Terrible OEM speakers

I've been looking those focal is/ic toy that already have the adapters built in. Or the JL c1 and JL c2 series. Obviously the c1's are the most economical route. And a kicker hideaway 10" sub. But sometimes when you go down a rabbit hole... who knows what's gonna happen but in the next few days I'm going to just pull the trigger.

What did speakers did you put in your rear doors? Assuming you only have the TT adapters in your rear doors then?

 

I used these but I didn't pay this much in 2015.
Focal Performance 165AC Access Series 6-1/2" coaxial speakers at Crutchfield

I think they were $200 back then..
I didn't have a bracket so I ripped the stock speaker out of the OEM bracket and used it for the installation.



I think your sub will be fine.
I overdid it on my JL Audio Stealthbox with twin 10' subs.
I just needed a bump up for some lows, the Stealthbox was overkill.
That's one thing I would have done differently if I had it to do over.
I wasted a lot of money on my subs.

 

Really appreciate your feedback and input on how you set your rig up. I've still got some tools to collect to wire the amp in since I don't have one as well. Ill compile a list of everything I end up buying and try and document it

 

I had the JL C2’s in my last truck and they were great, I’d imagine the C1’s would be just as good sound quality wise just a little less volume output at full tilt. The JBL sail panels you ordered are the same ones i did, $~20-25 per side wasn’t bad in my opinion, you’ll see when you get them but the sail panels have a little bracket on the back to hold the oem jbl ones, I think they can probably fit about a 3/4” tweeter in the bracket, but if they don’t, you can always cut the grills out on the panels and mount your tweeters flush on the panels and doing that you can fit basically any size tweeter. It will be easier to cheaper to wire component speakers that have inline crossovers, meaning your signal chain goes amp>factory wiring>new woofer>new tweeter wherein the woofer has extra tabs that the tweeter connects to, and the tweeters will come with a couple feet of wire pre-attached with the crossover/bass blocker/capacitor pre wired on the speaker wire. The JL C1’s are a perfect example of this.

Stepping up to the C2’s, you’ll notice they have separate crossovers, wherein speaker wire goes in, and then you run new speaker wire (or use existing factory wiring) from the crossover box to both the new woofer and tweeter. In this case you have to determine where you want to mount the crossovers, two most common options are in the doors by the speakers, or under a seat, both have pros/cons.

Starting with mounting them in the doors, your signal would go amp>factory wiring to factory door speaker>crossover input> new speaker wire to woofer and tweeter
Main benefit here is easier wiring. Downside is crossovers aren’t accessible if you need to adjust them, doors aren’t ideal mounting location due to being opened/closed all the time (although I never had issues), and finding a good place to mount them (taco tunes also makes mounting brackets for this exact problem and they’re pretty inexpensive, but still an additional cost, could always diy something too).

Other option for separate crossovers is to mount them under a seat. Without a factory amp in your truck, that makes it a little trickier, but I did it in my last truck and know of 2 solutions, speed wire or run all new wire. I’ll start with the speed wire.

In your case of no factory amp, but having an aftermarket radio, easiest thing to do would be run rca’s from your new radio to your new amp (probably mounted under passenger seat). From your amp, you’d use speed wire to go from the amp outputs back up to the dash and then use a T-harness to tap back into the factory wiring to send the newly amped signal back over your factory wiring to your doors. Still have the dilemma of where to mount the crossovers, if you mount them in the doors, you wouldn’t have to run any new wiring into the doors. If you mount them under the seat by your amp, you could still use the factory wiring speed wire t harness to send newly amped signal to the door woofer, but you’d need to run new wire from the crossover, through the door grommet, up to the tweeter sail panel. Not too hard, but more work/time than mounting the crossover in the door or using a simpler set of speakers that have inline crossovers.

That all probably sounds super confusing in writing. I can draw up some basic diagrams of what those options look like tonight and post them here if you want to weigh your options before settling on which speakers to get.

 

Just for cost sake and reviews plus the crutchfield website that has the ability to listen to different speakers through head phones (this is such a great feature from crutchfield) I'm leaning heavily towards the c1 component 650's up front , and c1 650x in the rear doors. Sony 4 channel amp with 45 rms per channel and a kicker hideaway 10" sub. The focal and c2's sound a touch better but with a sub to fill in the lows I think it'll be enough for what I need it to be. Thanks again to you and @1lowlife for all the helpful advice. I have watched a few videos on amp installs and think I have it figured out. But I'm sure I'll be back again to confirm before I mess anything up.

 

Great to hear, pun half intended lol! And yeah just drop a line if you have any questions, @1lowlife is a wizard at reading the wiring diagrams. Some great install vids from a guy that goes by Provo Beast Audio on Youtube, he makes things clear without overcomplicating. My last F-150 didn’t have a factory amp and I did the rcas from new head unit and then speed wire back up to the new head unit to tie into the factory wiring and it wasn’t bad at all. Those C1’s and the Hideaway sub will for sure be a good system and a night and day difference over the factory system.

