Plug and play speaker upgrades for 2024 Ram 2500 Tradesman

I just picked up my 2024 Ram 2500 6.4 Hemi Tradesman Saturday and it came with the 8 inch CarPlay stereo. I would like to get some plug and play speaker replacements for all 6 of the stock speakers. I’ve been to Crutchfield and got a list of compatible replacements but was curious what everyone here recommended or had experience with. I know in my 2018 I went all infinity replacements and was very happy. Infinity still a good bet?

POINTMAN380 said:

I just picked up my 2024 Ram 2500 6.4 Hemi Tradesman Saturday and it came with the 8 inch CarPlay stereo. I would like to get some plug and play speaker replacements for all 6 of the stock speakers. I’ve been to Crutchfield and got a list of compatible replacements but was curious what everyone here recommended or had experience with. I know in my 2018 I went all infinity replacements and was very happy. Infinity still a good bet?

Click to expand...

Back in 2018 Mopar made a speaker upgrade kit for our trucks. Factory connectors and made to fit in the openings without alteration. They were made by Kicker and sounded very good. Sadly those speaker kits are no longer available but Kicker makes speakers that fit well in our trucks. I was lucky enough to replace my factory speakers with the Mopar kits and haven’t regretted the purchase.

I’ve also tried JBL and Infinity 3 1/2 inch speakers in the dash. I wasn’t impressed by the JBL as they didn’t have great highs. The infinity on the other hand had spectacular highs and being very efficient sounded louder than the Kickers. For me it’s a toss up between the Infinity and Kickers. The Infinity could sometimes sound
shrill with certain music. The Kickers had respectable highs but sometimes leave me wishing they were a bit louder. I still swap between the Kickers and Infinities when I’m bored but have come to the conclusion that both are nice sounding speakers.

I am impressed with the Kicker mid-woofers in the front doors that came with the Mopar kit. They are a poly cone and move some air for a 6X9 speaker. The bass is tight and while not equivalent to a dedicated subwoofer they produce decent bass. Regardless of what you go with you’ll be surprised at the build quality of aftermarket versus the factory speakers. It’s like comparing a brick to a donut. Happy listening!

Thanks for the info. After looking around it looks like they don’t make a “plug and play” kicker sub box for the 5th gen ram like they used to. If they do I can’t find it.

POINTMAN380 said:

Thanks for the info. After looking around it looks like they don’t make a “plug and play” kicker sub box for the 5th gen ram like they used to. If they do I can’t find it.

Click to expand...

That sux. I don’t have a dedicated sub but have read on this forum that many people like the Pioneer shallow sub. Not sure how you’d go about mounting it but it’s well liked.

On another note, pun intended, if you decide to amp the front dash and door speakers there are several nice small footprint class D amps on the market that are bi-ampable. Bi-amping allows you to run the dash and front door speakers on four independent channels while using the factory radio to power the rear doors. They are fairly easy to install and can accept high level speaker inputs without a trigger wire to turn the amp on. They also show the factory system a load on the line so you won’t need a LOC or line resistors.

Not sure if the 2500 base system is the same as the 1500, but this is what I went with. So far I've installed the 2X dash 3.5" and 2X 6X9 in the front doors. It was getting hot and I was getting sore from tugging on the door panels, so planning to do the rear doors this weekend. Crutchfield recommended only 3ohm speakers since there isn't an amp for the base system in the 1500.