2019 SR5 build - Audiofrog GB 3 way, JL Vxi & HD amps, and JL Stealthbox

Full setup was installed by me, and then professionally tuned by a guy I highly recommend in the NYC Metro area. I started out with the goal being a low cost full build, wasn't happy and kept upgrading to the point i'm at with it now. I'll start with how it is now and then fill in the timeline at the end.

Current setup starts with a Kenwood DDX9905 that I virtually always run on Carplay on. From there the signal goes to a JL Vxi 800/8 amp/DSP that runs the Audiofrog 3 way fully active. 2 channels power my Audiofrog GB10 tweeters, 2 channels to the AF GB25 midrange , and final 4 channels are bridged to power the AF GB60 midwoofers.

The Vxi provides a pair of DSP processed RCA outputs that feed into a JL HD750/1 that powers a loaded JL Stealthbox, a smaller sealed enclosure with a pair of JL 10TW3 subwoofers. A JL DRC-205 remote allows independent control of DSP master volume as well as subwoofer volume.

All wiring is copper, no CCA for me. Power and grounds are 0awg going into distribution blocks with 4awg to each amp. None of the factory speaker wiring was used. Techflexed Knukonceptz speaker wire was run from the amp to each speaker. Factory steering integration via idatalink Maestro RR, which allowed me to reprogram the steering wheel controls so that up/down is volume up/down and left/right is skip forward/back. The left and right to change volume is so backwards and was driving me crazy.

Doors were heavily sound deadened with CLD tiles from Noico (not recommended at all), and then some much nicer Resonix. The outer door panel (closest to the outside of the car) was pretty much completely covered, and the inner skin was spot treated making sure to use a couple tiles to cover the access hole after removing the factory plastic. The door panel itself needed a bit of CLD and would really benefit in a big way from some decoupler and larger pieces of foam for some areas.

More details along with the photos:
Fuse holder mounted to a piece of ABS plastic. Piece of plastic is mounted using the factory threaded post.


Harness for the Maestro RR. Top (black) connector goes to the Kenwood, white bundle all receive plugs from the car, and bottom harness is for backup camera. The bullet connectors on the harness are for remote turn on, a supplemental ground, and power/ground for a front camera.



All the speaker wires and input RCAs from the Kenwood source. All wires are covered in techflex, labeled, and a little red heat shrink to easily differentiate pos/neg, although that mattered much less after I added the XT60 connectors.




GB10, GB25, GB60. These thing are incredible and come with a ton of very useful hardware for custom mounting or creating pods or something of that sort. The GB60 midwoofer is especially impressive, weighing over 2lbs each and with a one way xmax of 3/8". The owner of the company is very accessible via email, FB groups, forums, etc. Guy is very hands on and willing to answer questions about install, tuning, or whatever else.



GB10 tweeters were mounted in a set of factory JBL sail panels. Cut out the grille mesh and slowly grind away at the plastic until the GB10 fits in snugly and then secure from the rear with a little piece of scrap plastic.




Both sails all finished up. Big lump is a capacitor installed not to act as a crossover, but only to serve as a safety measure in the event of any DSP issues.

Left side GB10 installed. Not perfectly on axis by any means but infinitely easier/cheaper than a more custom mount to get them on axis.



Mounts I made for the GB25 midrange to fit into the factory dash locations. Used thin ABS plastic, maybe 1/8" but might have been thinner. Bottom piece was routed to match the factory dash speaker with another abs ring glued on top for a little more rigidity and space for the bottom of the speaker to clear the AC ducts below. The grey ring on the inside is a thin strip of foam to help seal the speaker to the mount. The dash locations are from ideal and create all kinds of peaks with the reflections off the windshield but ultimately my tuner guy was able to get them sounding incredible.




GB25 mounted with a foam ring to force the sound out of the grill instead of into the dash.


GB60 as compared to the factory 6x9


GB60 mounted with foam and a splash guard. For the splash guard, I grabbed a big pvc gutter grate thing from home depot, cut it in half, painted it black, and screwed it onto the back. Had to make sure it cleared the window and all, which it did without issue.




