Poor audio quality kenwood head unit

I recently bought a 05 tundra DC and it came with a Kenwood DNX695S h/u but the sound is horrible. Just very flat and the volume seems very low when turned up. What could possibly be causing the poor audio quality?
thanks,

 

Crappy speakers

 

That radio isn’t properly installed, or as previously posted, could be blown speakers.

 

Yeah, mine had a crappy stereo installed when I bought it. Replaced the stereo (had intended to do so anyway) and sound was still crappy. Took off the door panels and all these flakes of black fell to the ground. The speakers were trash. The speaker surround foams were just in pieces, that's what the black flakes were. A little annoying as I should have looked before ordering the stereo as I would have got 50 percent off the speakers I had to buy if I had ordered them at the same time.

 

Ok good to know. How can I tell if they install an amp bypass? I think that might be the problem plus the crappy speakers lol.

 

You should pull the trim panel and remove the head unit. Then take a look at your wiring harness and any adaptor units and harness. Might pull your vehicles specs from the website and see if yours is the JBL or not.

 

Yes its the jbl system. I need to do some more research to find out what to look for once I pull the head unit out.

 

The JBL system sounds great when its working properly, the problem is now that they are 20+ years old and the wiring is starting to get corrosion inside the sheaths and voltage isnt what its supposed to be ect ect ect.

I had a great sounding system stock and decided to upgrade it one day, went with all Alpine Type R2 front and rear, left the OEM amp in place, put an Alpine head unit in and dialed it all in. It sounded great when the volume was low, sounded even better as the volume came up, after one or two songs at higher volume you started to hear crackling, static, distortion, clipping when you shouldnt. Times when a driver is running hard, and then the music stops, the driver would have static or a crackle as things calmed down. This is a sign that the JBL amp is no longer able to handle the demands and is clipping. I suspect its the small wiring, corrosion building up in the wire, voltage is lower than it needs to be and the capacitors in the amp are not able to keep up with demand. I can jam out to a song or two before it starts doing it but after it starts it gets worse and worse. About ten songs in and you are hearing the speakers go from clean to distorted on notes that they should handle no problem. I swapped the head units to a pioneer that had a higher level of tuning to try to clean it up before i realized it wasnt the head unit, its the OEM amp giving up the ghost.

I suspect you are at the advances stages of this, likely the amp is about crapped out, or the speakers are shot, OR a combination of both.

 

This sounds about right, I don't have the distorted or clipping sounds. It just sounds underpowered and flat. Im going to check the amp tonight and see if it has the amp bypass cable connected and if not order one. Is the back of the headunit a plug in play with the bypass harness or will I need to connect and butt splice some wires? I know the connection to the amp is plug and play.

 

That depends on who installed the HU..
As others stated you're running 20-year-old speakers...

If you haven't removed the HU, it is fairly easy..

https://youtu.be/mtMTHiTsTgg?si=oXEQQkMETumF4NBp

 

Just be careful taking out those 10mm bolts. It's real easy to drop them down behind the center dash area. Ask me how I know!
Fortunately, it's maybe 10 minutes to remove the center console parts to retrieve them, but might as well avoid that headache.

 

Read @shifty`s megathread. Also he knows a lot about our trucks and stereo installs. I still have my stock headunit but with a modern headunit upgrade, I believe the best solution is to bypass the OEM amp using an adaptor harness.

 

Thanks for the tip, I dont want to find out the hard way.

 

I was reading @Shifty's megathread earlier and its full of helpful information.

That is what i have read too. Bypass the old amp and use the modern HU's amp. Next I need to see if I need new speakers and will my current headunit support the power. Most likely i will need to get a dedicated amp and shifty writes about that too.

 

Did you end up going the amp bypass harness to fix your problem?

 

You really need to do two things:

1. Pop off the back panel, drivers side, and verify the amp and its harnesses are plugged into the amp, like it hasn’t been bypassed.
2. Pop out the stereo and see what amp adapter they used. Crux? Axxess? PAC?

WITHOUT POPPING PANELS, one way to tell if they used a bypass is to turn the volume up and try fading all the way to the rear, then all the way to the front. Does it fade? Most (all?) amp adapters which keep the amp DO NOT fade, you lose that ability if you repurpose the factory amp. Give it a shot, let us know what happens if you fade front to rear 100%

Also note: The Kenwood/JVC head units do have a quirk where certain steering wheel control units need a resistor installed inline to function. To be clear, I DO NOT think it has anything to do with your current problem.

Oh, and the OEM JBL drivers are 2ohm, versus the typical 4ohm, which can definitely have some weird effects if someone updates speakers but keeps the OEM amp.

 

Depends upon the sensitivity of the speakers whether you’ll need a separate amp or not. My older 6.5” Alpine speakers don’t require an amp with their 93 dB sensitivity. Obviously any subwoofer would require a separate amp but for that you can use a cheaper, highly efficient class D instead of an AB class amp.

 

Hi @shifty` thanks for the reply.

Yes is does fade.

The steering wheel controls do work.

I don’t plan on using the oem amp. I would prefer just to remove it. Would that affect anything if I did?

Will it be an issue to install aftermarket speakers with my Kenwood h/u and not have a separate amp?
Thanks

 

So I need to investigate what my current head unit can handle and match them with speakers that can handle the same power?

 

Your speakers can always be spec’d for a higher power. Obviously you don’t want speakers that can’t handle the power of the head unit.

if you plan to drive the speakers directly with the head unit, make sure your head unit is the typical 4 ohm output and get speakers to match in impedance for maximum power transfer. Never get speakers with a lower impedance than that of the head unit or external amp as it can prematurely burn out the amplifier.

