Upgraded Speakers in the Elite

I was going to buy a 2020 Honda Ridgeline but a couple of weeks ago decided on a Passport Elite. I just bought the Passport a couple of days ago. One of my favorite online vendors is Crutchfield and when they have sales I have been buying audio devices from them over many years. They had a great sale on the Polk (another favorite of mine) speakers so I bought the DB652 coaxial speakers, two pairs at the beginning of summer for the Ridgeline. I was happy to find out they will fit in the Passport's front and rear doors. There is a small amount of cutting the back of the plastic speaker grills for proper fit. I also got the proper speaker mounting brackets and plug wiring connectors. I used this same model speakers on another truck I use to own and was happy with the result. If you buy them from Crutchfield you get a 56 page instruction pdf for the 2019 Honda Passport. If anyone decides to go this way the speaker mounting brackets are HSB524 and the connectors/wire harness is Metra 72-7800. I can not guarantee these products will fit/work until I do the install in the next few weeks. Also some on the forum may have already done it. If not I will try and start a new thread with pictures. I hope to sweep the response before and after but what really counts of course is if I like the sound. Since these are coaxial with a tweeter I will probably also replace one of the originals with a load resistor and sweep the amplifier to see if it is full range or were it rolls off.

stevenD said:

I have no idea of how this will sound, I made a detailed post in the Audio and Stereo Forum titled: "The Elite/Touring Stereo Upgrade Thread". Never owned any Polk speakers, but my understanding is that they do make some nice ones (depending on the price-point). You may want to take a look at my recommendations made in that thread...

The problem with your new speakers are the Tweeters. I was originally considering coaxials until I spoke with a Crutchfield guy and my car installation guy. Also another member here tried some Infinity Coaxials in both doors and was not happy with the overall sound (you can search for that thread).

If you install Coaxial speakers you will be adding 4 additional tweeters to your system, these 8 tweeters will not sound right as they are different manufactureres, different specs and different sound levels. If you disconnect the existing 4 tweeters, you will be left with no highs directly hitting you and the highs will be muffled and buried down in the doors. Tweeters are VERY "directional" and Honda went through a great deal of effort/testing (with speaker placement) to create the proper sound-field in the PP. Coaxials will COMPLETELY defeat (ruin) it and it the new set-ups will sound WORSE!

I said this in the post I referred to above, but I'll repeat it here: The PP Elite/Touring Stereo system needs Component Speakers (separate woofers and tweeters)!

PS: Maybe the Polk DB6502?

Regardless of whatever you end up doing, please report back here and pictures are very welcome...!

Best Wishes

Click to expand...

Thanks Steven for the information. I will check out your posts. Yeah I am a fan of Polk speakers and bang for the buck they do a nice job and most are natural sounding to my ears. The speakers have a passive crossover network composed of what appears to be two NP capacitors and two inductors. I will figure out the schematic for them plus their values. I am also capable of winding my own coils if I want to effect the crossover and roll off. One nice feature is that the crossover network and both speakers are brought out to the speaker terminal block and it is very easy to disable the tweeter and I can easily make sure the impedance to the amplifier stays the same. Why not just use a single speaker instead of the coaxials?... because I already own them . Good point about the sound stage and the directionality of the tweeter. In these speakers the orientation of the tweeter is fix and not adjustable. If I do this mod I will be happy to post my measurements and installation. Only problem is I hate opening up the door panels having only owned it for a few days.