Creepy Neville

I needed to wire in a an external speaker for a new comms system in my 2016 JK - I wanted something reasonably small and efficient (loud) - so I chose the Kenwood KES-3 External Speaker.

As with my previous installs, I wanted to minimize the impact and/or modifications to my dash and surrounding areas.

Although the KES -3 is a pretty small speaker, I absolutely couldn't find any room to mount it under the dash (and it still be heard) - but I did find these two handy looking ground bolts in the passenger side footwell.




The KES-3 mounting bracket is slotted, but unfortunately the slots were not wide enough to fit over the bolts - so I milled them out just enough to fit over them.




Now I could fit the bracket on those grounding bolts and secure it with the factory nuts.




And finally I mounted the speaker with the included thumb screws !





The speaker is pretty much out of the way, easy to hear - and I didn't have to make any modification to my JK

Neville

karls10jk

That's pretty sharp and it doesn't look like it would take away from foot room at all. Kudos on thinking outside the box and doing it differently!

Creepy Neville

Thank you sir !

Amazing how a few beers get the creative juices flowing !

Neville

Creepy Neville

Hey Bidoulatt -

I chose the Kenwood KES-3 external speaker for a few reasons:

1. Dimensions: obviously the speaker had to fit in the space I had chosen, which leant itself more to an oblong shape than a square.

2. Because of available room constraints, I needed a speaker that sat ‘inside’ of it’s mounting bracket rather than on top - which would of made the speaker protrude into the footwell.

3. Because of the speaker’s proximity to the footwell, it had to have a metal grill for protection.

4. The KES-3 is 5 watts, my decks put out 4 watts so it was a good match.

5. The 3.5mm plug was inconsequential as I had to cut it off and connect the cable to a MOLEX plug.

6. And finally, the KES-3 is only about $25, so I was able to purchase a couple spare speakers just in case something happens to this one (gets kicked, submerged, etc.).

I did look at other external speakers (like the Kenwood KES-5 .... ooohhhh ) but the install would not of been as ‘clean’.

Neville