 

I drive the truck very little right now, when i do its more of a people hauler / trailer hauler and i'm mostly driving to town to supper with the family so the radio stays low. Occasionally i find myself alone and 95% of the time the radio stays on volume 5-6 so its just background noise. In the past year i bet i have only listened to the radio loud 4-5 times so i'm not happy with how it sounds but its not a priority to disassemble everything and re-wire everything.
The aftermarket radios now have more power than the JBL put out 20 years ago so in all honesty i am probably going to do a complete rewire, from head unit to the doors. I dont really wanna do an amp bypass, i kinda wanted to run all new wire which is likely a weekend project and my weekends have been full for a long time lately. Its not mission critical at the moment so i am just living with it because the problem only really shows itself on 1% of my driving / listening.

 

This is directly from the kenwood website on the DNX695S headunit:
Maximum Power Output (Front&Rear) 50Wx4
Typical Power Output (Front&Rear) Full Bandwidth Power
(at less than 1%THD)
22Wx4
Output frequency band 20 - 88,000Hz
Preout level (V) 5V / 10kOhms
Preout impedance (Ω) =< 300 Ohms
Speaker Impedance (Ω) 4-8 Ohms

What does 4-8 ohms mean? So I'm assuming I need 4 ohms speakers to match my headunit.

 

Yep, 4 ohms minimum. 22 watts doesn’t sound like much. I’ll have to check mine to see if it’s comparable. You may want the external amp just for more power especially since you already have the pre-amp outputs. You may also find speakers you really like that have lower sensitivity (i.e. 85-88 dB) and really need the external amp as well.

Edit: Looks like my head unit is 20 watts output per channel, so it’s not unusual.

 

You may still have an amplifier adapter. There’s at least one I know of that maintains balance. I’d proceed with steps 1 and 2.

I would leave the amp installed, just don’t use it if you don’t want to. But need to know what you got (steps 1 and 2) to provide optimal advice.

No issue to install aftermarket speakers with your aftermarket head unit that I’m aware of, assuming OEM wiring didn’t bridge anything. You’d probably want to use a bypass for the amp if not already installed. Why bypass? These truck’s speakers are wired to the amp, then there’s a wire from the amp to the radio. The bypass basically extends those speaker wires from the amp to your dash, so you can direct-wire from the head unit to the speakers via the amp’s speaker plug. Does this make sense?

I disagree with this. JBL sells a ton of 3ohm automotive speakers, and they work fine with any name-brand head unit I’ve ever installed. In fact, I’m running all 3ohm drivers on my Alpine W670, been running for years, zero issues. I wouldn’t doubt if it’s rated for 4-8ohm min-max also.

Avoid 2ohm? Yes. I wouldn’t want to use the OEM JBL drivers with an aftermarket head unit per se, you may overload it (although plenty of ppl who’ve posted on here are). 3ohm? I wouldn’t sweat it if you have a quality head. Cheap aftermarket, shit scAmazon brands like ATOTO, or other cheap stuff like Dual, Boss, etc? Stick with 4ohm.

 

Well it really comes down to how well the head unit can handle the heat generated by over driving the internal amp. Obviously, as you know, some brands are better than others.

 

I will get steps 1 and 2 done tomorrow after work.

Yes that explanation makes sense.

What speaker models are you currently using and would you recommend them? Also did you need spacers for the front or rear?

 

I have an access cab so different situation than yours. I went with amp bypass, head unit directly powering all JBL “Club” series components knowing I had a quality head that could handle driving the included 3ohm drivers. JBL has two options, Concert series and Club series. The names pretty much denote the style of sound you’ll get. Both offer great accuracy in reproduction but I’ve found the club series to offer a little more punch. Not that you’re really going to get any significant punch out of a below-7” driver, but I’ve found other brands like Infinity to be tinny/shrill in comparison. I’ve found Rockford’s mids/components to be a little muddy or dull on repro. I haven’t messed with Kicker or JL’s stuff and a lot of other stuff out there that’s worthwhile is 2x-3x the cost (or more).

First things first, let’s see what’s in there. If steering controls are working, you’ve got something in there, I’m suspecting it’s a PAC unit that covers the whole shebang (keeps OEM amp, also adapts steering controls). I’m doubting they’re already bypassing the amp knowing you’ve got that Kenwood HU in there, and steering wheel controls are working but it’s possible they’ve got a Crux or Axxess steering wheel adapter and using amp bypass too.

It’s also possible the stock JBL speakers had their surrounds disintegrate which is why things sound like shit, apparently the JBL surrounds (the rubber, cloth, or other thin reflexive material around the perimeter of the speaker cone) had a penchant for breaking down, rotting out. If that is so, and you are still using the OEM JBL amp (not bypassed), PowerBass makes plug-and-play 2ohm drivers to replace the stock speakers, and has some that are 7” and will really fill that low end fairly well, unless you plan to add a sub later.

Lots of options. Just need to know what you’ve got. Can’t recommend www.Crutchfield.com enough for picking out equipment. Free phone/chat support. Extended replacement of parts in many situations. Free adapters thrown in. Great pricing, good selection and verified (non-counterfeit / non-gray market) inventory. And free instruction sheets with every purchase, pertaining to the equipment you ordered. They’ll even build/crimp your harnesses for you for a relatively small upcharge, taking guesswork out of things.

 

I recently did my led upgrade and blew the dome light fuse on accident. I’m assuming one of many since I’ve only had my truck for four days lol.

while installing the glove box light I did manage to get a side shot from the glove box of the back of the radio. Not sure if it helps are not. I’m finally off on Christmas Day and I will get a picture of the amp.

‘thanks,

 

Nah, not seeing a lot that shot that’s helpful.

 

Ok in the process of removing the back panel. I removed the 10mm bolt and pulled out the top and uppersides but the bottom sides are giving me trouble.