Audio system: Subwoofer compatibility and installation

[LRNAD90]

Originally Posted by Yoshoobaroo

I like the last gen’s OEM kicker sub because it adds a subwoofer AND puts a crossover on the other speakers, while you only need to run a harness from the headunit to the trunk.

I honestly have no interest in pulling door cards off and replacing speakers.

OEM Audi Plus's base 'System 500' system is essentially this

• Multi-Channel 64Bit DSP Amplifier
• Factory Speaker Optimization
• BRZ-Specific Subwoofer System
• Quick-Sync "Plug & Play" Wiring Harness

It is about twice the price of the original Kicker Subwoofer accessory for the Gen 1 cars, but with the added advantage of the digital sound processing, no factory speaker replacements needed.

Would certainly be interesting to hear an evaluation of one vs the other, but haven't seen that so far..

[soundman98]

Originally Posted by LRNAD90

I've done some high end audio installations in the past, and I'm not going to argue that you couldn't do better, but I think you are going to spend 2,3 maybe 4 times as much. Using a Digital Sound Processor and specifically crafted maps for a specific environment with specific components tends to lead to a better overall outcome. If you (or an installer) has the resources and expertise to do this, and are willing to spend you can probably do better, sure.

i'm at about $2k all in, including a $400 custom box and $600 all-in-one amp, which were the biggest ticket items, both of which had cheaper alternatives at the disadvantage of size/placement/appearance. so slightly more, but also a lot more adjustability within the entire system oem+ doesn't allow for. good and bad.

i pride myself on building setups with low budget gear that easily passes for high end gear. i got tired of sifting through snake oil and over-zealous marketing department lingo

as i said, the biggest advantage to oem+'s setup is that it's plug-n-play, with zero configuration or serious configuration thought--they've done all that already. the physical speaker parts are overall low/mid grade stuff. the real cost/magic is in the DSP, but honestly, most aftermarket DSP's on the market are quite simple to program, so it really just comes back to the plug-n-play simplicity. it's a very fair price for the parts and engineering involved though

[JoeBRZ18]

Was able to fit this where the spare tire should be, kept the stock speakers and it sounds great.

[joemysterio]

Originally Posted by JoeBRZ18

Was able to fit this where the spare tire should be, kept the stock speakers and it sounds great.

Nice! I just need a little extra bass so I was thinking of putting in the sub designed to fit in a spare tire.

Did you do this yourself or had it installed by a shop?

[JoeBRZ18]

Originally Posted by joemysterio

Nice! I just need a little extra bass so I was thinking of putting in the sub designed to fit in a spare tire.

Did you do this yourself or had it installed by a shop?

I had it installed, the total for the amps, sub and installation was $1400. I also considered the spare tire sub, but ultimately I wanted a bit more power all around.

[PhatFreshPrince]

Originally Posted by soundman98

i'm at about $2k all in, including a $400 custom box and $600 all-in-one amp, which were the biggest ticket items, both of which had cheaper alternatives at the disadvantage of size/placement/appearance. so slightly more, but also a lot more adjustability within the entire system oem+ doesn't allow for. good and bad.

i pride myself on building setups with low budget gear that easily passes for high end gear. i got tired of sifting through snake oil and over-zealous marketing department lingo

as i said, the biggest advantage to oem+'s setup is that it's plug-n-play, with zero configuration or serious configuration thought--they've done all that already. the physical speaker parts are overall low/mid grade stuff. the real cost/magic is in the DSP, but honestly, most aftermarket DSP's on the market are quite simple to program, so it really just comes back to the plug-n-play simplicity. it's a very fair price for the parts and engineering involved though

What would you suggest for around $1000? I would like to avoid your custom box that I assume is for a bass speaker.
Could I get away with just getting a DSP amp and keeping the original speakers?
Please give me links to the hardware you suggest.

[soundman98]

$1,000 to do what? speaker replacement? add a sub? add an amp? replace the head unit? are you doing the work, and/or does that figure need to include installation costs?


fyi-- just helped another guy on the tacoma forums with setting up the parts for just a sub install-- the amp, box, wiring, and sub were $500 for moderate equipment.

[PhatFreshPrince]

Originally Posted by soundman98

$1,000 to do what? speaker replacement? add a sub? add an amp? replace the head unit? are you doing the work, and/or does that figure need to include installation costs?


fyi-- just helped another guy on the tacoma forums with setting up the parts for just a sub install-- the amp, box, wiring, and sub were $500 for moderate equipment.

