2017 Tundra SR5 Sound system upgrade (proposed)

Hopefully someone will check in shortly for direct answers, but check your wiring from autoharness connections.

Unless im wrong, dont think you want continuous power to amp, think you want switched 12v. This way all your stuff powers off when you turn key off.

Plus, is there a power light on your amp? And is it illuminated when powered on?

 

I would go back and double check your wiring. Follow the pin out from post #11 and make sure the input wires are all going to thr input side of the amp and the output wires are going to the output side of the amp. It's been over a year since I've done the work, so I don't remember exactly how I wired it. Just make sure you follow the pin out from the post, it can be confusing when looking at the pin out and the plug in your hand, just make sure everything is going where it needs to be. Double check your grounds and power wire.

 

The yellow wire from the alpine with the fuse should go to the 12v constant (red wire) on the 10 pin harness (it should be heavier than the other wires) the alpine should have 2 remote wires i believe. One is for the amp itself and the other is to power on another amp, such as for a sub. I could be wrong, and you may not need either remote wire since you're using speaker level inputs and should automatically turn itself on.

 

Ok so I feel dumb but I cut all the wires and started from scratch and realized I had my input to output and vice versa. Still was color coded purple ->purple, white -> white, etc. which is why it was hard to figure out what was wrong by looking at it in the first place. So a rookie mistake but I’m hooked up and it sounds great. I set the amp at 4ch, 60 htz front and back, speaker lv input, and gain about 1/3 turned up. It is definitely louder and cleaner but anything past 40 on the volume it definitely starts overpowering the speakers so looks like next is the dynamat and door/dash speaker upgrades. Any suggestions? I’m a noob but I’m guessing I still need to get 4ohm speakers to be compatible? Probably speakers that can handle 60rms to be safe? I figure this thread is old enough that anyone who has came across problems of any kind with speakers they bought can steer me in the right direction.

 

First place I would inquire with James @tech12volts. He can set you up with everything.

 

I forget what speakers I went with, I know one pair was sound ordinance from Crutchfield but I can't remember the other brand. But swapping speakers actually lost bass in my truck. Eventually, I ended up installing a small 8" powered sub under the passenger seat tapped into the the wires pre-amp. I went off the rear set of speaker inputs. Ran a small power wire to the battery and grounded to one of the factory grounds under the seat. By far, this provided the best gain in sound. I set the alpine amp to 80 Hz front and rear and the sub at the same 80 Hz. It really made a huge difference in sound and I can pretty much crank the volume all the way up without it distorting. I'd do this same setup again, except next time I'd add an LC7i into the mix, with the amp inputs going to the lc7i and letting it clean up the sound before going o the amps. Right now, my bass kind of rolls off ass the volume is turned up, meaning the bass actually drops out. The lc7i fixes that. That said, I'm more than happy with how it sounds now and is a day night improvement over factory with only about $300 invested.

 

Sounds good. Thank you both for the speedy replies and the advice. I’m gonna do some research and post what I decide to go with after I get it all installed. Thank you again!

 

Will the 4438 wiring harness work on replacing my JBL amp? I read the thread from page 1 and only talked about the non jbl amp. I already replaced my head unit and will install speakers and sub together with 2 amplifiers I have laying around. Thanks for any replies

 

Should be the same wiring harness and mine was from auto harness dot com

 

I see that you ran the rca’s next to the power wire in the wire tray at the door sill plate. Have you had any interference? I thought the rca’s needed to be ran in a separate location to keep the noise interference away. Did you run shielded rca’s?

 

Also. On the two ground in the factory harness at the factory location. Are you guys tying them together when splicing into the Alpine amp? Any problems? No ground loop per say?

 

So I installed a Kenwood DMX907s into my truck this weekend. I have a non-jbl system with a factory amp in a 2018 crewmax. I won the head unit at an auction for way under half price and got the maestro..etc. It works and it woke up the stock sound system a little bit. I noticed the dash speakers heavily overpower all of the door speakers and reading this thread I now know why. I also now understand why I had to wire up the maestro like I did utilizing all 4 speaker outputs even though I have an amp in my truck. I'm just not sure what goes to what.

Anyway, I'm eventually wanting to upgrade all of the speakers and put some subs in the back. I'd like to do this in stages and start with the speakers and an amp. I'd like to let the front run the highs and then do some mid ranges in the front doors. Then do some good coaxial speakers in the back for fill. I think this will set the soundstage up to be more full rather than having separate tweeters in the front I would buy a 4 channel sub right now, wire up a fuse block and have it setup to add my mono amp later. I'd also go ahead and run the RCAs while I'm in there for all three channels. I think this is doable with the stock wiring setup but can someone please help me understand what's being powered by the head unit and what's being powered by the amp? If I buy the auto harness house adapter and put an aftermarket 4ch amp there, what is the amp powering and what is the head unit powering? If there are only 3 speakers being ran off of the head unit and I install an aftermarket amp and new door speakers, what is the 4th channel from the head unit powering at that point?

Just trying to figure it all out before I pull the trigger. Any help from some of you guys who have been down this road would be extremely appreciated.

 

Dash speakers run off the HU - all 4 doors are through the crappy stock amp. Unless you run new speaker wire from the new amp to the dash this won’t change.

