Component set question...

hey guys. First off, I am no noob to car audio. I'm a bit older at 37, and was an installer back in the day at Circuit City(remember that?). I do installs for myself and friends now. I've done some complicated stuff, but this has me stumped.


OK. Background checked, here's my question. I have a 2019 sr5 non jbl with tweeter and center dash speakers. I installed an alpine 50x4 amp for my highs. Sounded great with factory paper speakers.

That said. I just installed a set of $400 component Focals in the front door. Woofer sounds great and hits. My new tweeters in the sail panel
suck. Hardly any sound, but sound is there. My polarity is correct, and I even switched it up to check. Question is, do I have to place them in the factory dash location? Is there some sort of built in crossover coming to the main door speaker? I know the factory tweeters have a crossover, but my component set is ran straight from the input of the door speakers running a true 50 watts...Any help is appreciated. I've installed plenty of amplified components before, and the tweeters can be piercing, but this focal set is a dud so far. Thanks.

 

FYI, forgot to mention that im running A Kenwood 9906xr. Have been for some time with no problems. I ran my factory paper speakers amplified for about a week with great results. Fresh component install today. Dash speakers now overpower my sail panel tweeter. The component set in not underpowered. RMS is 40-60watts...thanks.

 

So I always wondered this. It’s kind of hard to rewrite your dash speakers without knowing the inputs. So the component speaker from your door goes in the door. I did something similar and the dash speakers are really loud. I think they are run directly off the head unit so they may not be experiencing identical processing, especially if your running the other speakers through your amp or LOC or DSR1 etc...

I would love to hear what everyone has to say.

 

Yes, the factory dash speakers have their own wires. They are not tied in with the door speakers. How do I know this? When I installed my amp, I snipped my wires coming from the aftermarket harness. FR, FL, RR and RL. I wanted to check if the dash was separate. I got no sound from my doors, only dash speakers.

So, in theory, only my 4 door speakers are amplified at 50 watts. The dash speakers are theoretically only amplified by my Kenwood head unit. That's why I cannot figure out the extremely low output of my new focal tweeters. Like I said, my whole component set is ran off the door speaker wire which is amplified at 50 watts...


I recently did a set of JBL components for my buddy in his '06 ranger. Installed a pioneer amp to them. No factory dash speakers. We actually had to switch to the -3 decibel setting at the crossover because of how piercing they were.

 

Did you take out the factory amp under the passenger seat? The factory amp does have a built in filter so you'll only get lows and mids. I built a bypass harness and am running components straight off my Pioneer HU now and it sounds great.

 

I wasn't aware that the non premium sound trucks had an external amp besides the head unit. Like I said, I had an externam amp on there for about week. I was actually trying to blow my factory speakers haha. I was waiting for my Focals to come in the mail. The stock speakers sounded really good amplified. Now with a set of $400 components, sound is not much of an upgrade...

 

Ok...after doing some research I just found that out. There is a remote/amp under the passenger seat. I found a bypass harness. Question is, I have a maestro with the Kenwood. There must be 2lbs of wire behind my head unit, and I wouldn't even know where to start with that "bypass"

 

You shouldn't need to touch the wiring in the dash, just the stuff under the seat. I actually used some solid 16 gauge wire to make jumpers to test out the idea, then got this kit from AutoHarnessHouse: https://www.autoharnesshouse.com/41112.html

I'll see if I can find the wiring diagram I used.

 

Email James Taylor at tech12volt@gmail.com and he will get you squared away. Typically you scrap the stock amp and get harness adapters so you can hook your stock speaker wiring to your new amp. Shouldn’t need to do anything behind the dash other than RCAs out to amp.

 

These are the diagrams that'll get you the wire positions, but the colors probably won't line up.

