SEMA 2019 – Metra Electronics will be announcing the release of their new 2018+ Jeep Wrangler JL/JLU 6.5″ speaker upgrade pods.
I am super excited to share this. Metra just announced a new Wrangler JL/JLU speaker upgrade accessory for 2018-up Jeep Wrangler JL/JLU and 2020 – up Gladiator. These 6.5″ 2018+ Jeep Wrangler JL/JLU speaker Upgrade pods will allow you to take out that weak excuse of a 4″ dash component and install a proper 6.5″ component speaker.
2018+ Jeep Wrangler JL/JLU Speaker Upgrade Pods open up your speaker upgrade options
Although I have found a few great options for high powered 4″ components to work in the factory locations, those options were not exactly budget friendly. Likewise, paying a technician to modify your factory pods to accommodate 6.5″ added a good chunk of change to your total audio upgrade cost.
These speaker pods will greatly open up speaker replacement options for Wrangler JL/JLU and Gladiator owners. Thanks to their injection mold design, they should be at a more budget friendly price.
From a sound quality perspective – with the top down, this will make a world of a difference for your sound stage. I know this because we did the same thing in our 2019 Wrangler MOAB.
Metra’s 2018+ Jeep Wrangler JL/JLU Speaker Upgrade Pods were obviously designed by installers
From a design perspective, Metra did a fantastic job. They built these exactly the way we were going to produce ours. Featuring various common aftermarket speaker mounting points and a speaker adapter harness allowing to you to easily re-use factory grommet and wiring in your install.
I will give you a little background info. Over the summer, driving around with our top down, we were missing have the full 6.5″ on the dash like we had in our JK. So my husband actually made a set of these for our own 2019 Wrangler MOAB. I was so impressed with the difference in sound it made with our top down and doors off that I wanted to make them, mass produce them and sell them. So I ordered an extra set of pods from our local dealer and John made a prototype and we set up a consultation with a designer. We were in the process of getting quotes from the designer to put it into the format necessary for production and getting quotes for injection mold manufacturing. Let me tell you – the cost to design something like this are far higher than you’d probably ever expect.
As consumers and installers of aftermarket accessories, we often don’t realize what goes into the design and production of the parts we love to slap into our Wranglers. These 2018+ Jeep Wrangler JL/JLU speaker upgrade pods probably cost Metra around $30,000 just to make one pair. And that doesn’t include patent application and lawyer fees which can easily add another $10,000 and they may find the patent rejected due to the obviousness of the design (according to Wikipedia this refers to ” if an idea is so obvious that people in the field would develop it without much effort”). As a small business owner, that’s a massive investment and big risk to take on so I was secretly hoping they’d come out with these and we wouldn’t have to.
So thank you to the team at Metra for making this happen. We understand what it takes and appreciate everything your crew does. No ship date or pricing is available yet, but Metra will announce all the details at SEMA 2019.
7 Comments
Ok so adding 6.5s are now an option for the lower dash but what do you recommend for repacking the 4 3.5s and the other 4s in the sound bar?
SSV Works has an adapter $99 JJT-SAO65 – see here. Also, we put a proper component set in using these Metra adapters – 6.5″ mid range on dash and tweeter in OEM location. We use just a metal backstrap to put in OEM location slightly angled towards the driver (rather than up at the glass) or you can use a surface mount tweeter cup and go for more of the tweeter coming at you like in the older JK’s.
Hi Annie – This may be a silly question but I’ve been hearing a lot of talk of adding 6.5 in speakers behind the JL dash. My question is that the dash grill is only ported for the 4 inch speaker wouldn’t there be a lot of sound distortion or even loss since the hole through the dash is so small? I have just ordered a set of IFBMW-C to try them out but would much rather go the 6.5 in route.
Hi Joseph – just use the Metra JP-1014’s, the 6.5’s fit no problem and sound great! We modified ours and few for customers to fit 6.5″‘s before these came out. When we did the modification we eliminated the port and that’s what the pods do too. We have them in stock if you need to order a set, give our shop a call or text us at 203-778-3330. Thanks!
Hi Annie – I just saw your post on the JP-1014 that fits the Gladiator. Do your sell the JP-1014 or is it even out yet? I’ve pre-ordered the SSVworks JJT-SAO65 already. Can you recommend some good plug & play 6.5” speaker options that don’t break the bank for the knee and soundbar? I really just want to upgrade the speakers first, then add an amp later, if needed. Hopefully the 6.5” in the knee and soundbar will be enough.
Hi Scott – I do have some in stock to sell. You can call or text us at the shop to order 203-778-3330. I am not aware of any plug and play solution, but the Metra pods do come with adapter connectors so you don’t have to cut the stock speaker wires in the knee panel. I think pretty much anything is going to sound better than the stock 4″ components in the basic non amplified sound system. If you want to upgrade to something now that is efficient and can perform off the minimal output of the stock head unit, but then also later be amplified, you may want to think about the Morel Maximo Ultra series – however – you would need to add resistors to do this so my recommendation is to go ahead and save up, do the pre-amp adapter (which eliminates the need for resistors) and get an amp and just do it all in one shot. I hope that helps.
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