2011 Crewmax with tier one 6 speaker system...Soooo many questions....

#1 I know very little about audio systems.
Q #1. Can a 5 channel 800w Amp carry 4- 6.5 door speakers & a 12" or 10" subwoofer enclosure.
If so Q#2 what size in watts speakers and subwoofer should I be looking to buy ? Q#3 Oh yeah should I buy 2 or
4 ohm speakers.
Q#4 bridgeable or non bridgeable amp
Q#5 amp with a built in crossover or not ???
Maaaaan this is a head ache.
My goal is to have a 6.5" 300W speaker on all 4 doors a 12" subwoofer enclosure behind the rear seat and a nice 5 channel amp to handle all the nice tunes.
I just don't know the right combo.
I'm not trying to spend big so Sony Kicker Kenwood Alpine and similar wil work for me I can't afford the high end brands. Your input is welcome.

 

1) In short, yes, but it depends.

2) Any amp, speakers, and subs will have an RMS wattage rating at 4, 2, and in case of sub amps, 1 ohm. In general, you want to match the RMS ratings of your amp to those of your speakers and sub(s). For example, say you have a 5 channel amp that does 50 watts RMS @ 4 ohms x 4 channels, and 500 watts @ 2 ohms x 1 channel. You'd want to look for speakers that are rated for 50 watts RMS @ 4 ohms, and a sub or subs that are 500 watts at 2 ohms. Your amp will always put out whatever it's rated for. The only dangerous thing to do is wire speakers or subs to it and go below it's impedance rating. Say you've got two subs wired together for a total ohm load of 1 ohm, but your amp is only "stable" down to 2 ohms. Connecting a 1 ohm load to it will eventually damage and destroy it.

3) 4 ohm speakers are more common. Amps in general will do more power the lower the impedance number. Generally speaking, amps will do about twice the power (or a little less) at 4 vs 2 ohms.

4) Bridgeable vs non-bridgeable just means that you can "bridge" or combine the power of 2 channels into one channel to drive higher power speakers or a sub.

5) Most amps will have basic built in crossovers over high/low pass filters.

Do you have a budget in mind for everything, and do you plan on keeping your stock radio?

 

I do plan on replacing the radio
Far as budget hopefully not more than 1k if possible.

 

With a $1k budget you've definitely got some good options for a radio, speakers, amp, and sub I'd shoot to roughly spend 1/4 your budget on each item.

Starting with speakers, in your truck with the 6 speaker system, there's a speaker in each dash corner, and then one in each door correct? If so, your system wiring diagram should look like this:


Don't worry if that looks confusing. Basically it's just showing that in the front the wiring goes from your radio, to the dash corner speakers and then onto the front door speakers. In the rear, the wiring goes straight from the radio to the rear door speakers.

Reason this is important/good to understand, is that it means in your truck even though there are 6 speakers/6 speaker locations, you only need 4 channels of amplification since the front dash corner speakers and front door speakers are wired together.

As far as speakers go, there's a few different routes you can go.

Route 1) Front doors: 6.5" or 6x9" coaxial speakers (speaker and tweeter in one). Rear doors: 6.5" coaxial speakers. Dash corners: 3.5" midrange speakers.

Route 2) Front doors: 6.5" or 6x9" component speakers (speaker and tweeter separate). Rear doors: 6.5" coaxial speakers. Dash corners: 3.5" midrange speakers OR mount the tweeters from the front door component set in the dash corners.

Route 3) Front doors: 6.5" or 6x9" component speakers (speaker and tweeter separate), and use hole saw to cut hole in sail panels and mount tweeters there. Rear doors: 6.5" coaxial speakers. Dash corners: Either remove completely and not replace, or replace with 3.5" speakers.

I personally would lean towards option 2 or 3. I like having component speakers and having the tweeters/midrange physically up high in the sail panels or dash corners, and the midbass/bass down low in the doors. For some speaker recommendations in your budget, I'd recommend the JL Audio C1 line or the Alpine Type S line.




