Can anyone tell me if my 2003 Eddie Bauer Expedition has some kind of crossover for the rear speakers? It has a subwoofer, two front and two rear speakers. Stock system. The rear speakers do not play nearly as loud as the front. In fact they sound muffled. Also, the subwoofer sounds muddy. Any recommendations?
Remove the entire system...head unit, crossover, sub speakers and whatever else it has and start from scratch. Get 2 Zapco C2K 9.0X amps and 2 RE xxx subs...1 amp per sub. Use 2 sealed enclosures for the subs. The amps might be a bit much, but headroom is always nice. Those subs need alot of power anyhow. Get a 2 channel MacIntosh Amp - the MCC602TM - and 3 way Dynaudio set for the front stage. An 8 inch midbass, a 3 inch midrange and a tweeter. Have some custom fibergalss kicks for the midrange and the tweeter and install the midbass in the front doors. Keep in mind that this WILL require modification. Oh yeah, make sure that the McIntosh amp has the meter on it. Those are cool. For further system tweeking and equalization and so on, look into Audiocontrol. You can't go wrong with them. You WILL also need a bigger alternator. I would say at least 200 amps. Go for a Kinetic battery...the biggest one they make. This is just a starting point. There are many other things that you will need to do to make this work. Just go by what I recommended and get all of the other accessories and so on to make the installation possibe as well as a head unit, and rear speakers ( if you want to, not neccessary ) etc. This might get a tad bit expensive, but it's the only way to go.
I really didn't get the impression he wants to drop 10 grand on Mac amps, etc. haha. Vicdog, sounds like you've discovered the depressing sound of stock car audio. It seems possible that Ford did put a crossover on the back speakers to improve imaging. (Ideally, you wouldn't even have rear speakers, it ruins the stereo image created by a live performance.) To test if you have the crossover, find some test tones available on the internet and play them through your system. If there is no crossover, you're stock speakers should be able to play audibly from ~100Hz to ~15K Hz if they were intended to be full range speakers. As for the general muddiness and lack of clarity in your speakers and sub, well, thats why this forum exists.