Last pair of speakers had the wire soldered onto the terminals. Here i'm adding the XT60 connectors. Edit: those green female screw mounts are useless for any kind of legit aftermarket speaker. With the weight of a real speaker mount alone you're probably well past what they're meant to carry. I pulled them out and used nuts and bolts to mount the GB60 setup seen above to the door. Each speaker with the heavy duty mount probably weighs about 4 lbs and you want an airtight bond to the door.



I wanted to fit both amps under a single seat and the plug styles used for the Vxi made that a bit difficult and forced me to get creative. I ended up stacking the amps, mounting the HD to a piece of ABS bent to sit flat on the floor while using the factory amp mounting holes. The Vxi was mounted to a super thin piece of ABS, and that piece of ABS was then mounted onto the HD amp. I mounted the stack under the passenger seat and did have to flip the 3 small plugs on the right side of the seat to get enough clearance. Power and ground distribution blocks are mounted on the front and rear of the lower ABS piece.





JL Stealthbox. Fast and easy, makes for some clean sound but leaves a little be desired, likely because of the absolutely tiny amount of airspace. RTA of the truck confirmed there to be very very little low low end output (20-40hz or so).




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Some of the old....
I believe this was the very first round of purchases I made with the goal of keeping it fairly low budget. The Kenwood DDX9905S and dash kit are the only things remaining from this.


Rockford 4 channel and monoblocks mounted to a board that I didn't consider how to actually mount to the truck. Was a short lived setup powering the Alpine front components and rear coax and RF subs.


After the above setup I first changed out the 2 RF amps for a single Alpine PDX-V9, and the Alpine speakers for Morel Tempo Ultra components up front and Morel Tempo Integra coax in the rear. I believe my next step was to add a JL TWK-88 DSP.

Then I came across a good deal on some used gear and changed the front Morel Tempo components to a pair of Morel Hybrid 602 components, and changed the PDX-V9 out for a JL XD1000/5v2. It was at this point I decided to go active 2 way up front plus the rear coax, and added a JL xd400/4 into the mix.

I then decided to go ahead and spring for a professional tune of my setup and was blown away with how much better it was and how great it sounded. Running the front active allowed for some perfect time alignment and he set the back speakers up as differential rear fill, bandpassing them and adding a good bit of delay - the end result was true rear "fill" instead of rear sound. Ultimately I decided I preferred the sound without the rear fill, removed the rear speakers, upgraded the amps, changed the front stage to all Audiofrog and thats where I am now.

JL XD1000/5v2, JL XD400v2, and JL Twk-88 DSP. Fitting them all under the passenger seat was a bit of a challenge but somehow made it work.

 

Adding a reply instead of adding to my book above.

Regarding speaker mounts - spend the money on some good ones if you're running any sort of decent speakers. I initially bought I think Scosche and Metra mounts, both of which are way too thin and weak.

Cheap ones are hollow on the back and generally very thin and light. The good ones on the bottom are solid throughout and won't flex or resonate.


Morel Hybrid midwoofer in a way too cheap and crappy mount. 1/8" plastic and is hollow where the speaker mounts in. The good mount has a good 1/4"+ of solid plastic throughout the whole lower part that marries to the door and holds the mounting hardware and is solid where the speaker mounts in.

 

You setup is phenomenal and attention to detail is immaculate.
What mounts did you end up with in the front doors?

 

I

I'm also interested in buying the thicker speaker mount adapters. Where did you buy them?

 

Fabulous system! I have the Audiofrog GS series (passive, not active), and can only imagine how great your system sounds.

 

I have the same speaker mounts. You get them from the company whose name shall not be uttered on this forum. Starts with taco....

 

Are those taco tunes?

 

Great looking setup! Glad to see some more people using some audiofrog gear. I'm running a set of AF 6.5" components and am very happy with them. I need to add the twk88 so i can tune my setup.

 

Sadly, yes. As awful as they are as a company and as awful as 99% of what they sell is, the speaker mounts are legit. Soundsgoodstereo.com has some decent looking mounts, but don't look to be as good as the ones from the crap company mentioned above.

