The Great HU Install of 2023

The Alpine sounds better to me than the factory JBL head unit. I agree that some tips for sound adjustments at least to get a good baseline would be beneficial. Anyone think they've nailed the tuning for a factory system and want to post up their adjustments?

 

USPS decided to fold the screen protector I ordered in half to stuff in the box.

 

Which did you go with? I bought the one from trail grid pro.

 

It’s the one made by Alpine. Found it on Amazon.


Alpine KAE-HF11DA Anti-Reflective...

$35 Alpine KAE-HF11DA Anti-Reflective Screen Protector for iLX-F511

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09XFGVXWF?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

 

Does the braided red/yellow wire from the OBD2 plug go to anything?

 

No

 

I can’t like this post. Is the rest of the system all stock after the headunit?

 

Mine is all stock currently

 

Mine is not. I’d love to hear from someone that has all stock and got it tuned correctly

 

Tuning can either be objective (hitting a target house curve, nailing the imaging and staging)or subjective (has a visceral impact that just makes you wanna rock out with your cock out).

Most of the OEM integrated amps/drives will struggle with objective measurements as there is just not enough control, and the quality of the drivers along with installation, will simply not allow it.

as for a subjective review. What do we all feel is lacking? Is it muddy sounding, is it lacking in high frequency? Low Frequencies? Just flat sounding?

 

I’d say yeah probably lacking in low frequency and flat. The sound just doesn’t sound rich and all and it’s almost like it’s only coming out of the front. I’m gonna go sit in it right now and see try xm vs radio and Bluetooth to see if it all sounds bad.

 

After my install I thought my speakers were blown… until I played some tracks off USB and found out it was a source issue (Spotify via CarPlay). It took a bit of doing, but I’ve got everything tuned to where it sounds about as good as it did with my old Kenwood. Still could be better, but it’s not a disappointment by any means. You should be able to get the stock speakers sounding decent, as in OEM-plus.

 

Try a usb cable and play a sparital audio song out of Apple Music (if possible)
Use a wired connection at the least. Wireless will loose some quality. The end goal will be for everything to sound better. Also in the audio settings there is a Media expander this helps bring music back from the depths of compression hell. Mine is set to 1

 

I didn’t have much luck with the media expander settings. It seemed to introduce some other artifacts in songs… hard to explain and it’s been a few weeks since I’ve played with that setting though.

 

Hmmm, shes not wanting to connect on the wired connection

 

Yeah I’ve gone back and forth with it. For Spotify the 1 setting seems to work. I am also using wireless Carplay 99% of the time. My eq settings are almost flat for the exception of a dip at 6k of 3db and I roll off the super low end on the subs.

 

If you have a non-JBL and everything but the HU is stock you might consider disconnecting the middle dash speaker, or the side dash tweeters, or all 3. It’s an easy thing to test. The HU drives those speakers so after you upgrade it they’re getting a lot more power than with the factory unit. Disconnecting them and compensating by turning up the door speakers might give you better sound balance in a stock system.

 

This is very true.

 

You just need to be careful with impedance here… I think that we may have discussed this in another thread, but the speakers are set up to provide a 4-ohm load on each channel, so taking one or more components out could/will strain the HU.

 

Well, this made all the difference. Was set on flat and sounded like shit and had no bass.

 

I need to move mine back to flat and pull some highs out. The component tweeters in my setup are way too bright so I’ve had to bump up the lows more than I’d like.

 

If you find a preset that gets you close, flip to the Basic EQ and you can tweak as needed for the front/rear/sub channels, and not have to deal with the per-corner tuning that you see in Advanced.

 

So many different system variations make providing a baseline tune difficult and potentially fool hearted as there is always a risk component failure if done improperly.

just keep in mind when using the eq, for every +3 db you are adding 2x the amount of energy to the driver, which can either push your amplifier into clipping or generate excessive thermal/mechanical energy that the driver can’t handle.

So caution is paramount.

 

I am but a simple Texan that drives a truck. Can you use smaller words and maybe some crayons to make my dumbass understand. Should I not use these presets on my stock equipment? Am I putting the HU in jeopardy? Are y’all going to talk me into diving all with upgraded speakers and amp?

 

That’s what I did. Dropped another ~$1k on door speakers, a 5 channel amp and a 10” sub for behind the back seat because of this buy. I justified it in my head since I saved over $1k on the HU itself. I’m 100% happy with my audio now.

 

My buddy got in my Tundra yesterday to hear the new exhaust. I turned up the audio otw back to the house and he said “ holy fuhk this truck sounds awesome”

 

Replacing all the components is the way.

 

You’re good to use the presets. Run it. You may blow a speaker at some point and that should be motivation to replace the rest of it.

 

Whenever I do pull the trigger on a new HU, this is my plan. I can order 'non JBL' and just replace everything, instead of worrying about getting a unit that fits the existing, apparently not so great, amp.