3rd Gen non JBL sound system Upgrade Info

The quick connector is good if you plan on moving the box around. Most of the time I used to drill a hole in the box run the wire through and silicone both sides. You can still disconnect the speaker inside the box or disconnect the wire from the amp. The quick connector makes it a little more convenient. Most subs don't come with the grilles. Surprisingly my Hertz came with one, but I'm not going to use it because my sub will be downfiring.

 

So, I am waiting on the replacement factory integration 17' harness... looks like it might be a while before it gets here. They prepared the shipment immediately Friday, but it doesn't look like it actually left the premises yet. Dammit. Also waiting on carpet and the sub box terminal fitting from Crutchfield. Anyway, I pulled the seats and am planning the rest of the job and here is what I am thinking. The double cab seat is totally useless for humans, so I am planning to install a 2" angle... probably aluminum... across the back of the bins into the seat mounts. See yellow strip in photo below. Then mount two 24" piano hinges on that and make a pair of plywood or MDF lids for the bins. This will have to add an inch or 2 vertically in order for the lids to clear the welded in tabs at the back. The fronts of the new lids will get some feet or a lip to make them level. Covered in carpet.

Then since the back panels will be visible, I won't mount the amp there, but instead mount it vertically next to the sub attached to one of those bin dividers, maybe with a thin piece of plywood added for support. This will use up some of the storage space but not all of it. And I am going to also get a swing case for the bed to expand my storage.

All plans subject to change until it happens. LOL.

 

I don't remember where I've seen it, but someone with a third gen double cab removed the seats (maybe the frame too) to build a whole storage setup in the back seat. It was an expedition setup and had all kinds of storage bins on drawer slides and hinged compartments. I think it was modular and could be removed if necessary. If you're set on ditching the seats, maybe just build a center console to go in the middle. That way you could mount the sub and the amps all in one place and not have to worry about fitting it under the seat. But I guess that all depends on what functionality you're going for. You've got tons of options for sure.

 

That's what happens, same with me. Instead of fiberglassing a box into the plastic storage bin this past weekend, I decided to go a different route. Now you can see what I meant if you wanted to take your seats out and have a nice flat base to build additional storage in.

 

Here's a couple of examples

 

That looks great but my goals are more modest. I am shooting for a sound close to what I had in my Tacoma with the shallow 10 incher. Nice, tight, but not overwhelming bass. Did you make that box or is that one of the commercial offerings? And that sub looks like it is big enough to make the Tundra really quake.

 

Yeah, there are lots of these out there, but again, more than what I looking for. I am going to DIY some plywood lids for the bins with an alu angle in the seat mounts and stainless steel piano hinges. I don't need locking and I want to keep access to those small footwell areas behind the seats.

 

I'm not sure how much more modest I could get It looks OEM as if it had a Hybrid battery. I had my old 3rd Gen Tacoma 10 inch stealth box just lying in the bin until I did this. I haven't made any adjustments to my equalizer yet, but this 12 is a little more boomy and a little less punchier than the JL 10. It definitely has more bottom end. This sub is only 3 inches deep, it's comparable to the JL TW3 series and it came with a grille to boot.

 

Just throwing out some ideas

 

Did you build that box? Pretty challenging with all those odd angles and protrusions.

 

I could have, but I got a smoking deal of less than $300 shipped for this box. The only angles are for the floor cutouts, it's basically a square box and on one end it curved to match the contour of the frame. If you have a router table it's very easy to make those cuts opposed to a jig saw. The top is easy, cut a board down to approximate size, lay it on the frame and trace underneath with a pencil or marker. If I would have bought 2 sheets of 3/4 mdf and a sheet of 5/8 mdf from Home Depot it would have cost me about $160 and probably the better part of 2 days to build. I had originally planned on leaving the bin in place and making a fiberglass mold and securing the top to it, but my woofer would have been upfiring. This was a very cost effective solution for me since I just had to remove the bin, wire the sub and drop it in.

