While I have the interior out I was thinking about stripping out all the factory audio cabling. I have a Kenwood system so there's a lot of unused wiring now.

What I need to figure out is in the HSE7 (HK system) how many channels is the factory amplifier? My hideaway unit for the kenwood has pre-amp out and is located under the passenger seat. What I want to do is run shielded RCA cable from there to the aftermarket amp under the driver seat, eliminating the use of all the other cabling currently running to the factory unit. (less cabling is less to fail and avoiding having audio signal running unshielded in a vehicle is a nice way to avoid noise injection (I found the main source of my problems to be open butt splices corroding/breaking under the carpeting from winter salt...) and simpler is better when it comes to cabling.)

So, basically... how many channels, what resistance would the speakers be? 2,4 or 8 ohm? (I'm hoping this is printed on them, I haven't gotten around to opening the doors yet) etc. I'm considering replacing all the wire from the amp to the speakers with something a bit heavier as well so that if I decide to upgrade speakers in the future everything is ready for that too. Basically I'm picky about sound, so this combined with the sound damping and sound killing upgrades should sound pretty nice. Driving 14 hours a day in an overly loud vehicle really kinda sucks... doing it in one where there's constant alternator whine makes you want to hurt people. (I'm really glad I cleared that up).

Either way I'm having fun. I get to swap in the CLD equipped LT230 in the next few weeks, stick on the new 16" alloys with some Firestone Destination M/T's and finish giving the underbody a few coats of Rust Bullet. Probably also drop in a TT front and Detroit rear diff and some uprated half-shafts at the same time.

Nothing like having a fun project to work on. I'm hoping I can get most of the changes done this year, then I can start looking at the Diesel conversion .

 

Sounds like you have your hands full for a few days.
Let me start by telling you I started a similar project and it just wasnt worth it. Now if you say you have broken cables thats another story. The wiring for these babies(the HK system) is very complicated. Even though its a small amp its wired in such an odd way you will find yourself removing "all" the seats and alot of carpet to make it happen. If you have the HSE7 you have 12 speakers total @ 8 ohms. The amp however only has 4 channels and the two woofers in the rear door are phased with the two rear speakers. Thats why you get a similar sound instead of a true bass woofer in the back.
When you start with your amp it is powered by a harness that not only baffled me in its wires but uses its power source from one of the front seats. To make a long story short, I ended up taking it to Circuit City with a guy that had very good reputation on doing audio for land rovers. Idont know if this helps in any way, but please keep me posted on this project. and if u can post some pics.

 

That's how it looks to me, but with my approach I'd just be removing things that are not used anymore and it could be done over a long time if needed. Also means I can re-hookup the rear seat headphones etc which I lost with the kenwood system. I'm not bad with wiring actually so should be ok on that front (done years of network cabling and wire tracing where the entire bundle is one colour ) so is there a sub amp in the back door? If so I could wire up a low-pass filter and make it a real sub, even drop in some nicer cones in the process. Knowing they're standard 8ohm and 4 channel helps a lot since at least now I can spec an amp unit.

 

there is no sub amp in the back. That little HK amp is the sole workhorse. not bad taking into consideration its powering 12 speakers. But it is whimpi when it comes to continous power. I tried a pair of 6inch woofers for the rear powered by 2 channels off an additional Rockford Fosgate amp that I added to the back and the rear door rattled alot. so i wasnt too happy. My aproach to this was I removed the bass speakers from the rear door. I replaced them with two component speakers. Positioning the tweeters on the top rear near the roof. That gave me a nice sound balance coming from the rear. I have a 12" SoloBaric in the back so the component speakers balanced out very well. Now I have true bass in the whole truck with out that rattling in the rear door. I assume your changing out the door speakers as well. thought very nice for a regular system, they do buckle and have that continous power dilema where they lower sound after a while of high volume listening (typical on stock systems). good luck with your install, sounds like a real project. would love to seee the results.

 

OK, makes sense. I expect no rattles in any of the doors once I have all the B-Quiet Ultimate and Vcomp in place. The stock attempts at damping I found when I removed all the rear fascia today were pretty poor so I'm expecting significant improvements back there. The audio upgrades are about 3rd or 4th down the line in the current project list though.8