Speakers:

Alpine Speakers:
The Alpine's come with a 6x9 for the front doors, and then a 3.5" midrange with a .75" tweeter in one. 6x9 would go in the door, and the 3.5" mid/tweeter would go in the dash corner. The only issue with these is that the mid/tweeter might be too big for the dash corners, but I think if you got some universal mounting brackets and cut your own holes in them you could get them to fit. The other easy option would be to do the Alpine Type S 6.5" components in the front, and same Alpine Type S coaxials for the rear.

6x9" component set for front $160 on sale, 85w rms @ 4 ohms: Alpine S2-S69C 6x9" S-Series 2-way 4-ohm Component Speaker System (sonicelectronix.com)

6.5" coaxial set for $104 on sale, 80w rms @ 4 ohms: Alpine S2-S65 6.5" S-Series 2-way 4-ohm Coaxial Car Speakers (sonicelectronix.com)

Alpine Type S 6.5" components, and then you could easily get brackets to fit them in the dash corners or mount them in the sail panels: $120 80w rms @ 4 ohms Alpine S2-S65C 6.5" S-Series 2-way 4-ohm Component Speaker System (sonicelectronix.com)

6x9 components + 6.5 coaxials would be $264 before tax.
6.5 components + 6.5 coaxials would be $224 before tax.

JL Speakers:
For JL Audio, they offer a 6x9 component set but rather than a 3.5" mid/tweeter like in the Alpine 6x9 set, the JL set just has a standard 1" tweeter that you could mount in the dash or in the sail panels.

JL Audio C1 6x9 Components for front $180, 100w rms @ 4 ohms (includes some sound deadener too): JL Audio C1-690 | 450W 6" x 9" Component Car Speakers + Accessories (sonicelectronix.com)

JL Audio C1 6.5" Components, $150, 75w rms @ 4 ohms: JL Audio C1-650 6.5" Evolution C1 Series Component Car Speakers (sonicelectronix.com)

JL Audio C1 6.5" coaxials for rear $120, 50w rms @ 4 ohms: JL Audio C1-650x 6.5" Evolution C1 2-way 4-ohm Coaxial Car Speakers (sonicelectronix.com)

6x9 components + 6.5 coaxials = $300 before tax.
6.5 components + 6.5 coaxials = $270 before tax.





Radios:

Tons of options here for radios. There's 3 routes you can sort of go.

Route 1) iDatalink capable radio. iDatalink is a company that makes a product called a "Maestro", basically a little black box that plugs into the back of iDatalink capable aftermarket radios, and then it retains all your steering wheel controls/allows you to customize them, and also access the OBD system and see your gauges etc. on your radio. Pretty cool stuff, but it's the most expensive route. Radios themselves are a little more expensive on average and then Maestro/harnesses are an additional cost.

Route 2: A non-iDatalink capable but still "big" name brand radio. These will on average be a little cheaper, and the parts/harness to install them will be a little cheaper than the iDatalink capable radios.

Route 3) An android based Daisaita style of head unit. Many people love these, especially for the price/features etc. Only downside (and maybe not even with how all brands seem to have duds nowadays) is that their quality control seems to be a little less than big name brands, and customer support is a little more difficult. It's for those reasons I'd go big name brand.

I personally would go big name brand. Others will definitely disagree and advocate for an Android based Daisaita type stereo. A couple of my picks for your budget would be:

Non-iDatalink radios:

Kenwood DMX4707S, $250 + $132 = $382 (to keep steering wheel controls, if not, install parts are free): Kenwood DMX4707S Digital multimedia receiver (does not play discs) at Crutchfield

Sony XAV-AX3200, $278 + $134 = $412 (to keep steering wheel controls, if not, install parts are free): Sony XAV-AX3200 Digital multimedia receiver (does not play discs) at Crutchfield

Alpine Alpine iLX-W670, $300 + $132 = $432 (to keep steering wheel controls, if not install parts are free): Alpine iLX-W670 Digital multimedia receiver (does not play discs) at Crutchfield

iDatalink ready radios:

Kenwood DMX4710S, $279 + $252 = $531 (keeps steering wheel controls and adds gauges on radio): Kenwood DMX4710S Digital multimedia receiver (does not play discs) at Crutchfield