 

Quick update... I got the sub assembled and set in place. Struggled a bit with the carpeting on the ends, but it will be concealed under new bin lid. I also pulled the rear panels and figured out where and how I am mounting the amp. I fabricated a sheet metal bracket and bolted that onto the amp, ground the protruding screws down to small nubs, added some weatherstrip. The bracket has a tab with a hole in it that will get bolted onto the rear panel with the existing OEM 10mm bolt that holds the panel in place. I made an 8"x2" cut in the floor of the pocket in the panel... and made a 3d printed beauty ring... for the wiring to come up to the amp. While the amp settings are accessible from the top. The panel and the amp are not yet back in the truck as I am waiting for the beauty ring to finish printing. Plus, it is raining. And the replacement harness from TT just arrived so I have everything I need to connect and go live soon. Only long lead item is a 2" x 1 1/2" alu angle to mount to the mounts for the removed rear seats. That's where the hinges and new bin lids (I still need to make) will attach. This is all a bit of work. LOL. And I will still need to get around to the main speakers one of these days... or months.

 

A secret to the carpet, if you wrap the carpet on the box like you would a gift box (triangular shaped folds) you can use a straight razor blade to trim the excess. Carpet is pretty forgiving and it will stretch a little bit if you have a small gap. Then use one side of the scissor blade to "comb" the seam and you shouldn't ever see the seams. On a corner edge, use the scissors at an angle to the edge to cut. Since you pulled the seats are you going to remove the seat belt fasteners?

 

LOL... wrapping Christmas packages... another thing I can never get right. I am more of a mechanic and that sort of crafty stuff has always eluded me. Not sure yet about the seatbelts. I'll probably just rotate them down and leave in place. The bins are going to be a couple inches deeper so the lids should clear. I'll know better when my alu angle comes in and I can do a test fit. Now I need to find space to store the damned useless rear seats, in case I sell or trade this thing at some point.

 

Another update... I have the first phase of the audio upgrade 95% complete. Amp and all audio and power harnesses are installed and ready to go. All I need to do is pull the 14" screen/radio and swap the plugs around. It got too late to fire it up yesterday.

One question... how did you guys route the phone cable for the bass adjust knob into the console? From above in the radio space or from below the dash by pulling it out from the carpet there? I'd rather not have another big project to disassemble the dash and console to do this.

I also made progress on the rear seat delete and new bin lids. I got the alu angle, painted it black and installed to the seat mounts, got some hinges and plywood... I still need to decide exactly what configuration to cut the plywood, along the shape of the bins or more square for a better platform. These lids will have feet that rest on the bin perimeter to make them level and will give the bins a couple inches more vertical depth. Then decide whether to try to carpet those myself or take them to an upholstery shop. Not sure I want to fight that damn carpet.

 

Got the installation done and it came out pretty nice, IMO, but... there is zero subwoofer output. The sub ohms out at 2.2 ohms which is what it should be for the two 4 ohm voice coils wired in parallel. I am going to try to connect up a generic speaker and see if there is anything there. I suspect the amp. There is a switch to select sub input for direct sub input like for an aftermarket head unit, or to have the amp to use the AB inputs to make up the sub signal. The latter is what I have selected. I'll call Kenwood and/or Crutchfield to try to sort this out. Anyway, here are some pics:

Edit: I tested the sub indoors on a HT amp and it works... I also tested a small HT speaker on the Kenwood sub channel and nothing. I called Crutchfield and he had me check AC voltage on the sub output and it read 25.4 VAC. But that was steady and did not vary with volume level. They are sending me a replacement amp. n Pretty disappointing that after all that work, I have a system that sounds the same, albeit with more power. Speakers next once the sub is working and after I take a break for awhile.

 

Yeah, it looks good, but the sub doesn't work. Crutchfield agreed that maybe it is the amp and want to send me a new one, but IDK. I have a hard time believing that just this one section of the amp doesn't work. The way it is supposed to work is that the amp takes the 4-channel line level inputs and pulls out the bass and sends to the sub out. I set the LPF to 100 Hz IIRC and there is zero output to the sub. I mean zero, nada, nothing. Maybe I'll try opening it up to 200Hz which I believe is maximum to see if that helps. The crazy thing is that even if that helps it means there is no real deep bass in the signal... or else the Kenwood just can't find it.