 

Appreciate the help!! At this point my new Alpine amp is installed already. RCAs ran to the Kenwood for signal. However I also tapped into my factory(Aftermarket maestro) harness to get power to speakers. This is all behind the head unit. I've already spent a lot of time and money on it. Maybe I'll save that project for a rainy day. It kinda sucks though. I purposely bought a non jbl system because I thought it would be easier to upgrade without the hassle of external factory OEM amps. Boy was I wrong.. thanks again

 

This is my understand as well.
You need some kind of DSP to return the signal to full.
But if he replaced the HU and bypassed that amp, he should have a full signal.

@Nightstalker82

Where did you install the amp?
Did you run RCAs or speaker level inputs from your HU to the amp?
Is the signal still going thru the factory amp?
Did you run new speaker wires from the amp, I'm guessing you had too.

That harness usually connects where your factory amp is.
A lot of just pulled the factory amp and installed after market amp(s) in it's place.
Every connection needed is under the seat except the power line for the amp.

https://www.autoharnesshouse.com/41112.html

Wiring info here.
https://www.tundras.com/threads/upgrading-the-audio-2015-trd-pro.1199/#post-17824





The dash speakers run off the stock HU or your aftermarket if you connected the stock speaker wires when it was installed.
Left, right, and dual voice coil center (left and right).

If you get the Focals working correctly, try unplugging the side dash speakers (that will silence the center) and see if you like it before going any further..
BTW your speaker install looks nice..

 

If I understand everything correctly, the best thing you could do right now is take that harness, use @TRDFerguson wiring diagrams and bypass the factory amp.
Or run your own speaker wires from the amp to the doors.
But I'm not sure how you wired it.

Did you go
RCAs to the amp from the Alpine.
Speaker outputs from the amp back to the wiring behind the HU?
What did you do with the back doors?

There is plenty of room behind the HU, you just need to tuck it all up..

 

This is my setup:

Aside from the normal power wire,, remote and ground..RCAs to Kenwood from Alpine for signal. Alpine harness is cut and capped only at door speaker connections to bypass the for signal at RCAs. Alpine speaker outputs have wire ran to Maestro harness. The Maestro harness is basically the same as the factory harness coming in.

I don't see a maestro in there hehe. There ain't no more room...

 

I think we need to see picks from under your passenger seat....is the factory amp still there? If so that is likely the source of your issue. The only thing speaker related that will hook up in the dash behind the HU is where you clip off the the white and grey RCA speaker wire ends to wire into the dash speakers. Everything else speaker related for the doors will need to be tapped into the wiring harness that is plugged into the factory amp under the passenger seat if you are using factory wiring to run your door speakers. Here is a diagram for my Kenwood and hopefully yours is similar....my tweeters for my focal components are in the dash and when I first hooked them up, the dash speakers were not working because I didn’t have those 2 RCAS clipped and hooked into the front channel behind the HU (I also have the maestro). But your 4 channels from the amp will need to be hooked directly into the the wiring harness under the passenger seat to get the correct sound going to your doors.

 

Thanks, but I'm just call it a day for now. Basically, I now know that the factory amp is hindering the performance. I didn't even know there was a factory amp in the first place. I'm using an alpine power pack that is stashed in my glove box. I tied into my speaker wires from the factory harness(meastro) behind the dash for my output. Just for reference, I did not touch anything under the seat. The snipped RCAs you pointed out were done on the maestro harness on install. I installed the Maestro and Kenwood like 4 months ago without one hiccup.. Everything worked pefect. I know its something simple, if my Kenwood made a huge difference in sound after install. I'll most likely mess with it sometime down the road. I have heard just way to many wiring setups and variables. I'm over it for right now haha. Help is greatly appreciated though. Sound is still pretty good, just not so much from the focal tweets. I still get sound out of my dash tweeters. Sound is still better than stock.

 

Dang! I checked in here to make spam threads go away and found great info!

