I tried speakers only, and chose speakers that didn’t require much power, but the factory head units put out almost no power at all. It sounded worse. I went with a micro 200w amp and put it behind and to the left of the glove box.
What year is your Gladiator mine is a 2025 with the large screen I wonder if it has more power
Mine is a ‘21, so different head unit, but factory head units are known for being incredibly under powered. You’d need to figure out its specs somehow. My audio guy estimated way less than 25watts per channel, with four channels. Unless something had changed. The they also lazied out and hooked four front speakers up to only two front channels. The factory setup is pretty ugly, at least prior to ‘24. Other than screen and uconnect versions, I’d expect not much has changed.
My setup is similar but I have a powered Alpine Sub under the front passenger. Came bundled with tweeters and amp.If you have the factory amp and sub, I’d personally start with the alpine setup. They’re specifically designed for JL and JT jeeps. I have them in mine and they sound amazing. I still have the factory head unit. Mine did not come with an amp, so I added a very small 200w (50x4) alpine amp.
I have these for the sound bar…
https://www.crutchfield.com/p_500SPV65JL/Alpine-SPV-65-JLT.html
These for the dash (they fit under factory screens)…
https://www.crutchfield.com/p_500SPV10TW/Alpine-SPV-10TW-WRA.html
and this amp that fits behind the glove box…
https://www.crutchfield.com/p_500KTA450/Alpine-KTA-450-Power-Pack.html
I didn’t have a factory sub, so I added a powered Memphis 10”. But since you have an amp and a sub, I’d start with the speakers and see how it sounds. I think your be quite happy.
I have the 200w alpine amp behind the glove box. It powers new alpines in the sound bar and dash, along with the stock knee speakers. They weren’t worth the effort. I then have a 300w Memphis 10” sub behind the rear passenger seat. It sounds great.
Like you, I skipped the knee speakers. I used alpine spv-65-jet in the sound bar. You don’t need to change any polarity with them, as they’re wired and crossed over specifically for the JL or JT. I used their 1” dash tweeters which match perfectly. They also don’t need polarity changes as they’re specifically setup for these jeeps. But these speakers needed a little power, and my factory 7” wasn’t cutting it.
Thanks for the info you linked. So the 2 pairs of speakers are for the upper dash and knee speaker locations. The 1 pair is for the sound bar, yes?
The knee speakers aren’t worth the work. I tried without adding a sub. It was seriously lacking in bass. My rubicon didn’t have a stock sub either.
The knees if powered well, sealed up and sound dampened can add a great punch but never get the true low bass like a sub. I wondered about trying to find a shallow mount 6.5 subwoofer but not enough cubic space for them so did (2) 10’s under backseat. Then front has 3way components ( 6.5”, 3.5”, 1”), and sound bar has 5 1/4 component set. But that’s adding 2 amps and a wee bit more work then simple speaker replacement. I had base stereo no amp no sub when purchased so was go full system or leave horrible stock. I do play it a lot with subs off or all the way down just for low end fill. Either way I have no issues now hearing music lol. Question, Are the amplified stock setups wired at 8ohms like base with no amp setups ?
I didn’t have an amplified stock system, so I don’t know. I have my knee speakers amplified with my alpine. I purposefully used their JL series to make sure crossovers were setup for this jeep.