I am wondering if this is a situation where I need one of those AudioControl LC5i's to find and/or enhance the bass and send it to the amp via the sub preamp level input?? I have never worked with adding a sub to a modern factory system and I hope this all hasn't been just a waste of $$. It is so much easier and better with aftermarket head units.

And maybe the Kenwood pulls the bass from channel B which I have from the rear, whereas most bass might be sent to channel A? In which case I could swap those. I'll call Kenwood tomorrow to see what they say.

The other question: can TechStream change or entirely turn off the Toyota audio signal processing to allow a flat full frequency output? @ryanwgregg, do you know?

 

Hey guys, I got the sub working. I went out and played with the amp settings some more and I cranked the sub input sensitivity AND the sub bass boost knobs up near their maxes, and voila, it works. Strange that there was literally nothing until these were both cranked. I was tweaking the second one of these up slowly and I saw the sub cone move! Yay. Then went on to tweak the adjustments.

Yesterday I had started at mid-levels, which have always worked for me before, and turned them one at a time up to max with no response. But with both near the top at the same time I found a level that puts the bass at a normal listening level in the middle of the bass adjustment knob in the console. So, all OK for now. IIRC @MaxPayne at one point in this thread said that the front channel had most bass signal and it may be that the Kenwood is pulling from channel B, which I have installed the input from the Tundra rear. So, I will call Kenwood tomorrow to see how they acquire the bass signal internally, and if I need to, I can swap the channels around. But at least it works for now and sounds pretty good. And down the road I can get the LC5i if that may help further.

Other settings: I have channel A and B HPFs set at 100 Hz and the sub LPF at 100 to handle everything below that. So, that will keep the boominess out of the doors and help the OEM speakers survive until I replace them. I may tweak this some more after listening for awhile.

 

You should start out with the amp gains turned all the way down, then turn the radio volume 5 clicks from max. Then adjust your amp gains, because then you are receiving full input voltage to the amp. Swapping the channels around won't help if the signal is summed internally. If you find that the sub is still weak, a couple of quick fixes would be to add another pair of those speaker to RCA connectors to the front speaker outputs and plug them into the "sub input", or you could get some RCA Y splitters and split the front RCA jacks. Depending on how loud you like to listen to your music, you might want to consider upping the crossover point on the front and rear speakers until you replace them. Maybe 125-150 on the fronts because they are a 6x9 and 150-200 on the rear, those are 6.5. The OEM speakers aren't meant to handle much power and lower frequencies with more power can damage them. I'm assuming that the built in crossover in the amp is on a -12db slope. Essentially that means that on the HPF all frequencies below 100 Hz (where you have it now) are muted by 12 decibels. They are still getting and playing all the frequencies below that, but they are attenuated by xxx decibels based on the crossover type and slope. I would suggest the LPF on the sub set at 75 hz, 100 hz is not a great sub-bass frequency and is closer to mid-bass. Honestly, the LC5i is not going to improve what you already have. The amplifier already has the signal conversion built into it which is essentially what the LC5i does.

 

The sub is working fine now.

I still have the question as to exactly how the signal is summed internally in the amp. Is it summed from both channels or just channel A or just channel B? Because you mentioned earlier in the thread that when manually summing a sub input that channel A would be better source than B because the OEM system suppresses bass in B. I called Kenwood and couldn't get anyone who even understood the question. I wonder if there is a convention that the amp mfgs follow?
Edit: maybe it is summed from both because the selector switch that chooses from direct sub input or the line inputs is labeled "AB". So, in that case it would not make a difference to swap the channels.

