Active Powered "All-N-One" Subwoofers

[JP4AZ]

UH50 Said:
This is a link to the Puzu PZ-C7 DSP Amp here. The seller is cybereveryday. He is a nice guy and will help you just make sure you tell him that you need a late model Ford harness for the 202x Maverick XL/XLT/Lariat and he can get what you need. I had to provide photos of the ACM connection and also gave him photos of the harness connections, plus the model of my Maverick.
------------------------------------------

I would like to "Super Thank" the both of you for all this knowledge. It is kind of "above my pay grade" but I am beginning to understand it much better with your help and knowing what I wish to accomplish if/when my Maverick comes.
In my current vehicles, I would just change the deck with a mid level name brand unit that included ample power (Moffset 50 Watt) and replace front & rear speakers with decent quality 2 or 3 way speakers. That has always been more than enough for my listening pleasure.

To me it kind of bites that I can no longer replace the Stock Audio with an awesome (double din)
unit with all the features that I wish to have. Life was so much easier with the double din place in the dash. I so wish auto makers would go back to that format! But It's Probably gone because of the limited screen size.

I will keep following your threads and others for continued ideas on upgrades. I hope to have a Maverick soon, so I can get busy with making it the way I want it.
Best wishes to both of you!

Sponsored

 

[uh50]

Got out last Saturday afternoon and cleaned the car port and blew some leaves away. The car port looked so nice, neat, & fresh; Plus, my XL was in the driveway so I decided to finish running the power wire from the battery to the Rockville RW68CA Sub and decided to mount in the right side under the back seat, so I lined the bin with sound insulation.

After mounting the fuse for the sub on the battery hold down strap and connecting it to the positive of the battery, I fed the remaining wire up through the rubber membrane in the firewall to the fuse and connected it. I ran the wire under the trim in the footwell, under the left front door sill and mated it up with the sub remote wire, the RCA leads, and continued all to the back under the "B" trim, then under door sill and left side storage bin trim to a point behind the seat, then over to the sub in the right side storage bin under the seat.

I have to admit that removing the trim pieces for access is much easier this time, but I still have a ton of blood bruises ask over my hands and arms. Such is the life of thin skinned guy of 76 years old.

I have been enjoying life with the sub woofer for a few months after installing the Infinity Reference 6-1/2" REF-6532IX on the front and the 4” x 6” REF-6432CFX on the back along with the Puzu PZ-CY 45W RMS DSP Amp. The music was full across all frequencies and the front speakers carried the bass with a frequency response of 53Hz-21kHz. There is a 3db gain on the front speaker tweeters, but since I had decided not to eliminate the dash tweeters, I set the gain to 0.

After getting everything connected and fired up, I set the sub to play frequencies below 100Hz, and left the factory default input gain at about 1/2 way and the bass boost at the factory default 6 db. Although it results in adjusting the sub remote pretty low at about a 1/4 to 1/3 of the volume available. With he DSP Amp, I adjusted all the Ford settings flat in the 3 band equalizer to let the DSP do it's stuff.

I have the remote mounted on the side of the center console near my right leg. It gives me the blue led that tells me the DSP and Sub are powered up and when it's not; and, it gives me easy reach adjustment of the sub.

I could have done without the sub and been fine with in my ignorance; however, after listening to it even at moderate settings, it fills out the lows very nicely. Although it has the capability to hammer and thump far more than I want to listen to. So overall, I now have an audio system that is far more capable of producing nice rich and full sound across the full spectrum of my hearing. The sub gives me the ability to listen to frequencies from 53Hz down to 20Hz as well as fill out the bass and mid bass up to 100Hz.

So, not a bad afternoon with an hour spent running the wires and making all the connections; then spending the next 2-1/2 hours playing with it. I'm sure that I will tune the DSP again...and again...and again.