 

Why is taco tunes bad? I've never heard before.

 

I like your build. I'm currently gathering my audio equipment and building my subwoofer box for my double cab. I'm going with Focal speakers and subs , Alpine amp and Daisata Android unit.

 

My big issue with them is 99% of what they sell is really, really low end cheap Chinese crap that they slap their own name on sell for 10x what it should be. I haven't had big problem with them personally but from what i've read they don't stand behind anything they sell, and generally just bad to their customers. I'm sure someone who has been on the forums a bit longer could give more detail but customer service issues aside, most of their products are overpriced junk.

 

I was thinking of ordering the speaker adapters. I have the 3 way Focal Evo Flax 6.5 components. I bought the Scoche from Amazon but they look cheap.

 

I had no issues ordering/receiving the speaker adapters I used from them. Even if its not from them, I would definitely look at something better than the scosche ones....those Focals certainly deserve better than that! A couple vendors sell the MDF mounts which aren't a bad option but you would need to make sure to put paint or bedliner or something on them so they don't rot away from the moisture in the doors. I prefer ABS/HDPE or whatever so that rot or other degradation is of no concern at all.

 

Thanks

 

Awesome setup! Curious how many hours you have tied into this thing (including upgrades and such) ? I did a quick stereo upgrade but am curious how much time it really takeS to do a full blown stereo with deadening and wire runs

 

Real hard to say. I did as much as I could in the cool indoors listening to podcasts or whatever and taking my time. Once i'm outside in the heat I'm much more focused on keeping things moving.

I could do it again much faster now but the first time around took me some thinking on figuring out to stack the amps and make that work, lots of measuring and heating and bending and reheating and rebending to get the right angles for the amp rack, etc. Doing it again I could probably do all of it in 12-15 hours, whereas the first time around probably closer to 20.

 

Incredible install. Any plans for CCF and MLV?

 

I try to get ahold of these speaker adapter through taco tunes and it seems impossible to get ahold of someone there. They have awful reviews and customer service. Looks like I'm going to build my own.

 

Why do you need to get hold of someone? You can order them on their website. I placed my online order, and it shipped a day later via priority mail.

 

@aparker813 How are you pulling signal for the mono amp? It almost looks like the RCA's are coming from the VX

 

I only wanted to talk to someone because the reviews are horrible. Many have placed orders and got burnt.

 

That is correct. The VXI provides a pair of RCA outputs that are controlled by the DSP allowing me to adjust time delay and EQ on the subs. I like the setup because I don't have to find room for an outboard DSP but my full system still gets to benefit from the extra control provided by a DSP.

 

Nice. I'd really like to add a 3" driver to my audiofrog components and run 6 speakers up front actively crossed over and the rears passively (is that what you did?)
I'd ditch my jl 900/5 and have to get a dedicated mono amp like yours.

 

I have the front 3 way active and then nothing in the rear doors. My first DSP round I had Morel Hybrid Components up front (active) and Morel Tempo Integra components in the rear setup as differential rear fill for a true "fill." I ended up removing the rears because even with the differential setup, bandpassed, and serious delay, they really didn't add anything beneficial to the sound. It wasn't so much that it pulled the stage back as it just didn't add anything. The active 3 ways also seemed to be a good bit louder than front 2 way + rear fill.

I'm a big proponent of not running rear fill at all in these trucks, and an even bigger proponent of NOT running components in the rear. Where the rear tweeter mounts in the door, its much closer to your ears than the front tweeter is and pulls the sound stage back a whole lot in a very noticeable way.

 

I never thought about not having rear speakers.....interesting idea.

 

Amazing build! Thanks for sharing!

 

Try fading to the front and see what you think. Will sound strange at first because you're so used to hearing that sound coming from behind you but give it a little time.