I understand the slope concept and rolloffs from the filter settings. I did already lower the LPF and that is much better. I downloaded some test tones and played with the LPF dial. The dial seemed pretty accurate. I do have to have all the gains pretty much cranked up to open up the power in the amp for A and B, and also for the sub. It's just the way it is, and it works fine. I am not too worried about blowing the OEM speakers because that would be at ear splitting volume levels. I mean I like it loud sometimes but not that loud. The HPFs seem OK at 100 but I'll play with them. But I hear what you are saying, really cranking it up might risk blowing them if they are getting those lower freqs.

And I love the bass knob. That thing is a game changer. It really makes it easy to get the sound you want in an instant. Although when the content doesn't have any deep bass, it does next to nothing, of course.

It actually sounds pretty good now so I am not sure how much of a hurry I will be to upgrade the speakers. I will be doing it at some point, and I'll have some questions to explore first.

 

A mono signal is generated by summing the left and right channel of a stereo signal. Why they would take the left of a front and right of a rear (or vice versa) A+B, makes no common sense What happens to the subwoofer when you fade the controls on the radio all the way to the fronts or all the way to the rear? If the sub volume doesn't change then that's the reason they have summed one from the front and one from the rear. If the sub sounds good to you the way it is then I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

 

Not sure where you got summing left front from A and right rear from B?? That is wacky. Has to be the same stereo channel, like the center speaker. But... I was just wondering if they summed A for the sub signal, or instead summed B for the sub signal or instead took it another step and summed the two sums to capture the entire signal. With clever electronics and processing you can do pretty much anything. Anyway, you are right, nothing to lose sleep over.

 

AB- I looked at the owners manual. the easiest way to tell is turn the fader, if the sub volume doesn't decrease when you move all the way to the front or all the way to the rear then they summed one from the front and one from the rear

 

I dropped off my new bin lids at the upholstery shop today to get covered. Installing those tomorrow. Then all I'll need to do to complete this project is to make some feet for the fronts of the lids out of wood or 3D print to have them sit level at the increased height. Oh, the speakers... but that will have to be phase 2. LOL.

 

Congrats on getting Phase 1 complete.

I know a lot of information has been exchanged and I'm just going to re-highlight some of the things I figured out/did during my install.

1. My amp took high-level inputs, just like your Kenwood, and produced decent sound when music was playing. However when an audio track was paused there was an audible hiss. This happened no matter where the gain volume on the amplifier was set. I poked around on the DIY Car Audio forum and saw other people's experiences were similar and the consensus seemed to be that the amp's internal conversion of the high-level input from the OEM head unit was opening a noise pathway. Particularly, if the OEM signal was of a higher voltage that was reaching the maximum limit of the amplifier to convert. That's why I went the route of the LC5i Pro initially, the ability of Accubass to enhance the bass frequencies was an added benefit. Maybe that noise issue is specific to the Audison 5-channel amp I used and your Kenwood doesn't experience it.

2. When setting the gains I used a Steve Meade distortion detector an acquaintance had. I found that the OEM signal was distortion free all the way up to 60 on the volume. So with the volume set at 60 and the high-level inputs routed to the amp I connected the distortion detector to the amp outputs, and using the 1000hz signal, slowly turned up the gain until distortion and then backed off just a bit. With the subwoofer output I used the 40hz signal and as an added step I turned the dash mounted bass knob all the way to maximum. Slowly turned up the amplifier gain until distortion and then back down a tad. In both instances the amplifier gains were barely moved out of the minimum position. It should be noted that none of the speakers were connected during this process. With the LC5i Pro you get the distortion detector built in to setup each gain separately for front, rear, and sub.

3. With my system setup like that I don't experience any distortion and pushing the volume past 50 is pretty freaking loud. I use my iphone plugged into the USB port 100% of the time for music. I've found that there's a huge difference in music source quality. For example, I can play a track from an original album that was recorded in the 80s or 90s and it sounds ok, but I have to turn up the volume and bass boost considerably compared to the same track on a remastered album from the 2000s and newer. The older recorded music always seems to have a loss of fidelity and impact. If I play a bass heavy track like "Search & Rescue" by Drake I have to turn down the bass knob halfway. Not because there's distortion but because the bass is just so overpowering and I don't like everything in the center console and door storage rattling like crazy. I'm still amazed what this single 10" sub can do.

