2018 non-JBL Crewmax - going to 3 way active front stage SQ system.

This thread will detail my A/V build for my truck. I helped my 16 year old redo the full system in his 4 Runner and it reminded me how terrible these things sound.

So….here’s what I’m doing…

I already had the Kenwood DMX1057XR put in 2 months ago. It started randomly dropping CarPlay (wireless) so I had a new one sent out.

Planning this out in stages so I can get it done and truck back together. Here’s the final parts list:

• Kenwood DMX1057XR head unit
• Focal Flax 3 way front stage (had to buy the tweeter pillars to add)
• Focal Flax Evo coax for tears
• Fox Acoustics two 10” sub box behind seat
• (2) JL Audio 10TW3 8 ohm subs
• JL Audio VXi800 8ch active DSP amp for main speakers (6 front channels/2 rear)
• JL Audio RD500/1 amp for subs. (Probably less power than i should feed them but should work now. Already had the amp)
• Once in, will have Chris Pate’s guys at mobile toys in College Station tune it up.

Phase 1 - I’ll remove rear seat, put in kilmat, and install subs. Will also make my 1/4” abs amp rack and run power distribution block for both amps. Will wrap up by installing sub amp and getting them active.

Once complete, then I’ll get the rest of the components and kick of phase 2: running the additional separate audio channels, sound deadening the doors, fast mounts, and installing speakers and amp.
Then off to tuner.

 

Wire those subs parallel and that 500-watt sub amp will be fine.
Your sub amp is 2 ohm stable and that is what you'll end up with the subs.

I'm running 2 10TW3 4 ohm subs in a JL Audio Stealthbox with an Alpine PDX V9 and 500 watts is plenty at 1 ohm.
I don't think you'll find much difference.





JL Audio RD500/1 Mono subwoofer amplifier — 500 watts RMS x 1 at 2 ohms at Crutchfield

Product highlights:

• mono subwoofer amplifier
• 250 watts RMS x 1 at 4 ohms (500 watts RMS x 1 at 2 ohms)

I'm also running Focal Flax 2 way with JBL door sails.
These Flax speakers are one of my best investments.
They sound awesome with all 3 dash stock speakers disconnected, a very nice front stage.
Your setup should be even better with the control of the DSP VXi800 and the mids in the dash.
It may take some time to tune it all in, but it will be worth it..




And +1 on the sound deadening..



Good luck..

 

Thanks - this is the kind of first hand info I need ahead of the project.

did you make a backing for the sail panels to hold the tweets in?

 

I first tried to mount them from the inside and that didn't work.
Well, it worked, but I didn't like it.



I ended dremeling the grill out and making it a tight fit.
Put a touch of Gorilla glue on the inside.
So far so good..



I also trimmed the lip inside the door panel to make sure the Focals had clearance, front and rear doors.



I first made my own adapters out of MDF for the front doors.
Even though I painted them, they still got wet due to the weather and started soaking up moisture.
Also if I had it to do over I wouldn't put the crossovers in the doors, I doubt you were going to do that anyway.
For the rear, I ripped out the stock speaker and used it as a mount.




My point on this, Taco Tunes makes some really nice thick plastic speaker spacers/adapters.
I wouldn't recommend their electronics, but the adapters are very nice.
They are cut to fit for the speaker hole according to the size needed.
I wish I had a pic of my front door spacers from them..
The forum won't let me post a link, due to many members with terrible customer service experiences.
But I had no problem when I ordered my adapters, had them is a couple of weeks.

Just google taco tunes and you'll find the adapters on their website.

 

I looked at the taco tunes adapters and seems like that’s a good way to go.
Five star shows how the focal tweets will fit, and they use a small foam ring like a fast ring.

Also - I won’t have crossovers since I’m going active DSP on each channel via the VXi.

I’ll keep you posted with how that shakes out. Subs and amp prewire, amp rack fab will take me this weekend and next. Hope to get speakers and vxi amp in before mid May due to timing. Then I can head to CS to have it tuned after finals at A&M (less traffic).

 

Take your time and do it right (once).
Glad to see you're not in a hurry to get it all installed at once..
It took me an entire weekend just to do the sound deadening I did.

Wife kept rolling her eyes as she walked thru the garage when I had my entire interior out.
But I'll be damned if she didn't notice it was quieter in the cab after I did it..

 

Rear wall deadened and subs/sub amp are installed. Low end is great and the JL amp pushes them as hard as I’ll ever need.

also ran the 0/1 to the distribution block and second set of 4 way RCAs to radio. Should save time with the 8ch and speaker install.

 

Decided to have the pros handle this - Today was the day. Had to run to college station for the day so I dropped the truck off at Mobile Toys Inc, one of the best sound quality shops in the US first thing in the am.

They custom installed the Focal Flax Evo 3 way front stage (I supplied the oem sail panels for tweeters and they modified the dash for the 3” mids) and the same two way combos in rear. They left my two JL Audio 10TW3s in the Fox Acoustics box in place. Full sound treatment on doors and custom mounting brackets.

They also wired up the VXi 800/8 and moved the sub amp (JL Audio RD 500/1) to under driver’s side.

System was configured and tuned by Jeffrey Hald, former tuner for JL Audio, who now works at MTI. They setup 5 different mics to tune and configure the DSP on the amp.

I can’t describe how good this truck sounds. It’s unreal. The imaging is incredible.

Kenwood DMX1057XR is still perfect too.