 

I know late to the party but another thing to consider. If using a 2 way component set you will want to have some control over the mid and tweet levels. I know this isn’t a popular set for some reason but the infinity kappa 2 way is crazy for the price point. You can get it with a tweet that fits perfectly in the stock sail panel bracket and by the way the bracket is actually aimed perfectly across the dash but if you cut the sail panel they are not aimed as well. I cut up 4 different pairs and finally decided to stop and use a tweet that fit and it was perfect. I wound up buying a set of the infinity kappa 3/4 tweets. The infinity kappa 2 way comes in a 6x9 set that fits perfectly in the stock locations or a 6.5 2 way that uses a simple adapter. BUT the crossovers come with adjustable attenuation for the tweets so you can set the tweet level so they are not over powering but to where they blend well. The jl and others are good brands no doubt but a set with the ability to attunuaye the tweet is a huge plus as some tweets can get hot in the sail panels and if your using passives you can’t control them like you can if your active.

Just something to consider if trying to stay simple. Also you can atinuate each side independently so you may way to get a better stage you articulate the left side tweet and leave the right side hot to get a better stage. It does work and it’s very simple but it does require more than a small bass blocker on the tweet.

tons of options out there.

 

Looking at the rca cables labeled amp out on the head unit wiring harness I only have 2 ports ( labeled fl and fr) so I'm assuming I'll need a y splitter from those 2 outputs to then be able to run to the 4 inputs of the amp.

this is the amp I went with.

 

What HU did you end up with?
Sorry if I missed it.

If you split the FL (front left) and FR (front right) you'll have no way to fade from front to rear, unless there is a RR (rear right) and RL (rear left) output.
I also think you are wasting your time with that amp..
It will bump it up a little but only leave you wanting more..

I know you don't want a booming ghetto blaster but that amp is low-end at best.

 

I bought an android tablet head unit. It's linked below in the Amazon box. I was all over the place on amps and finally decided on this little one over the other small amps I was looking at. The speakers are designed for 50 watts rms and so I was only looking at amps with 50 watts or less per channel. I was making the assumption that a bigger wattage amp would also require a bigger wattage handling speaker set. This is honestly my first endeavor at installing or understanding anything with car audio. I'm pretty well versed in mechanics but audio has never been my thing. With that, I know I'm going with a fairly low end system, and that I just want a little more sound out of it as I turn up the dial.

ended up ordering JL audio c1 650 component speakers up front and c1650x for the rear doors. 10" hideaway sub as well.


Edit: I'll pull my harness again and see if I missed the rr and rl amp outputs from the HU harness.

 

Understood.
It's a challenge to upgrade car audio.
I wasted a lot of time and money first trying to save the OEM HU with a LOC and whatnot.
Then on to the aftermarket HU, trying a DSP (only to get rid of it), and then some.

Once you get a taste of the upgrade, you'll think "Well that sounds good but it could sound better".
Try not to fall into that hole, it never ends.

Did you have a manual for the HU?
Is there one posted online?
There should be 4 speaker feeds(2 wires each) or 4 RCA outputs.
Front left, front right, rear left, and rear right.

Does the HU have a sub-output to connect your sub?

 

As well your amp will let you use speaker level inputs, you don't have to use the RCA plugs at all.



If your HU doesn't have a sub output, you'll have to tap into one of your speaker output wires.


If you need any wiring diagrams for your speaker connections you can find them here.
Ultimate TUNDRA Wiring Diagrams Collection | Toyota Tundra Forum

I can't remember which OEM radio setup you had or I'd post them.
I'm sure what you have will be fine.
I went overboard on all my stuff, I just wanted a bump up from stock myself..

 

I do have the manual for the HU definitely 4 speaker feeds but only seeing 2 rca outputs on harness for amp. Yes there is an output for the sub and both amp and sub have a wire for power to the units.

what I'm trying to avoid is what you said and that's not falling too far down the rabbit hole. Even with the new HU putting out 30 watts it is way better than stock. I'm hoping what I'm about to do makes me happy and I don't want to redo any of it.


From my understanding using rca cable is low level, and speaker wires is high level. Low level equals less noise correct? Because I have consider connecting the amp through the high level inputs as well.

 

I'm about to head into work for a double shift so I'll check back later. Thanks for the continued insight @1lowlife.

one last note, of all the lower end amps I was looking at, the reason I chose this one was because I could adjust the gain on the front and rear separately. So on the install I'll have to considered how the rcas may not allow this if I'm using a y cable?

 

Yes, this is true, not sure if you would notice the difference.
Not sure why your HU would only have left and right front RCAs and no rear RCAs.

 

I'm was confused as well. When I tear everything apart maybe I'll see that I missed it all together. I did see output for video as well though.

 

Yes you're going to lose front to rear fade if you only have one set of outputs from the HU.
Have a good day at work..

 

I did order the TT speaker adapters as well

 

Arrived yesterday. Still waiting on those TT speaker adapters.