 

Thank you! So what's the 4th channel from the head unit power if there are only three speakers in the dash? This might actually work out to my benefit with what I'm wanting to do.

 

From the head unit, the FL channel feeds the left dash speaker and the FR channel feeds the right dash speaker. Those two channels combine in the dash to feed your middle dash speaker. You don’t need to have the rear speaker wires channel connected to the head unit but it shouldn’t hurt anything. The doors will all be fed through the new amp via RCAs.

 

Thanks for the discussion I have learnt a great deal. I have a question though, my 2022 Non-JBL has tweeters in the back and I was curious if they are fed from the head unit.

 

A 2022?!?! Pics??
Good question. I’m not 100% but I do believe the rear tweeters are also run off the HU. Replacement components would go through a new amp and you’d leave the stock tweeter connection unplugged when you install new components. The new tweeters will have a wire running from the mid-range in the door up to feed them the amplified signal.

 

Thanks, I am under the assumption from this site that all of the door speakers are full range, there are a couple of tables floating around that I have seen in the past. Being full range does that include a tweeter signal or do I have to splice into the tweeter wire to gain access to that signal. All of the signals are being fed into a Fix86.

 

I’m not sure what gets sent with the OEM amp but once you replace that with an aftermarket amplifier you get full range at the doors. I wouldn’t be surprised it the stock 6x9s don’t get higher frequencies in effort to maximize bass out of the terrible audio system the Tundras use.

 

I was just on the ********* site and it looks like the all dash speakers and the rear tweeters receive the signal from the head unit. IOT ensure that the Fix86 has covered all frequency ranges I will ensure that I have access to that signal during my install.

I see the Fix86 channel for the tweeters but the unit is designed to receive front left and right but I only have one signal. Do I create a parallel connection prior to ensure the signal is on both channels?

Here's my amp racks:

 

I changed out my HU (which I strongly recommend) and am not using a DSP so can’t help you there. Sorry.

 

If Im not wrong the signal comes from the amp to the dash and them to the door. If you disconnect the dash speaker you will loose the front door.

 

Do you have stock JBL? That’s isn’t the case with non-JBL systems. Lots of people here disconnect all dash speakers after upgrading the amp and door speakers.

 

Ok. So non JBL comes from the HU and JBL comes from the door speakers?

 

I’ll be honest - I don’t know shit about the JBL system other than it seems everyone hates it and it is much more difficult to modify because the JBL “brain”.

 

Yeah I agree but my in non JBL. The signals coming from the JBL models from the head unit are digitized and the JBL amp converts them to an analog format and that's why on that model you can't just remove the stock amplifier since inputs need to be in an analog format.

 

I know the stock HU makes things difficult and limits the quality of signal you can get which is why I will always recommend swapping it to an aftermarket HU that can provide an absolutely clean signal. For the money you save on LOC and DSP it pays for itself.

 

So I guess this leaves me with more questions, the stock amp doesn't have RCAs, not really sure how it gets the signal to the doors. Never had an amp without RCAs. If you just replace the amp don't you just wire in the new amp with the autoharnesshouse adapter and call it a day? After thinking about this, that makes sense to me. Not sure why you would need to run RCAs to the amp for the door speakers if you're keeping the dash speakers off of the head unit.

I assume if you want to ditch the dash speakers, you can unhook them from the head unit and run your signal with the RCAs to the amp and then your door speakers get the signal from the RCAs. At this point you'd probably want some tweeters in the sail panels. I was under the impression that you couldn't keep the head unit wired to the dash speakers and then add RCAs routed to the new amp under the seat. Didn't think you could use both. I always thought it was one or the other.

This Tundra is throwing me for a loop!

 

The stock “amp” uses a high voltage speaker wire type input since the stock HU doesn’t have RCAs.

You can have speakers hardwired directly to the HU and still use RCA outputs for the amp - it’s not either or. RCAs are the way to go with an aftermarket HU and amp - most amps don’t offer high voltage inputs. You’ll also need to feed the new amp with an adequate power supply - either a 4ga or 0ga fused wire from the battery.

If you don’t upgrade your dash speakers, you will probably want them unhooked once you have upgraded the amp and door speakers. And yes, my recommendation is to use 6.5” components in the doors that will have the tweeters in the sail panels.

 

Hi all,

First post here. New owner of a 2018 tundra crewmax sr5. This thread has been awesome and influenced me to replace the factory amp with a new 5 channel. After install, I think I have “alternator whine”. There is a buzz in the speakers when the key is on and when the engine is running, the pitch of the buzz changes during acceleration. My install is done as listed below:
Stock head unit
Autohauss harness

$18 AHH-4438 2010-2019 Toyota Tundra (w/o JBL Audio) AutoHarnessHouse.com Factory Amp Upgrade Harness AHH-4438

AHH-4438
sound stream

$157 pn5.640D picasso nano 640 W 5-channel class D digital car audio amplifier

pn5.640D Picasso Nano amplifier
8 gauge amplifier wire kit
Amp is wired with high level speaker inputs, grounded to the rear bolt of the factory amp rack (paint sanded). Any ideas as to what is causing this interference and how to correct it?

Any help is appreciated!!