Its an old but accurate way to look at it - when you go to a concert, where are all the speakers? Even in huge arenas they keep them all in front to help with staging. If you're after sound quality and get timing dialed in for a driver's seat tune and play certain tracks you can hear different parts of the song coming from different areas of the dash in front of you. Picture below is from the IASCA demo disc illustrates what I'm yammering about. With most rear speaker setups they're going to pull the stage way back so instead of the instruments being in front of you on the dashboard, they're coming from about even with the 2 front seatbacks. If you set them up as differential rear fill with bandpassing and massive delays that problem is mostly alleviated but just doesn't compliment things (in my subjective opinion).

If you want to stay in the Frog family the GS25 is a direct drop in for Toyota 2.5" dash speakers. Its a wideband driver so not ideal for 3 way but definitely has the frequency range to do the job and get all the higher frequencies out of the lower front door speakers and stop the beaming. If you think you're going to upgrade the rest of the front eventually go GB25 now and upgrade the rest later. GB is not a direct drop in but doesn't require any crazy modification either. The GB25 would be a good start on the upgrades since it ends up handling a pretty large part of the sound range, around 400 to 3500 for me. There's a guy on the diyma forums that is an authorized vendor and offers some pretty substantial discounts on brand new, fully warrantied and authorized equipment. Let me know if you want his name and i'll find it.

 

thanks for dropping some knowledge on me!
I'm always on the hunt for a good deal....i guess it would depend on the price if i would upgrade from the gs to the gb's.

I really need to decide how i want to proceed with my system:
The next thing i need to do is setup time correction. I really notice that when i move my head towards the center of the truck is sounds a whole lot better. I can either buy a twk88 and try to time correct my passive components, or go ham and get the vx800/8i and ditch the fix86 and hd900/5 and get a mono amp to go with it. the vx has all the same correction levels as the twk?
I could also get a different processor and run two 4ch amps and a mono, but space is getting tight.

 

I love sharing what I know about things I love, and I always hated asking a simple question and being told "its been discussed, use the search feature" so I think I tend to go overboard with my rambles.

It definitely seems like a DSP is in your feature, and really should be if you're after SQ (which it seems like you are). My research of DSPs and the software each uses led me to either JL or Helix. I went with JL as its simpler and much less expensive and does everything I need. I started with XD amps and a TWK and then went to the VXI and monoblock HD - basically exact same adjustments on TWK and VXI, with the VXI adding a few more features and options.

Doing time alignment on a passive component set will help, but since they're pretty far apart (10" difference to the ear for passenger tweeter and 6.5") and you can only align to one or the other its only going to get you so close. Going full active allows you to time align each individual driver and get the staging dead on perfect. You also have the advantage of being able to apply EQ filters to each individual speaker which doesn't seem like a big deal but can make a world of difference in sound quality. to illustrate that point I've included a screen shot of the EQ filters applied to my left tweeter (EQ1) and right tweeter (EQ2). Pic makes very obvious that each side needed totally different filters applied. Trying to fix a dip at 1k on the left and a peak at 1k on the right with a global eq filter isn't going to be very helpful or resolve the issue on either side. The DSP allows you to give each speaker the exact filters it needs to match your desired curve.

Unfortunately I do believe you would need to keep the Fix in the chain unless or until you replaced the headunit. The VXI does allow for input EQ filters that *may* allow you to drop the Fix, but doing so uses up what would otherwise be the DSP controlled output RCAs that you would be running to the subwoofer amp. If you do decide to go VXi, I was able to get my 800/8 for around $1100 brand new and fully warrantied by calling sonicelectronix.com and asking for their best price. Was that simple and saved me I think $300?

Something I meant to say about rear fill and applies generally - my rambles and suggestions are only my own and other people with better systems and more knowledge might totally disagree (though I kinda doubt it). Some people don't like time aligned audio at all and want components in every door blasting as loud as possible. Try things out and stick with whatever sounds good to you since you're the one listening to it. My ears think active 3 way front without any rear fill sounds great but you may prefer a passive 2 way front stage with passive 2 way rear stage - its all subjective preference. Rereading my last post on rear fill sounded to me like I was saying rear fill or rear components are an absolute no and anyone who wants them is someone wrong and thats not what I was intending.