Component Speaker Install - '17 CX-5 Non Bose

[Studum]

So here it is, a front speaker component set install on a '17 CX-5 NON-BOSE

Please note: before proceeding be sure to heed Anchorman's caution in this thread about an important side impact sensor which could have it's performance affected by an improper speaker installation. That link also includes a link to a valuable PDF about how to get the door panel apart - which I totally used and were a MASSIVE help.
https://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?123864877-2017-speaker-change-WARNING

The speakers I installed are Polk Audio DB6502 consisting of a 6.5" driver, 0.75" silk dome tweeter and crossover set.

Another part I used in the install is a PAC AOEM-MAZ2. The purpose of this adapter for my install is two-fold.

https://pac-audio.com/catalog/audio-interfacing/aoem-maz2

1 - Provide a place for me to interrupt and patch into OEM wiring without having to make a single cut or splice in an OEM wire - so everything is instantly and completely reversible if needed.
2 - Provide a low level output from the OEM stereo system into an amplified bass-box that I will be adding at a later time.

Although not officially supported in the vehicle I took a leap in trying it out with an educated guess that it would be just fine (and it has been). I had previously used this very same piece in my 2010 Mazda3 and have seen people using it in everything from Gen1 CX-5's (which had a near identical, if not identical infotainment system & TAU configuration) to Toyota Yaris' and CX-3's with Mazda's infotainment.

https://pac-audio.com/catalog/audio-interfacing/aoem-maz2

I chose those speakers because I like silk dome tweeters, like Polk in general (with past experiences) and this was a pretty economical / pretty efficient 4 Ohm speaker set to get a silk dome tweeter. A lot of other sets in this or lower price range are plastic or metal tweeters which I personally find a bit dull (plastic) and harsh (metal). That's just my personal opinion - I just like the sound of silk tweeters.

My install was broken up into 2 days due to external timing requirements, but total time input from opening car door to snapping the last panel in was probably about 4 hrs. And that included a proper install of my dash cam wiring while I had the pillar off. Admittedly I was pressured to finish on the second day in much less time than I had on the first day so my photos fell short when working on the car vs when I was modding / installing the speakers.

Step 1: Strip the car. I removed both door panels and both pillars to get me started. The car came apart and went back together very nicely. A pleasant surprise vs my old installer days. Trickiest 2 parts were:

- The tether on the A pillars - a long handled / long nose pair of needle nose pliers helps here, and getting them back in was tougher than getting them out for me.

(Credit to nonoabby123 for providing this pic in another thread)

- The stronger white clips in the upper outboard corner of the door panels. Having never dealt with these before it took a few seconds to figure out the right way to do it. I cracked the first one by putting too much outward pressure on the door panel when trying to get it off, but didn't fully break it and it went back together just fine. Instant learning moment and the second door came off perfectly fine in 1/3 the time.

I then also removed the under-tray under the glove-box (snaps out), the glove box itself (fold down, pop off the piston, pull out), and later the passenger side kick-panel (which required removing the door sill first). The door sill pops straight out. The kick panel had a plastic nut to remove in the footwell and needed the rubber door seal pulled out to release a hidden clip which covers the body seam @ the door frame.

Links to door panel removal tips can be found in these threads:


Step 2: Next I installed the PAC AOEM-MAZ2 to suit my speaker installation:

- The harness is an intercept of the factory wiring harness between the TAU (Tuner Amp Unit) and the car. It is installed by unplugging the harness from the TAU, plugging that car harness into the PAC harness, then plugging the other end of the PAC harness into the TAU. I modified the wiring between the PAC harness ends to suit my speaker installation.

- I carefully examined the PAC harness to pull out the front speaker + and - cables for the front 2 speakers which bridged the OEM harness.
- I then snipped those cables in the center, stripped the ends and extended the cables with some new speaker wire. These extensions will connect to 2 of the 3 crossover connections for each side. The end coming from the TAU is the "input" for that side on the crossover and the end going out to the car is the "output" for the woofer on the crossover. The output will send the woofer signals to the door speaker via the OEM cabling.
- I soldered and shrink-wrapped everything, because it's my car and I was taking my time to do it well. Plus, I was actually enjoying working on the car
- With the above completed I connected the PAC harness in place between the car's TAU connector and the TAU harness.