Another benefit to adding the subwoofer, it gives the rear speakers a more prominent role. The frequency response of the 4" x 6" rear speakers is 75Hz-21kHz and sound great with the addition of the subwoofer to fill in the bass.

So, overall, the system sounds better with the moderate subwoofer adjustments to fill in the bass. It was worth the nominal $115.00 cost (Subwoofer plus wiring kit).

 

[uh50]

This is a link to the Puzu PZ-C7 DSP Amp here. The seller is cybereveryday. He is a nice guy and will help you just make sure you tell him that you need a late model Ford harness for the 202x Maverick XL/XLT/Lariat and he can get what you need. I had to provide photos of the ACM connection and also gave him photos of the harness connections, plus the model of my Maverick.

Here are the photos I sent to make sure he had the correct harness.

I also replaced the rear 4" speakers with 4" x 6" Infinity Reference REF-6432CFX. It was a bolt up and no modification effort, except to put gasketing material around the mounting bracket to match up to the speaker baffle on the "C" pillar trim. I also added cotton baffling material to the "C" pillar cavity behind the speaker to help keep the sound in the cab.

They are obviously better than stock. The limitation here is the limiting by Ford on the rear speaker channels. Not exactly sure where the limitation is. Some say 80Hz, some 100Hz, and some say 150Hz. The 6432CFX bottom frequency is 75HZ, so if the limitation is 80HZ, it wouldn't make a lot of difference. I wish I knew what the actual limitation is.

Most DSP allow you to pick the front channels to feed the stock rear speakers, but I have not investigated the Puzu yet. If it does, then that will remove the frequency limitation on the rear speakers and I'm sure they would help fill out the sound. I have more work to do in this area.

There's a way to also remove the limitation via Forscan, but I've not tried that yet. We'll see.

Since finishing the install of my subwoofer I discovered one thing and also verified another.

1) I discovered that the Puzu DSP Amp PZ-C7 default setting for feeding the subwoofer is from the front channels. Obviously, this bypasses any limitation set by Ford on the rear channels.

2) UnkleFunk said in this post #12 in the Rear Speaker Wires for Sub Install thread: "I'm not sure but I think maybe the people that are saying the rear signal has only high end are listening to their system in "driver " occupancy mode instead of "all seats"

When you listen In driver only mode they do cut low end but if you listen in all seats there is no cut, it's full range."

First, thank you UnkleFunk for the information. It helps me with my settings. After getting my sub fired up I set all the Ford ACM settings flat and the optimal sound to all seats since the DSP has settings to tune to the Driver's seat location.

I have verified there is a clear delineation between the two choices. There is clearly a limitation of rear speaker volume when set to optimize the sound to the driver's seat only. UnkleFunk may be correct, but the statement alone doesn't tell me what the limitation is. Is it power output, or is it frequency response.

I do not know if the limitation is only power or if frequencies are limited. Maybe one of these days someone will put test equipment on the channels and different settings to determine the real limitation.

Perhaps we could have one of the Ford representatives that monitors the MTC could post the information for us.

 

[Aaron F]

Personally I would be going with the audison apbx 10as2, great power, great amplifier built inside, and it's audison who only make great quality

So by measuring, I was bummed the one I pulled out of my previous vehicle wasn't going to fit behind the seat in the floorboard. I decided, maybe I will just stand it up vertical... Low and behold, it will lay down behind the passenger seat. Not 100% flat and it will restrict seat movement, but it fits!

 

[Thagh0st]

So by measuring, I was bummed the one I pulled out of my previous vehicle wasn't going to fit behind the seat in the floorboard. I decided, maybe I will just stand it up vertical... Low and behold, it will lay down behind the passenger seat. Not 100% flat and it will restrict seat movement, but it fits!

