My 2014 DC audio upgrade path

I bought my car used with a non-spliced-but-properly-harnessed-without-maestro aftermarket Atoto headunit. The stock amplifier was still connected, and the audio sounded... OK.

Not wanting to break the bank, I just wanted cleaner audio. I decided to go this route:

* Autoharnesshouse amp harness
* Kicker 10" powered sub
* Alpine RS69C.2 components for front
* Kicker Key 200.4 amplifier with auto tuning DSP

I've had a similar setup in my old 2015 Highlander, except the Alpine Halo feeding an Alpine KTP-445A Power Pack. Sound was good enough for me, cause I'm just looking for clean audio. The cabin of the Highlander makes audio tougher than the Tundra, and having he Key 200.4 tuning the EQ automatically should set a proper sound stage. My other car is a Tesla Model 3 Performance with the premium audio, and that car sounds really, really good.

The sub was installed under the passenger seat (for now) with a 12" x 12" ABS sheet cut to size and bolted to the old front mount holes for the factory amp. Velcro was used to secure the sub to the ABS, ran the power to the battery, and used the Autoharnesshouse harness to provide input signal from the front speakers.







I say under the passenger seat for now, because I can tell the bass is coming from my right side. It doesn't fill the cabin like it did in my Highlander, so I'll probably relocate it to under the back seat driver side when I get a chance. I tried to avoid running too many wires around the car, and with it under the passenger seat only needed to run one power cable to the battery. With it in the rear I'll have to run speaker wire AND power cables. Oh well.

Currently, the Key200.4 is on backorder, so my speakers are being powered by the headunit by way of bypassing the amp via splicing the Autoharnesshouse wires. (see here for reference https://www.tundras.com/threads/non-jbl-factory-amp-bypass.127437/#post-3256925)

The Alpine 6x9 woofers went in the door with a Metra 6x9 adapter easily, but the tweeters needed help. Buying the ABS tweeter mounts online seemed like a good idea, but they're too thick for my Alpine components. When they were mounted in with the ABS adapters the tweeters made the grill bulge. So, I went to fabricating my own using some 1mm acrylic sheets.



You can see how thick the ABS adapters are here.


Mounted the tweeters in the factory location and tested the tilt towards the passenger vs towards the windshield to reflect back to the passengers. The sound coming from the reflecting position is much better than trying to aim them at the passengers. It's just not enough angle. I tried to mold the homemade adapter to further tilt the tweeters towards the cabin, but it's just too low of a position to work well. Reflecting off the windshield sounds much clearer without being ear piercing.

Tucked the harness and crossover under the dash in that area for now. When the Kicker comes in I'll have to rewire the harness behind the HU to feed the dash speakers to the amp. Alternatively, I can buy the JBL equipped sail panels and relocate the tweeters there. We'll see.



As of now, even without the Kicker Key200.4 running a DSP for me it sounds soooo much better. The richness of the base with the new clarity in the highs is better than what I had in my Highlander (aside from being able to "locate" the sub with my ears) with virtually the same setup. Maybe I don't get the little amp in the long run. I have time anyway, since it's on backorder until at least September.

Next up will be for me to add Kilmat to the doors and behind the back seats.

 

Welp, I wanted to further enhance the sound stage, so that meant I needed to connect my component tweeters to the woofers in the door for my Kicker Key 200.4 amp to power and use the built in DSP. Rather than running speaker cables from the dash tweeters to the door, I just bought the sail panels from JBL equipped Tundras (PNs 67491-0C060 and 67492-0C060) and relocated the tweeters to the doors. The Alpine R component tweeters fit perfectly in the brackets on the sail panels. No glue or mods needed to get them in to snap into place.





The Kicker HS10 sub is still under the passenger seat, but I might relocate that to under the rear bench in the future. Mounted the Kicker Key to the same ABS right in front of the sub with some velcro.





I rewired the AutoHarnessHouse harness with the kicker harness to go from amp bypass mode to include the Kicker Key harness, wrapped with all with Tessa Tape, disconnected the center speaker and sub, got it all powered up, and ran the automated EQ/DSP setup with the Kicker mic. After it successfully ran the pink noise through all the speakers, it sounded fantastic. It's not perfect, but really, really good. Much better than before. I played with the gain control on the kicker to boost it 1/8 of a turn. This allowed me to add some fill to the front stage by reconnecting the center speaker (the only speaker powered by the headunit, and with the lower power to it compared to the ones powered by the Kicker the amount of center stage fill makes the truck sound concert like). Sub is now powered from the Head Unit sub-RCA, so I can control it from the head unit instead of needing the kicker remote dial.

I'm still tweaking the sound in my truck, but from purchase to amp bypass it was already a substantial improvement. Adding the Kicker Key 200 amp has elevated the sound quality in my truck a good bit more. Playing with the sub and EQ settings on the HU will hopefully fine tune the sound to my taste. I probably could have just gotten a DSP and manually tweaked that, but this was a really fast and cost effective way to accomplish what I wanted.