 

yes that’s your issue. Order the harness adapters for tech12volts, completely remove the amp under the passenger seat and wire your speakers accordingly and then you won’t have an issue. (Or shouldn’t). Make sure to run a new remote wire though directly from the head unit....when I used the remote wire at the factory amp location I would get weird power pulses cussing the amp to pop but other than running power, remote, and ground under the passenger seat it’s simply Hooking up the correct wires from the harness to your amp the the 4 doors.

 

Just a heads up;
You could have installed that wanna-be amp under the passenger's seat with the harness suggested, using all the existing factory wiring.
In the process bypassing, and REMOVING, the factory amp that you didn't even know was there..
You wouldn't even have had to run a power line from the battery, and you'd still have all your glove box space.

Yes there is plenty of room behind the HU if you know what you're doing,
I even have my XM tuner in there.
Perhaps not knowing what you are doing is part of your problem.

Next time do your research before you install equipment.

Good luck to you, Sir.

 

Sorry if this was already covered but, it sounds like you already bypassed the stock amp correct?

If so, do you remember if your passive crossovers have a +3 or -3 db setting for your tweeters?

Have you checked your head unit setting crossovers? Specifically a low pass filter set to around 2000-3000 hz.

Also, you could double check your amp for the same crossover setting.

The only crossover filter you might use for your components will be a high pass filter.

 

[/QUOTE]
Hoping these wire are not final setup.

 

Did you check to see if your speaker is centered in the opening in the door panel?

 

You need more power. Simple as that. Any high end speaker eats power. That amp is rated power at max of 14.4v. Our trucks are regulated to 13.3-13.5. So you’re only getting maybe 30-35 watts to those speakers. You need far more power to reap any benefit of them.

 

I don't think power is his issue. I'm running the same amp installed under the passenger seat (factory amp bypassed). My ears hurt at half volume on the factory HU. OP says his mid has plenty of volume, but the tweeter is attenuated. That tells me 1) highs are being clipped by the Kenwood HU via a filter 2) crossover not set correctly.

 

Are you running the same component set though? My 3 ways eat power for days. Throw 50 watts at them and they’ll barely move and you’ll clip the amp just to get the mid moving. The speakers are under powered or the amp/headunit is set to low pass. Car audio is not that difficult.

 

I'm fairly certain those crossover's have 3 optional ways to wire your tweeters.

There should be something similar to:
-3db
0db
+3db

 

it’s just a switch on the crossover itself. No other way to wire the tweeter to the cross over other than + and -

 

yeah my dumbass didn't check to see if there is an external amp. I mean, I didn't get the premium sound so you got to cut me some slack for not knowing.

Big thanks to the help I received on here

Yeah, I'm sure the factory amp is hindering performance since it is still there. I'm just going to order the harness from tech 12. I'm gonna put everything back to "normal" and just take it from there. I'm just gonna remove the factory amp under the seat and place my new one there with the harness.

A few people mentioned that I was pretty much clueless when it comes to car audio. That is hardly the case, although it is freaking hilarious that this mickey mouse amp gave me such a headache. Here are some install pics from my previous 2017 f150 with non premium sound. There was no "external" amp. Those were found only in the premium sound models. This is a full custom job performed by me and only me. It took about 2 months to complete. I first amplified my highs, then threw a powered sub just to get by at first. When it was all said and done, I was running one 12 inch w6

***factory 8 inch syn3 retained, JBL gto front and rear speakers at 2.3 ohms, JL audio RD 400/4, JL audio RD 500/1, LC7i, brand new kicker 16 Guage wire ran to all speakers (that was actually the hardest part). I have since sold my f150, but there is still a video on it on YouTube under Night Stalker.***

 

The wiring schematics on these trucks isn't the most intuitive, and there are about 3 or 4 different configurations out there that I'm aware of... So don't sweat not knowing exactly what was going on in this situation. Also, there are about 50 million different ways to upgrade the sound system and make it sound great. At the end of the day, if you get it working the way you want it, awesome. Don't worry about other people on here making assumptions on your knowledge or what you "should have done instead."

 

Hoping these wire are not final setup.[/QUOTE]
Why not?