Step 3: Run new wires for the tweeters.

Because the OEM tweeters run in parallel with the door speakers and my installation required a dedicated crossover for each channel (and I didn't want to hack any OEM cabling - at all) it was easiest to mount the speaker crossovers under the dash where I could get the speaker signal to the doors through the OEM cabling and I could run a new wire from the tweeters, which are in the A pillars, to the crossovers under the dash. This keeps the cabling for the tweeter and woofer completely independent as required for the crossover install, without cutting any wires. Getting new cables down the corner of the dash to the under side of the dash was very simple.

I chose to mount both crossovers in the same location in the dash near the TAU for installation convenience and accessibility. As such I ran the tweeter cable from the driver's side zip-tied to an OEM cable chase that wend behind the pedal box. It was easy to remove the front driver's side piece of trans-tunnel shroud in the footwell to get the cable through to the passenger side. When I got it to the passenger side I continued fallowing the OEM harness to the passenger kick panel, turning up to the crossover location above the kick / in front of the TAU / beside the glove-box. Boom, done.

 

[Studum]

Step 4: Install Tweeters - because you gotta start with the hard stuff somewhere.

I decided to do the tweeters first because I was concerned about the fabric pillars getting damaged somehow on my workbench

A nice surprise: the OEM tweeters snap into the A pillar trim vs mounting to the pillar itself as I had expected. This made installation pretty simple.

The OEM tweeter simply popped out of it's housing. Then, if you choose, you can pop the housing out of the pillar. This is how they fit the larger / different Bose tweeter in with it's pretty beauty ring into the same pillar cheaply and easily.

Tweeter before popping it out (credit to yrwei52 for providing this)

I investigated removing the OEM tweeter grille / bracket and using the tweeter's own flush mount hardware, but ultimately decided to hack the OEM tweeter mount to keep it looking 100% stock.

The 3/4 tweeters from my kit nearly fit in the OEM snaps, but there was too much pressure and they kept popping out. So I removed some material with a utility knife and glued them in-place. These things aren't going anywhere. You can see how they barely sweak by the vents in the pillar. I wonder if the tweeter's hardware would've interfered with the vents. I think a 1" tweeter's hardware would've for sure.

And when done, just like nothing ever happened

Before connecting the tweeter cables and re-installing the pillars I snapped the OEM tweeter cable into an existing cable bracket, and also ran a USB cable down the pillar WITHOUT crossing the airbag for my dash cam.
Before snapping the pillar in for good I tested to make sure the speaker connections were good with a AA battery from the wire ends to be connected to the crossovers. When all tests good the pillars can be put back in for good.

Step 5: Install the woofers in the doors

I retained the OEM mount by destroying the speaker. I cut it out and installed the new speaker in it's place. This consisted of cutting the cone out, cutting out the plastic supports which held the magnet / voice coil / spider and cutting the voice coil leads. I then unsoldered the voice coil leads from the OEM housing on the bracket and soldered on new leads with speaker connectors to connect to the new speakers.

The walls of the speaker mount are unchanged and it's pressure sealed with the rest of the door. This is very important as there's a pressure sensor in the door to help sense side-impacts. You do not want to compromise how air-tight the door panel is. It's important for sound quality and your safety!

Old vs new speakers

OEM speaker cut out of frame

Underside of frame after cleaning up and new speaker pigtails soldered to frame

Underside of new speaker installed in frame. Bead of silicone between speaker frame and modded car bracket

Speaker installed and connected with OEM cabling and connectors

For good measure, here's the whole inner door panel

 

[Studum]

Step 6: Install the Crossovers:

As mentioned in the step about installing the PAC harness, connect the crossover as follows:
- input to the TAU side of the PAC harness
- woofer out to the car side of the TAU harness
- tweeter out to the new tweeter wires you ran

Turn on the radio and test balance / fade in all directions to make sure you haven't messed anything up.