4. One precaution I took was I routed the power cable down the passenger side of the vehicle and the signal wires down the drivers side to try and eliminate any chance of electrical interference. Plus it was a straighter and shorter power run from the battery to the amp. I used the grommet right behind the battery that then opens up right above the passenger footwell near the interior fuse box. Ran that wire straight down the passenger side and than up into the middle of the rear cab and into the amp.

Maybe some of that is helpful.

 

Well said. I found the same. Huge diff in music quality depending on how sourced, etc. I too am constantly adjusting bass, mid, treb; depending on source, song, date, and definition. Makes me want an old school in-dash equalizer to adjust by hand on the fly. Going into settings every time is less than ideal but only a minor inconvenience. Have an independent bass dial, which is nice tho. I tend to stick with Ultra HD streaming and USB and enjoy listening to all types of music, across all types; for some reason Smooth Jazz sounds the best on the setup here, really crisp and clear. Find myself discovering new tunes never heard before across the spectrum, one of many benefits to good sound system and many services available these days.

 

I had one of those way back in the day, like in the 80s. It was a brown Pioneer box with EQ sliders that included an amp IIRC, and I installed it in the center console of my Firebird. That system got stolen. Better yet was the Pioneer NEX head unit I had in my 2009 Tacoma, it had a great EQ setup with a fair number of adjustable frequency bands, several preset EQs, and ability to customize. IIRC it also had a way to adjust sub output gain right there on screen, so between that and the amp, it was easy to dial it in and make changes when needed. Unfortunately, the Toyota Tundra OEM has only treble, mid, and bass.... and no dedicated sub output.

What I really wish is that auto mfgs would separate the vehicle settings stuff from the audio systems so we could use aftermarket head units. Or provide the API for the vehicle settings stuff to the aftermarket so that the aftermarket head units could also do the vehicle settings, display the cameras, etc. I know, never gonna happen.

 

I am not having any hiss, hums or odd interference noises. Music is clear as anything and gets LOUD. I was going to route the power and signal separately but when I popped off the body plug at the back of the cab where I was going to feed the power cable, it didn't go through, it just opened to a cavity in the body. I wasn't going to rerun the signal wires down the driver's side, so I just brought the power up through the body plug under the front passenger seat and it shares the rest of the route with the signal cables. But I don't seem to have any issues.

I have cranked this up to painful levels and don't hear any distortion. I don't have the test gear so that will have to do. And I haven't pushed it to the max since I am still on the OEM speakers that are rated for what, 20W? LOL. One PITA for me anyway is the slow gain curve of the OEM volume knob. How many times around does it have to go to get to max? Too many, IMO.

One question about the LC5i and other "bass restoring" processors... what are they actually doing? Simply providing an additional gain on the low freqs, or is it more sophisticated processing than that?

 

It's essentially increasing the signal voltage on pre-determined low frequencies. You can do the same thing with an equalizer. The difference being that the knob that comes with the processor is essentially adjusting the voltage (volume) of those signals. With an equalizer you would have to manually adjust the individual frequencies or just set it an leave it. In my experience, I 've always just used an equalizer because in most vehicles you always need a boost in the 20-40 Hz range regardless. Remember back in the day when stereos had a "Loud" or "Loudness" button? lol That button was one of the early predecessors to bass restoration, they boosted signals so you could get better sound at lower volume, but I always kept it turned on even when cranked to full volume .

 

Oh, sure I remember Loudness buttons. I made good use. And my Pioneer NEX had a specific EQ setting for that and not just a button.

It's a shame that the Tundra system doesn't have a better EQ built in so we could tweak those sub frequencies. That's what the NEX had and it worked great. It seems that if they wanted to Toyota might be able to give us a proper EQ in a software update. But they probably won't.