Nice looks really good, when you have it done you should really do a post with a review of it.
I guess people should look at the audison APBX 8 AS2 for under the back seat would have a more easy time fitting

 

[Scootergirl2468]

Got out last Saturday afternoon and cleaned the car port and blew some leaves away. The car port looked so nice, neat, & fresh; Plus, my XL was in the driveway so I decided to finish running the power wire from the battery to the Rockville RW68CA Sub and decided to mount in the right side under the back seat, so I lined the bin with sound insulation.

After mounting the fuse for the sub on the battery hold down strap and connecting it to the positive of the battery, I fed the remaining wire up through the rubber membrane in the firewall to the fuse and connected it. I ran the wire under the trim in the footwell, under the left front door sill and mated it up with the sub remote wire, the RCA leads, and continued all to the back under the "B" trim, then under door sill and left side storage bin trim to a point behind the seat, then over to the sub in the right side storage bin under the seat.

I have to admit that removing the trim pieces for access is much easier this time, but I still have a ton of blood bruises ask over my hands and arms. Such is the life of thin skinned guy of 76 years old.

I have been enjoying life with the sub woofer for a few months after installing the Infinity Reference 6-1/2" REF-6532IX on the front and the 4” x 6” REF-6432CFX on the back along with the Puzu PZ-CY 45W RMS DSP Amp. The music was full across all frequencies and the front speakers carried the bass with a frequency response of 53Hz-21kHz. There is a 3db gain on the front speaker tweeters, but since I had decided not to eliminate the dash tweeters, I set the gain to 0.

After getting everything connected and fired up, I set the sub to play frequencies below 100Hz, and left the factory default input gain at about 1/2 way and the bass boost at the factory default 6 db. Although it results in adjusting the sub remote pretty low at about a 1/4 to 1/3 of the volume available. With he DSP Amp, I adjusted all the Ford settings flat in the 3 band equalizer to let the DSP do it's stuff.

I have the remote mounted on the side of the center console near my right leg. It gives me the blue led that tells me the DSP and Sub are powered up and when it's not; and, it gives me easy reach adjustment of the sub.

I could have done without the sub and been fine with in my ignorance; however, after listening to it even at moderate settings, it fills out the lows very nicely. Although it has the capability to hammer and thump far more than I want to listen to. So overall, I now have an audio system that is far more capable of producing nice rich and full sound across the full spectrum of my hearing. The sub gives me the ability to listen to frequencies from 53Hz down to 20Hz as well as fill out the bass and mid bass up to 100Hz.

So, not a bad afternoon with an hour spent running the wires and making all the connections; then spending the next 2-1/2 hours playing with it. I'm sure that I will tune the DSP again...and again...and again.

Another benefit to adding the subwoofer, it gives the rear speakers a more prominent role. The frequency response of the 4" x 6" rear speakers is 75Hz-21kHz and sound great with the addition of the subwoofer to fill in the bass.

So, overall, the system sounds better with the moderate subwoofer adjustments to fill in the bass. It was worth the nominal $115.00 cost (Subwoofer plus wiring kit).

When you mounted this dsp Amp did you have to run a power wire for the Amp or was the harness wired to power it on? I'm trying to figure out if I will have to supply power to both the Amp and the subwoofer or just the sub

 

[uh50]

When you mounted this dsp Amp did you have to run a power wire for the Amp or was the harness wired to power it on? I'm trying to figure out if I will have to supply power to both the Amp and the subwoofer or just the sub

The DSP Amp draws it's power from the ACM power through the harness. You do not have to run a separate power wire to the DSP Amp. It's an easy install.

By the way, getting it's power from the ACM circuit is one reason why some people question its 45 W RMS power output. It may not fully reach the 45 W RMS rating, but it has enough power output to overload my ears. I could listen to the ACM without the AMP at 19 to 21 volume level, although I didn't want to. But, with the DSP AMP, dialing up a 13 or 14 volume level is too loud for me, so the power is good enough, whatever it is. I've been trying to find an independent test on YouTube, but no success yet.

Hope that helps.