This is where I need to lean on you. I just want the sound system to sound better. It sounds hollow to me overall, and the bass can be there but sounds bad at high volume. I figure this is like most things in life where you can pay to get things better by about 80% and the last 20% will double the money you pay. In short, I want to get it to the 80% better mark.
If I can I would like NOT to replace the head unit. I assume I need a new amp (I have the Limited one). I am going to do the work myself, so if I need to replace the speakers I would not want to open the dash up, but the door or back speakers are fair game. Could I replace the back speakers to fix the hollowness and bass without getting a sub? What do you recommend to get it sound 80% better?

[CincyJohn]

Originally Posted by PhatFreshPrince

This is where I need to lean on you. I just want the sound system to sound better. It sounds hollow to me overall, and the bass can be there but sounds bad at high volume. I figure this is like most things in life where you can pay to get things better by about 80% and the last 20% will double the money you pay. In short, I want to get it to the 80% better mark.
If I can I would like NOT to replace the head unit. I assume I need a new amp (I have the Limited one). I am going to do the work myself, so if I need to replace the speakers I would not want to open the dash up, but the door or back speakers are fair game. Could I replace the back speakers to fix the hollowness and bass without getting a sub? What do you recommend to get it sound 80% better?

First of all, the dash speakers are the easiest to get to. You simply compress the grills and they lift out. And frankly, getting to all the speakers is not that big of an issue and, compared to the wiring and installation of all the new components (subwoofer, amps, DSP) is relatively easy. The real issue is that the existing wiring is far from straightforward and simply changing out the speakers (which won’t change that much anyhow) is not really an option. Unless they come up with a plug and play sub (which even then requires
you to wire power from the battery, through the firewall to the trunk, you really need to plan on committing $1000 - $1500 and essentially rewiring the
whole car to get noticeable improvement (oh and installing a good bit of Dynomat while you are at it).

[PhatFreshPrince]

Originally Posted by CincyJohn

First of all, the dash speakers are the easiest to get to. You simply compress the grills and they lift out. And frankly, getting to all the speakers is not that big of an issue and, compared to the wiring and installation of all the new components (subwoofer, amps, DSP) is relatively easy. The real issue is that the existing wiring is far from straightforward and simply changing out the speakers (which won’t change that much anyhow) is not really an option. Unless they come up with a plug and play sub (which even then requires
you to wire power from the battery, through the firewall to the trunk, you really need to plan on committing $1000 - $1500 and essentially rewiring the
whole car to get noticeable improvement (oh and installing a good bit of Dynomat while you are at it).

Oh, thanks. I thought I would have to remove the dash to get to those speakers. Well, in that case, I would be willing to replace all the speakers. Are you saying the current speakers are good enough? I was hoping to change out just the small rear speakers to bigger ones to help the bass and add a DSP to improve the overall sound. I guess you are saying the DSP would need wiring to all the speakers to help the sound which is the real headache. I guess I am looking for around $600, $1000, and $1500 solutions and a list of the advantages of upgrading to the two higher-cost options. Then I can deside if it is worth the extra cost and my labor. So far all I see here is the OEM Audi Plus's base 'System 500' system for around $1200.

[soundman98]

Originally Posted by PhatFreshPrince

This is where I need to lean on you. I just want the sound system to sound better. It sounds hollow to me overall, and the bass can be there but sounds bad at high volume. I figure this is like most things in life where you can pay to get things better by about 80% and the last 20% will double the money you pay. In short, I want to get it to the 80% better mark.
If I can I would like NOT to replace the head unit. I assume I need a new amp (I have the Limited one). I am going to do the work myself, so if I need to replace the speakers I would not want to open the dash up, but the door or back speakers are fair game. Could I replace the back speakers to fix the hollowness and bass without getting a sub? What do you recommend to get it sound 80% better?

the rear speakers are mounted like this:


they're literally just dangling in a massive open cavity.

my understanding is that the oem stereo does some filtering(unknown to the specifics, but a few reports) which already reduces the capability of the rear speakers. but regardless of the signal they get, to make any sort of use of those speaker locations, a baffle would need to be made looking more like this


and the interior plastic would also need to be modified with a larger grille to allow the sound to come out of the larger replacement speaker.

personally, i don't see much of a reason to fuss with the rear speakers-- it's a ton of work representing minimal gains, even if everything is thrown at them.

in fairness though, i'm biased against rear speakers. i personally prefer a more forward sound stage, where it sounds more similar to the band 'playing on the hood', so i rarely focus on doing much with any rear speakers.



ok, a few different thoughts. none are set in stone, and all could cost money to try.

hollow sounding to me indicates that there's something missing in the middle of the frequency range. i believe the dash speakers and door speakers are each independently filtered-- iirc, the dash speakers start working around 3khz, and the door speaker amp filters out frequencies above 350hz. so the vocal range from 350-3khz doesn't exist for these speakers. leaving things hollow sounding.



