Yeah, they're just that good. I can't give these speakers enough praise. Buy them. I mounted them with the factory Bose door adapters, part number KD45-66-A61. They are made for the Bose 9's, so they are slightly too big for 8's. I simply made an adapter plate out of 1/8th inch aluminum to go from the speaker to the factory bracket. I used the factory speaker wiring. Done and done.
Inside of all 4 doors, I added Killmat soundproofing, as well as the rear wave cancellation foam that came with the NVX silicone speaker rings that can be seen in the above pics.
For the dash speakers, I went with JL Audio C2-350X's, as they fit perfectly in the factory openings. I also went with the JL Audio C2-075ct tweeters. I found a set of Bose dash grilles on eBay, ordered them up, and used hot glue to mount the tweeters in the factory locations on the grilles themselves. Pretty easy! To wire them, I dropped two runs of speaker wires straight down through the dash, and then over to the door sills, then to the amp. The reason I had to run new speaker wire is each speaker in the car is driven off of a seperate amplifier channel.
Finally the subwoofer. Like the rear door speakers, totally unneeded because of how powerful my Linear Power door speakers are. But this is a factory Bose subwoofer box that I pulled apart, stuffed with polyfill, and then put Killmat all over it. Does it work? Yeah. It does. But it's also totally unnecessary. Again, this came off of eBay, so the hit to the wallet wasn't as nearly bad as it could have been.
After using the Alpine's DSP function and getting everything dialed in, this thing sounds good. Really, really good. I've heard the factory Bose stereos in these cars that everyone raves about, this it a completely different league, and I'm not kidding. The base radio that ours came with is utterly pathetic. The Bose should be the base stereo.
To get a clean low level signal, I used a Kicker KeyLoc. It's kinda a pain to set up, and it took me SEVERAL tries to get it right. I almost gave up, walked away, ate lunch, ran some errands, got a haircut, and when I came back, I don't know what I did differently, and honestly I don't think that I did do anything different, but it set up on the very first try! Weird. Anyway, I do like the product, and I recommend it. I mounted it right next to the factory amplifier under the passenger seat.
I know I wanted a DSP, and obviously we need an amp as well, so why not get an all in one? I chose an Alpine PXE-C80-80. OUTSTANDING purchase in my opinion! Made the installation very easy, because you're only dealing with the one single component. Also less chances of ground loop noises like that. I mounted it where I can get to the USB a mic ports at the top of the unit for tuning, and at the back, the fuse is also pretty easy to get to. I have the OEM all weather floor mats, and I did have to trim the rear one just a bit to make room for the amp and fuse. Just a regular pair of scissors and it was done in 30 seconds. For ground, you can see that I wire brushed the seat mounting boss for a clean path to ground for the amp.
I used 4 gauge OFC welding wire for my power wire, and there's a perfect spot under the hood directly behind the battery in the shape of a "dogbone" that is perfect for punching through the firewall. There's absolutely nothing on the inside anywhere near that spot in my car, but check yours to be sure. I used a rubber grommet to protect the wire.
The fuse I simply attached to the side of the factory fuse box lid. I used short machine screws with red loctite so they won't back out.
It's almost like Mazda knew that I can't leave a stock stereo alone! They have a large lug on the terminal for attaching accessories, so yup, use it!
Rear door speakers are JL Audio C2-650X coaxes. Honestly? This was a waste of money. The factory speakers back there would have been fine, and I'm being serious. Don't make the same mistake I did. Luckily, I got these used off of eBay, so I didn't spend nearly as much as they would have been new, fact is, about 1/3rd the price as new.
Front door speakers I went with Linear Power LP8.0's. These speakers are nothing short of incredible. Absolutely mind boggling. They are so damned good, you absolutely, DO NOT NEED any type of subwoofer at all. Yeah, they're just that good. I can't give these speakers enough praise. Buy them. I mounted them with the factory Bose door adapters, part number KD45-66-A61. They are made for the Bose 9's, so they are slightly too big for 8's. I simply made an adapter plate out of 1/8th inch aluminum to go from the speaker to the factory bracket. I used the factory speaker wiring. Done and done.
Inside of all 4 doors, I added Killmat soundproofing, as well as the rear wave cancellation foam that came with the NVX silicone speaker rings that can be seen in the above pics.
For the dash speakers, I went with JL Audio C2-350X's, as they fit perfectly in the factory openings. I also went with the JL Audio C2-075ct tweeters. I found a set of Bose dash grilles on eBay, ordered them up, and used hot glue to mount the tweeters in the factory locations on the grilles themselves. Pretty easy! To wire them, I dropped two runs of speaker wires straight down through the dash, and then over to the door sills, then to the amp. The reason I had to run new speaker wire is each speaker in the car is driven off of a seperate amplifier channel.
Finally the subwoofer. Like the rear door speakers, totally unneeded because of how powerful my Linear Power door speakers are. But this is a factory Bose subwoofer box that I pulled apart, stuffed with polyfill, and then put Killmat all over it. Does it work? Yeah. It does. But it's also totally unnecessary. Again, this came off of eBay, so the hit to the wallet wasn't as nearly bad as it could have been.
After using the Alpine's DSP function and getting everything dialed in, this thing sounds good. Really, really good. I've heard the factory Bose stereos in these cars that everyone raves about, this it a completely different league, and I'm not kidding. The base radio that ours came with is utterly pathetic. The Bose should be the base stereo.
