I totally miss my stereo in my '16 Ram Laramie Longhorn with the Alpine system! I replaced the 8" factory subwoofer with a JL Audio...what a difference, but even the factory system on the Ram was WAY better than my AT4X!
Yup.
My wife drives a Jeep Grand Cherokee. We are both perfectly happy with the OEM audio in that. I’d give it a “7” on a scale of 1 to 10. I still have my 2018 Ford Raptor too. The stereo in that is better than the Jeep — a solid “8”. (I need to sell the Raptor… It’s awesome, and I love driving it, but I can’t afford to keep two expensive trucks. Anybody want a low-mile Raptor?
(My rating scale is based on my experience with OEM stuff. I’m not including the super high-end stereos people invest crazy money in.)
I drive a Tahoe as a work vehicle now, but until six months ago I was driving a stripper charger with cloth seats and rubber floors. (I’ve had three of those). The OEM stereo in the Chargers was a “6”. I’d say the stereo in my AT4X is a “4” or a “5”, so I decided to improve it.
Last week I dropped $2300 to improve the stereo. I added new Hertz seperates up front, Hertz Coaxial speakers in the rear doors, and twin JL audio subs under the back seat (which loses the storage, which I really wanted to keep).
The OEM Bose speakers are very efficient — so they require very little power to produce reasonable volume. That means many of the great aftermarket speaker options will not perform well without adding an amplifier. Some Hertz, Focal, and a few others
don’t require amps to work okay. I liked the Focals, but preferred the Hertz.) The JL subs are amplified and have a dash-mounted knob so the bass can be controlled separately which, for me, is more hassle that it’s worth. I have not had to mess with the stereo settings in my Raptor in five years, and it sounds good whether I’m listening to 70s and 80s rock, country, or classical violin. I wish I could duplicate THAT in the GMC.
The new stereo sounds very good — maybe an “8” — IF the volume is turned up above conversation level. It’s even better if I’m patient enough to “tune” all the setting just right for a particular song, but if I do that and then switch music type it doesn’t sound quite right… too much bass or too little bass, etc. I don’t want to drop another $2000 trying to improve it more, so I’ll probably just learn to live with it. (Though I may replace the lousy OEM midrange speaker in mid-dash.)
It’s not like Dodge/Ford/Jeep/Honda are spending big money on their OEM stereos. I suspect GM could have made the AT4X stereo a “9” with an additional investment of less that $200 per truck. Just swapping the silly 5” sub for a powered 8” sub would have been transformational, and speakers are crazy-cheep when you’re buying them in lots of 20,000… I guess they just didn’t care. That seems strange, as a great stereo can help sell a truck the way a great garage can help sell a house.
; it's only something used on non-black vehicles or is it. Looks really bad. Hang on, let me take a closer look at mine. Hah! I'll be darned! Even my Black Onyx has the same covering but its not bubbling or anything.