something that no one's tried that could help is to make and install a copy of the hakone amp bypass jumper that bypasses the oem amp and it's filtering, powering the door speakers directly off the radio.

all you should need would be the metra 70-1761 harness, and some time to splice the wires together.

picture of the harness to be duplicated is in picture 7b in this post:
https://www.ft86club.com/forums/show...13&postcount=2

the upshot here is that it's simple, extremely cheap, and 100% reversible. the downside is that the door speakers are 2ohm speakers, which might not play nice with the radio, and might not sound any better because of it.

if all you're really interested in is full sound, it doesn't really seem like you want a subwoofer.

just about any 2-way component set ought to fulfill that need.

for a 100% reversible setup, i would suggest that amp bypass mod in tandem with these speakers
https://nvx.com/nvx-vsp65kit.html

you would also require these, or similar door harness adapters for the door speakers
https://www.sonicelectronix.com/item...a-72-8104.html

and you'd also need this tweeter wiring harness. this is required because the audio signal runs through the factory tweeters connector. disconnecting them kills the signal going to the midranges and door speaker amp.
https://tacotunes.com/shop/toyota-ca...ness-adapters/

at the bottom of the tacotunes page, there's a description that says the radio input to the tweeter connector is 2-/4+, with 1-/3+ going to the door speakers.


this idea would replace all the speakers in the front of the car, for just under $200 in parts. crossover would be installed inside the dash, under the tweeters, the tweeters would require a mounting idea-- possibly these, the midrange would not be used anymore. the crossover would be wired so 2-/4+ is the input to the crossover, the tweeter output would go straight to the tweeter above it, and the woofer output would connect to 1-/3+ of that tweeter adapter harness. the amp bypass harness, and speaker adapter harnesses would be required for a reversible setup.

you could alternately run wire from the crossover into each door as well, which would eliminate the amp bypass adapter, as well as the speaker adapter harnesses, it would just be more work.


i personally haven't added any major sound deadening to my '14, other than some in the trunk area to deal with rattles from the subwoofer. so extra money/time could be spent deadening the doors, but i honestly don't believe that it's going to have significant audio quality gains. YMMV.

that's a preliminary, easy setup. adding an amp and sub is going to be vastly more complex, and if you're comparing aftermarket to oem+ in terms of cost, their package is going to be cheaper and easier to install, though likely not as personally-specific as the aftermarket gear would be.

[PhatFreshPrince]

Originally Posted by soundman98

the rear speakers are mounted like this:


they're literally just dangling in a massive open cavity.

my understanding is that the oem stereo does some filtering(unknown to the specifics, but a few reports) which already reduces the capability of the rear speakers. but regardless of the signal they get, to make any sort of use of those speaker locations, a baffle would need to be made looking more like this


and the interior plastic would also need to be modified with a larger grille to allow the sound to come out of the larger replacement speaker.

personally, i don't see much of a reason to fuss with the rear speakers-- it's a ton of work representing minimal gains, even if everything is thrown at them.

in fairness though, i'm biased against rear speakers. i personally prefer a more forward sound stage, where it sounds more similar to the band 'playing on the hood', so i rarely focus on doing much with any rear speakers.



ok, a few different thoughts. none are set in stone, and all could cost money to try.

hollow sounding to me indicates that there's something missing in the middle of the frequency range. i believe the dash speakers and door speakers are each independently filtered-- iirc, the dash speakers start working around 3khz, and the door speaker amp filters out frequencies above 350hz. so the vocal range from 350-3khz doesn't exist for these speakers. leaving things hollow sounding.



something that no one's tried that could help is to make and install a copy of the hakone amp bypass jumper that bypasses the oem amp and it's filtering, powering the door speakers directly off the radio.

all you should need would be the metra 70-1761 harness, and some time to splice the wires together.

picture of the harness to be duplicated is in picture 7b in this post:
https://www.ft86club.com/forums/show...13&postcount=2

the upshot here is that it's simple, extremely cheap, and 100% reversible. the downside is that the door speakers are 2ohm speakers, which might not play nice with the radio, and might not sound any better because of it.

if all you're really interested in is full sound, it doesn't really seem like you want a subwoofer.

just about any 2-way component set ought to fulfill that need.

for a 100% reversible setup, i would suggest that amp bypass mod in tandem with these speakers
https://nvx.com/nvx-vsp65kit.html

you would also require these, or similar door harness adapters for the door speakers
https://www.sonicelectronix.com/item...a-72-8104.html

and you'd also need this tweeter wiring harness. this is required because the audio signal runs through the factory tweeters connector. disconnecting them kills the signal going to the midranges and door speaker amp.
https://tacotunes.com/shop/toyota-ca...ness-adapters/

at the bottom of the tacotunes page, there's a description that says the radio input to the tweeter connector is 2-/4+, with 1-/3+ going to the door speakers.


