Hi all – Just got a limited 22 with the tech pack and love it. Except like many others, HK audio.
We looked at so many options, but climbing is a great fit. Nice inside, but not a 70k+ luxury SUV that I would fill with firewood and a muddy SUP. We were very close to buying a telluride. I think Telluride’s HK is slightly better than subi’s, but still far worse than BMW’s or Tesla’s premium audio. I just like the climbing dimensions, the driving style, what you can do with easy and attractive roads, etc. Plus the price for a 1 year climb was fantastic.
I’m not a nutso audiophile (but I used to be). I’m used to nice home stuff, headphones, and the only available car systems I tolerated were a BMW HK and a tesla m3. The stock tesla m3 system is pretty awesome. The Ascent will replace a 2013 Outback that also had HK. I spent a silly amount of time messing around with that car’s stereo, going through a few changes. The final iteration now has a Pioneer HU and Alpine amp and is fully active with 9 amp channels (4HU+5 alpine), JL custom fiberglass speakers, polk, dayton, vifa speakers. I swore I would never do that again and would only buy a car with a passable factory car stereo… But reality intervenes as a “passable factory car stereo” would mean spending at least 20k dollars more and getting something that is more suitable for our family.
I’ve read a few threads here about upgrading the mounting HK. While I’m new here, I have a lot of experience with the 13 outback. My take on the climbing HK is similar to what I’ve read here… Mid dominates and the stage is very tight and forward. I find no sweetness in the treble and no definition in the bass. It sounds pretty much a note in the 50-70Hz region. The 10″ JL in my outdoor plays up to 30Hz and you can hear distinct bass and mid-bass. The outdoor also has 7″ reference ditones in the doors. The issue with my exterior is in between and phase. I found that eventually this was intractable with the stock speaker locations. Climbing has the same problem… to get a wider stage you need a middle or tweeter on the top door or a post. This is simply not feasible in the way the door is designed. (This is something the sub could really improve by copying the tesla, bmw or even putting in the telluride speaker).
So what is good and what to fix? In fact, the climbing HK is quite solid for a non-luxury car. As others have noted, it could probably be ok with a good 7-13 band eq. I have +4 bass, +1 mids, and +1 treble, but we’ll probably tweak it yet. For some recordings, the “surrounding” sounds nice, but for the most part it seems unnatural/musical to me. If I could equalize it better, I’d still want to expand the tweeter stage on the A-pillars and swap out the 6×9 front door and/or sub for stronger bass.
I’d love to get other’s thoughts on the improved design… and I can share my experiences. Here are my early concepts:
1: Keep the HK amp and change all/most of the front speakers. Buy a set of 6×9 components (JL, focal, etc.) and replace the mid 3″ with a kenwood KFC-X2C or a dayton/PE medi. on the A-pillar. I’d make a custom passive mid-to-tweeter crossover. Challenge here is not knowing much about impedance, sensitivity and DSP curve of HK speakers and amps… and not having eq/control. i can measure all of these (i’m an electronics engineer) but it’s a lot of trouble with no guarantee of success .The only sure thing is that I can teach this to my 12 year old, but he is getting tired of HK sub upgrades: ).
2. Option 2 would be to bite the bullet and remove the HK amp and run the DSP out of the HU. In that case, I’d probably get an Alpine PXE-DSP-APP and some other 4-channel amp that I could fit all under the passenger seat. There is something locked under the driver’s seat (anyone know what it is?). That would give me 12 channels of DSP and amp… 8×25 (alpine) and maybe 2×40 + 1×100 (4ch). I would replace all the front speakers and add tweeters to the A pillars (same speakers as option 1). I would also replace the stock 8″ with a JL 8″ and wet the undercarriage better. Maybe keep the other HK speakers as they are. 8x25W from alpine would go front (2tw, 3 mid), 2 rear doors and 2 rear fills (mono series wired). The 2×40 would go on the front door midbass and the 1×100 on the sub. Alpine would allow full time alignment, eq, levels, crossover, etc. The risk here is to get 4 clean channels from the stock hu without silly alarms and avoid any alternator whine or hiss in the tweeters and mids. I think I can do this option for about $1500-1800.
Does anyone think? If I do option 2, I’d like to hear from someone who has the full HK wiring diagram and DSP integration experience with the stock HU (and no HK amp).