 

[AZMavRider]

A big shout out to everyone here, especially @uh50 for all the information sharing and for offering great feedback to us Maverick owners/enthusiasts.

This thread inspired me to upgrade the sound system on my XLT with the following:
-Puzu DSP Amp PZ-C7
-46hs10 Kicker Hideaway Sub
-REF 6532ix door speakers

I just noticed that the Hideaway Sub doesn't have RCA ports by default so I'm wondering if I would need any LOC converters or if the - KISL K speaker wire to RCA would suffice to connect the sub to the amp?

 

[snowkarver]

I just noticed that the Hideaway Sub doesn't have RCA ports by default so I'm wondering if I would need any LOC converters or if the - KISL K speaker wire to RCA would suffice to connect the sub to the

Yes, the KISL would be fine. I just wired one up, by soldering an RCA connector I had to the Hideaway harness. Set the toggle switch on the rear to low voltage input, and you’re good.

 

[AZMavRider]

Yes, the KISL would be fine. I just wired one up, by soldering an RCA connector I had to the Hideaway harness. Set the toggle switch on the rear to low voltage input, and you’re good.

Awesome! Thanks for confirming this

 

[Telemachus]

I bought a used Rockville RW10CA.

Wired the power and ground and pulled off the right rear speaker to play with the high level inputs plugged right into the speaker plug for testing (that speaker fascia is REALLY a pain to get off, I'm going to have the plastic weld one of the connectors that broke).

If I wire just the "-" side of the high level input, I get pretty impressive bass, but once I connect the "+" it's pretty quiet.

Why does the high level input work with only one wire connected?

 

[bradyhuutch]

Just bought both of these on Amazon to test with the PUZU PZ-C7:

BOSS Audio Systems BASS10
Sound Storm Laboratories LOPRO10

I will be using the BOSS Audio Systems KIT2 8 Gauge Amplifier Installation Wiring Kit for installation. I only plan on keeping whichever sub sounds/fits best. Will make sure to comment on sound quality and installation of both!

P.S. the Rockville RW10CA is only $86 used on Amazon at the moment!

 

[bradyhuutch]

Just bought both of these on Amazon to test with the PUZU PZ-C7:

BOSS Audio Systems BASS10
Sound Storm Laboratories LOPRO10

I will be using the BOSS Audio Systems KIT2 8 Gauge Amplifier Installation Wiring Kit for installation. I only plan on keeping whichever sub sounds/fits best. Will make sure to comment on sound quality and installation of both!

P.S. the Rockville RW10CA is only $86 used on Amazon at the moment!

I just installed the PUZU PZ-C7 and WOW. I am almost blown away with the improvement you get for such little investment and ease of installation. The improvement in sound quality from the stock speakers alone is excellent. The amp is currently sitting inside my glove box until I get the sub in, but I plan on installing it under the dash. There should be more than enough room behind the glove box on top of the AC components. More pics to come!

 

[Javskies]

I just installed the PUZU PZ-C7 and WOW. I am almost blown away with the improvement you get for such little investment and ease of installation. The improvement in sound quality from the stock speakers alone is excellent. The amp is currently sitting inside my glove box until I get the sub in, but I plan on installing it under the dash. There should be more than enough room behind the glove box on top of the AC components. More pics to come!

Dont have to upgrade the speakers and it has RCA out for a sub? Sign me up. Did the A/C panel just pull out?

 

[bradyhuutch]

Dont have to upgrade the speakers and it has RCA out for a sub? Sign me up. Did the A/C panel just pull out?

The panel has 5 clips around the edges and two sets of guide pins without clips on the top. The panel will pull straight out, but the clips will be pretty stiff. The locations can be seen below more clearly in a picture posted by uh50 earlier in this thread!

P.S. do yourself a favor and buy the $10 trim removal kit from Harbor Freight if you don't have it. It makes removing any plastic panel much easier without the risk of scratching your plastics.

Sponsored