If you're all good, proceed to reversing your door panel installation, they're done.

Then, tidy up the crossover wiring and put them away. I don't have a photo, but it's in a dash cavity which would be directly over the passenger's right knee, to the right of the glove box. This made location made all the connections except the driver's tweeter short and simple as it's in the same general area as the TAU and as a bonus if you need to get back in there for anything it's as simple as removing the glove box.

This picture gives you a general idea of where I went. Put your hand at the half-way point vertically in your glovebox, then slide your hand to the right until you're off your glove box door. My crossovers are behind there, fully accessible by removing the glove box itself.

I placed the actual PAC module down in the passenger kick panel for now. It will eventually have an RCA cable that connects to my little sub when I get it. My my sub arrives it will be as simple as removing the passenger kick and sill again, getting power to the amp for the sub and getting an RCA cable from the PAC to the sub which will be located under the passenger seat.

I know I'm short on photos in some areas, but those are areas that will likely vary from install to install depending on equipment and installer's preferred methods. Hopefully this helps a bit.

 

[Studum]

Much credit and thanks to all those who helped and provided info in these important discussions:

https://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?123862575-speaker-size-in-CX-5-2017
https://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?123864813-TAU-Tuner-Amplifier-Unit-Location-amp-Details
https://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?123864877-2017-speaker-change-WARNING

Going in informed and with a plan is always a good thing!

 

[yrwei52]

Nice! Thanks for the write-up!

Do you have a picture of crossover from your component speaker set, and where did you put it? Did you encounter polarity issues like raj55 during speaker replacement?

Always wonder if we should put this kind of write-ups into How-To section.

 

[yrwei52]

Just saw post #3 about your crossover. Thanks!

 

[raj55]

Nice! Pictures are worth a thousand words, once again! Thanks.
It would be nice if you could post both pictures and review with sound effect improvement after the subwoofer installation. Much appreciated.

 

[Studum]

Nice! Thanks for the write-up!

Do you have a picture of crossover from your component speaker set, and where did you put it? Did you encounter polarity issues like raj55 during speaker replacement?

Always wonder if we should put this kind of write-ups into How-To section.

Here's a stock photo of the full set, not including the hardware to mount the tweeters (shown are the tweeters themselves only). So basically I took those as they were and glued them into the oem brackets.

The crossovers were fastened back to back of each other (industrial mounting tape) and the case had soft foam weatherstripping attached to the corners and all exposed faces to hold the assembly tight in the dash pocket and not rattle. This way I can get the crossovers out of the dash to adjust tweeter level in them (there's a jumper on the crossover board for 0db gain, +3, +6) or otherwise service them without ripping the entire car apart.

I can't comment as to what others have experienced with polarity issues. I'm not sure what methods were used by others to try and sort out polarity. To my knowledge to sort polarity you need: a battery and to be able to see the cone move, or you need a battery and a multimeter if you can't see the cone move, or an oscilloscope if you're trying to determine it with the amplifier's output.

What I can say for certain is that per my testing left and right side speakers were clearly identical. Each connector on the speaker had 1 terminal identified with a yellow dot. In my case that the yellow dotted connector was the negative terminal on both speakers.

This was for the door speakers only, I didn't bother trying to sort out the tweeters because I was using new cables there anyways. However if I were going to try and sort the tweeters as well I would've been using a multimeter to check for continuity on each lead from the door speaker's terminals as they're wired in parallel.

I then wired the crossovers per the car audio standard colours in the PAC harness. White and Grey = front left and right positive, white / grey with black stripe is negative for each side.

I had no issues at all.

 

[raj55]

Ok looks like the voltmeter test I did was not accurate enough to test for amplifier output polarity (even though there are many posts in the Internet recommending it). So I could have got my absolute polarity wrong but the relative polarity is good since all the speakers are wired the same way. They are not out of phase and sound very nice. Human ear seems to be more sensitive to relative polarity than absolute polarity mismatch. So I will survive!