#13 f150 stereo upgrade how to#
#13 f150 stereo upgrade upgrade#
#13 f150 stereo upgrade full#

I happened to already have an AudioControl LC-6.1200 and an Epicenter 600 from an earlier system so I filled it out with an AudioControl ACM 4.300 to drive some of the ancillary Unleashed speakers. For my system I put in 10 channels of configurable full-range amplification plus a monoblock sub amp brining my channel total to 11 (though I'm only using 10).

For me it was imperative to keep all of the speakers functional as I wanted the 'surround presence' they were going for when B&O conceived the original system. Money no object I notice that the guys over at SoundsGoodStereo have a multitude of pre-configured packages though from the signal count it looks like most of them are configured to run on the 8-speaker B&O or only partially drive the Unleashed system.

Amplification will be another personal choice. To interface to the A2B head unit signals I chose the NavTV ZEN-A2B / DSP12A-A2B interface as it was one of the more popular/common and longer-standing interfaces on the market that claimed to be compatible with the system.

#13 f150 stereo upgrade how to#

Now that ya'all know how to get to all the speakers you need to decide how you want to amplify the system.

#13 f150 stereo upgrade full#

Below I'll post the full speaker wiring pinouts in which you'll notice that one speaker pair (the right-side headrests) actually spill over onto the amplifiers Power/CAN connector (which is also part of the PAC harness kit). The PAC harness, being designed for earlier Ford systems with far fewer speakers, will need to be modified to feed all the speakers for the Unleashed system. The second harness is from the guys over at who make a custom T-Harness ( B&O Unleashed - Custom Radio Integration T-Harness - Compatible with 2 – Sounds Good Stereo Online) which gets you to 6 of the system's 18 speakers through a connection at the head unit (more about this later). The first is the PAC APH-FD02 harness common to older F150s though when it shows up do yourself a favor and throw the instructions away as they are entirely wrong when tapping into wiring for the Unleashed system.

The first trick was figuring out exactly where and what Ford & B&O is counting for their '18' speakers.Īssuming you don't want to hack and slash your factory harnessing the first step is to get two harnesses to tap into the OEM speaker wiring.

#13 f150 stereo upgrade upgrade#

There are a million schools of thought on what is the best upgrade and why (speakers, amplifiers, DSPs, Passive, Active, blah, blah blah) but over 30 years of tinkerin with all sorts of stereos I've found that the most 'effective' initial upgrade is MORE POWER!!! Even the crappiest speakers can sound great with amplification 'headroom' and frequency restrictions (crossover) so my initial goal was to replace/upgrade the factory sub then add amplification (or headroom) and active crossovers to ALL of the B&O Unleashed systems other 17 speakers.

I bought my 701A specifically for the OEM speaker locations and the fact the system had unique 'surround' speaker locations and with full knowledge that I'd be upgrading the system once received. I've seen dozens of threads commenting, talking and complaining about the B&O Stereo Systems available on the 2021+ F150s but none that give the information really needed to tackle a complete amplification upgrade of the 18-speaker system.