Sony XAV-AX-3700, $298 + $237 = $535 (keeps steering wheel controls and adds gauges on radio): Sony XAV-AX3700 Digital multimedia receiver (does not play discs) at Crutchfield



Amps:

You'll want to get a 5 channel amp like you mentioned. Again, tons of options. You want to the RMS power ratings of the amp to be close to the rms power ratings of your speakers/sub(s) at the given impedance, i.e. 2 or 4 ohms. All the speakers above are 4 ohms. The Alpines are all about 80w rms. The JL Audios range from 50-100w rms. With that in mind, an amp that does around 75w rms @ 4 ohms would be perfect. A little less or more would be okay.


DS18 CANDY-X5B, $300: DS18 CANDY-X5B | 2000W Peak Candy-X Series Class D 5-Ch Amplifier (sonicelectronix.com)

Kenwood X8-2-5, $350: Kenwood eXcelon X802-5 800W RMS Class-D 5-Channel Amplifier (sonicelectronix.com)

Kicker 660.5T, $359: Kicker 46CXA660.5T CX Series 5-channel car amplifier — 65 watts RMS x 4 at 4 ohms + 300 watts RMS x 1 at 2 ohms at Crutchfield

Of these, for the speakers I listed above and for adding a sub, my picks in order would be 1) Kicker 2) DS18 3) Kenwood.
For their speaker channels power at 4 ohms, Kenwood 50w, Kicker 65w, DS18 80w.
For their sub channels power at 2 ohms, Kicker 300w, DS18 320w, Kenwood 500w.

The trade off is in the sub power. If you want to get some really loud subs, or a pair of subs, I would go Kenwood. If you want a more balanced system, I would go Kicker.

Subwoofers:

There are a ton of options for subs. You can get a sub that's already in a box. or get a sub and box separate. If you chose one of the amps above, you'd want to get a sub or subs that are 2 ohms ~300w rms for the Kicker or DS18 amp, or 2 ohms ~500w rms for the Kenwood amp.

A few options with sub and box:

Kicker 2 ohm shallow 10", 250w RMS, $160: Kicker 50TCWC102 Truck-style 2-ohm ported enclosure with 10" CompC™ subwoofer at Crutchfield

Rockford Fosgate 2 ohm capable shallow 10", 300w RMS, $190: Rockford Fosgate P3SD4-10 | 600 Watts 10" Shallow Mount Sub with Enclosure (sonicelectronix.com)

Alpine Type S 2 ohm shallow 10", 350w RMS, $228: Alpine SWT-10S2 | 10" Shallow Mount Subwoofer with Truck Enclosure (sonicelectronix.com)





That's a lot of f***ing info haha. My two systems from all these options would be:

Less expensive:
Alpine 6.5 components + 6.5 coaxials speakers ($224), Kenwood DMX4707S radio ($382), DS18 amp ($300), Kicker sub ($160) = $1066, and then say another $75 for a wiring kit so total around $1200.

More expensive:

JL 6.5 components + 6.5 coaxials speakers ($270), Sony XAV-AX-3700 ($535), Kicker Amp ($359), Alpine sub ($228) = $1392, plus a wiring kit say $1500.

As you can see from all of this, car audio has gotten expensive, namely the radios. The radios used to be like $100 for a basic single DIN radio with RCA outputs. You could also keep your factory radio and get some integration wiring harnesses that would drastically reduce the cost, but having a nice new touch screen radio and apple car play/android auto is nice. You can also do the upgrades in steps. You could start with the radio, and then do the speakers, and later add the amp, and after that the sub. If you keep the factory radio, you could start with the speakers and amp and add a sub later. Lots of options and ways to go about things and there's no right or wrong answer.

Happy to answer any and all questions!

 

Wow this spread is awesome
Thank you.
Id love to put in 6x9s on front doors but from everything I read i.e Crutchfield....
6x9 won't fit too much depth pushes the the door grill out some.
I Wana keep the stock look so I'm thing 6.5" X 4 doors and a pancake 10" sub enclosure under or behind the rear seat.