Need audio help!

I got a local stereo shop to hook up an aftermarket amp to new door speakers.

Doesn’t sound right. Has a loud hiss at 0 volume. Front 6x9s have no midbass to them and sound muddy.
The back door speakers are way louder than the front also. They actually sound decent.

He ran the line out converters from the FACTORY amp signal it looks like.

When I unplug the factory amp harnesses, only center dash speaker works.

That tells me he took the signal from the head unit, to the factory amp, to my aftermarket amp.

He told me to come back and he’ll fix whatever but I’m just looking for advice on what to tell him where he screwed up.

The factory amp shouldn’t even be still hooked up right?!

This is on a 17’ crew max non jbl

 

No offense, but that looks like some serious amateur ghetto wiring there. And those "line out converters" do not look secured.

Anyway, the OEM dash speakers run directly off the OEM head unit and are not wired to the OEM amp. So that would explain hearing dash audio even though you may have the amp unhooked. Is it possible that your stereo guy only hooked up the new amp to the rear speakers and the OEM amp remained hooked up the to fronts? That would explain the volume disparity between the front and the rear.

I'm not sure why you would even want to use the factory amp for ANYTHING, if you are going to use an aftermarket amp instead. The "line out converters" could, and SHOULD be hooked up directly to the OEM h/u. And if that were my system, I would go with an better audio processor like a AudioControl or something of that nature. Those line out converters are manufactured by who?

Anyway, without a wiring diagram, I certainly cannot make heads or tails of what is going on from your pictures. If I were you, I would remove the OEM amp outright. Matter of fact, I would gut the entire damned system and start over. The OEM door speakers are utter shit. And the hiss: does it get louder with higher RPM's? If so, then you probably have a "ground loop". Looking at that wiring job, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the appropriate gauge wiring was not used or properly grounded.

I'm happy to help you as much as I can.

 

What I've learned from my short time in the Tundra world...

• Factory amp front outputs will only send lows/mids to the doors, so if he's tapped the *output* side of the factory amp for the high-low converter, that's all you'll be hearing, rears send full range (IIRC)
• For the rears being louder, that should just be a gain adjustment on the aftermarket amp
• The center dash speaker (and corner dash speakers) are wired together, and are powered directly from the headunit
• I would suggest switching the amp for the door speakers to one that can accept speaker-level inputs, instead of dealing with high-low converters
• It bothers me more than I can describe that he has the wires from the speedwire wrapping around the inputs to the high-low converters. I understand this is purely aesthetics
• Personally, if you paid someone to do it, this is abysmal

 

wow. If you can get your money back I would. This person claims to be a car audio professional? That is a hack job and a half.

 

I paid right at 600 bucks for base model kicker door speakers and just an amp install. I feel like I’ve been raped and deciding on what action to take. Very ill about the whole thing. I installed a kicker key amp to a 17 Tacoma and it sounded amazing. I should’ve done it myself with a little research but I’ve gotten too lazy lol. Lesson learned though

The amp I got him to install was a jl audio 5 channel 75 watts rms x 4

 

I thought the guy was going to take the factory amp out. I had no idea it even had one at first, with it being non jbl. I’ve been trying to figure out exactly how he ran the wiring.
The hiss is mostly noticeable when the volume is off. It doesn’t get louder with the rpms.
All I had was a lc2i at the time. Didn’t want to spend a fortune but seems I did anyway for a crackpot job.
Hopefully I can just get my money back and take it to a more reputable shop

 

For what it's worth, I have the Kicker KEY200.4 in my 4Runner (powering Hertz door speakers, Kickers in the dash, and RF's in the hatch) with amazing results, and will be doing the KEY200.4 in the Tundra this weekend (Kenwood eXcelon 7" components in the front doors, Hertz Dieci coax in the rear, disconnecting dash/center channel) with a pair of Kicker Hideaway 10's.

Without the subs, including wiring adapters, that's still sub $600; if you are comfortable doing any of it yourself, get your money back, and have him solder that harness back together.... In this day and age, you can buy all the adapters to make a plug and play harness for $20, there's no reason not to

 

Hey, I'm 51 years old and we have all been there at one time or another in our life.... But on a $40-50k vehicle, you really do NOT want to cut corners. Yeah, I would first go back to that hack that did that installation and see what $$ you can get back because, that looks like something Cousin Eddie's drunk little brother did after smoking a joint. Then come back here and we will help you put something together, with your budget, that will sound bad ass!

 

That’s basically what I did with my Tacoma. Bought the harnesses and had to repin a few but used a forum like this one to do it myself. I’m gonna see about getting my money back for sure

 

I appreciate that man! Basically the guy wasnt going to give me my money back without charging an arm and leg to take it out.
Told me that you HAVE to run the signal off the factory amp cause the signal wasn’t strong enough to run it to the amp by the head unit alone.... yeah, lesson learned. Next time I’m doing everything myself.
Buying a new head unit this weekend from crutchfield and putting it in myself. Maybe I can make some sense of what to do with his monstrosity.

 

Have you yet decided, what brand of H/U that you are going with?

 

Not to derail the thread but I have a brand new

$130 AudioControl LC7i 6-Channel Line Output Converter with AccuBASS

AudioControl LC7i for sale in the marketplace.

 

Good call.....that would have been my suggestion.


Run rca's from the head unit to the amp, installer probably set it up using the factory speaker wires so you'll be done with it.

Take a pic of the jl amp and how it's wired.

 

That s been for sale for a while hasn t it?

 

Maybe 2 weeks or so. The console safe has been listed for a while.

 

Going with the 300$ alpine CarPlay unit on crutchfield. Now I’m trying to figure out how to bypass the factory amp mess

 

The round black speed wire in the pic is what is coming off the amp now. I gotta figure out how to bypass the factory amp now when I put the head unit in

 

What was the reason you picked Alpine?
IMHO Pioneer and Kenwood make a better Carplay friendly HU for the Tundra..

I've had both and prefer Kenwood over Pioneer's touch screen lag..
Wireless Carplay is the only way to go..

Pioneer..



Kenwood..

You'll need to run 3 pair of RCA cables from the HU to wherever you plan to put your amp.
Unfortunately that means taking a lot of the dash apart to do it properly...

There are several threads on this forum and others on how to bypass, AKA REMOVE, the factory amp..

Good luck....

 

Well mostly because it was the cheaper brand name one and I wanted the kenwood but I can’t find it in stock anywhere.

As for bypassing the amp I’m just concerned on how to bypass what all the stereo shop crimped because I think he ran the signal from the aftermarket amp back through the factory amp harness. May just have to mess with it or run new wires back to door speaker just to figure it out.

 

Please say who this hack is and where his shop is located so people can avoid him. I certainly hope you blow up his reviews on the internet and post some pics of his $h!t work.

 

Just remove the factory amp.
There are a couple posts on here with the wiring schematics. You just need to get rid of those black boxes and tie the "speed wire" into the factory wire and be done.....after you run rca's from the new deck to your amp.
What model amp is it?

 

Shop in meridian, ms called stereo plus. Yes I’m gonna blast him. I called him out in front of a shop full of customers yesterday lol

 

That's a good amp, so you've got that.
You can still make this work so don't give up.

Did they replace the door speakers and add a sub?

 

By-passing the amp is not a big deal. Unplug it and remove it. As for the speaker wires...... wait a sec. Are replacing the door speakers or retaining the OEM's? I do not remember if you stated that and do not feel like re-reading the entire thread. Anyway, if you are keeping the OEM speakers, than we need to find you a wiring diagram so that you can get the right speaker wires hooked up at the door jams. If you are replacing with aftermarket, just run new, oxygen free copper wires in a heavier gauge as the door wire is a very tiny gauge and utter crap for running aftermarket speakers. I am not familiar with what is available in the way of wiring harness's for Alpine. I'm a Kenwood guy and the iDatalink TO2 harness is what I used and it made installation an f'ng dream! Anyway, I am assuming that Crutchfield will get you set up with wiring harness. Any questions, you are free to PM me and I will help you all I can.

 

Thank you sir! I did replace the door speakers and dash speakers other than the middle one. I probably will just run new speaker wire.

 

Just replaced the door speakers. I probably will add a sub later. Haven’t decided what route to go with that yet.

 

What speakers did they install?

 

Just some kicker ds lol. May start over with those as well.

 

I would test them out before you go ahead and replace them. I bet once you get a head unit in there it'll sound much better.
I would plan on getting a single sub. You aren't gonna have a lot of bass.