this idea would replace all the speakers in the front of the car, for just under $200 in parts. crossover would be installed inside the dash, under the tweeters, the tweeters would require a mounting idea-- possibly these, the midrange would not be used anymore. the crossover would be wired so 2-/4+ is the input to the crossover, the tweeter output would go straight to the tweeter above it, and the woofer output would connect to 1-/3+ of that tweeter adapter harness. the amp bypass harness, and speaker adapter harnesses would be required for a reversible setup.

you could alternately run wire from the crossover into each door as well, which would eliminate the amp bypass adapter, as well as the speaker adapter harnesses, it would just be more work.


i personally haven't added any major sound deadening to my '14, other than some in the trunk area to deal with rattles from the subwoofer. so extra money/time could be spent deadening the doors, but i honestly don't believe that it's going to have significant audio quality gains. YMMV.

that's a preliminary, easy setup. adding an amp and sub is going to be vastly more complex, and if you're comparing aftermarket to oem+ in terms of cost, their package is going to be cheaper and easier to install, though likely not as personally-specific as the aftermarket gear would be.

This is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks, soundman98! You have sold me on not messing with the rear speakers. I need to look and see how difficult it will be to run speaker wires to the door speakers, but over all seems like a very cheap solution with some work on a weekend. Do you think this will improve the sound to what %? I am guessing around 50% better sound. Would an 80% increase in sound quality cost a lot more in your opinion?

[soundman98]

a thinner speaker wire might fit, i did my front doors with a much thicker/durable jacketed stuff, and it wouldn't physically fit through the boot. inside the boot on both ends, there's a 'tongue' that sticks out and the wire that goes through it is electrical taped on each end to keep it in place. makes it way more of a pain to pull anything through there. i ended up cutting an 'X' in the boot on both sides just smaller than the diameter of the cable i was pulling through, so the pieces of the X self-seal against the wire






i'm hesitant to put a % on the recommendations-- to some it'll be 10% because it's not sound deadened, or lacks an amp, and lacks a sub. to others, it'll be 200% better...

instead i'll explain the logic a little more. because the door speaker amp filters out anything above 350hz, and the dash midranges don't start until about 3khz, the point is to essentially start over with gear that is filtered in a way that there's no gap between the different types of speakers. the solution gets rid of the stock speakers, amp and their filtering, which is really what i feel is the root cause of all this. i think the components that are installed in these vehicles are of good quality, but the filtering choices made are poor. but there's no easy way to get rid of the filtering without major adjustments in the speakers.

the only filter that's easy to bypass is the door speaker amp filtering, but as i said, the stock speakers resistance level could pose a powering issue to the head unit that could result in bad sound as well.

so is it going to be better? i would and have run a similar setup in my car at one point, which is why i have no qualms about recommending this type of setup. it's good enough for those that weren't looking for seat-shaking bass most times.

could it be better? yes, just like everything else, throwing more money at it could make it louder/clearer/better. but this is about as easy/reversible as it gets without going into adding amps, line output converters, and/or a subwoofer.

fyi, i helped a tacoma forum member select some gear for a moderate sub install. just the box, wiring, 1-channel amp, and sub came to $510. so of your $1k budget, adding a sub would only leave about $250 if you were to want to change to a 5-channel amp, or run a larger power wire with distribution blocks ($) and install a 1-channel and 2-4 channel amp, plus additional speaker wire.

i would expect adding a sub to your setup would cost approximately the same as his did. so while it's still within your budget number, you would need to be the one to determine if it's worthwhile. i would recommend taking this step first and figuring out how satisfied you are with the cheaper alternatives. to many it's not worth it, to some it is.

[CincyJohn]

Originally Posted by soundman98

a thinner speaker wire might fit, i did my front doors with a much thicker/durable jacketed stuff, and it wouldn't physically fit through the boot. inside the boot on both ends, there's a 'tongue' that sticks out and the wire that goes through it is electrical taped on each end to keep it in place. makes it way more of a pain to pull anything through there. i ended up cutting an 'X' in the boot on both sides just smaller than the diameter of the cable i was pulling through, so the pieces of the X self-seal against the wire

i'm hesitant to put a % on the recommendations-- to some it'll be 10% because it's not sound deadened, or lacks an amp, and lacks a sub. to others, it'll be 200% better...

instead i'll explain the logic a little more. because the door speaker amp filters out anything above 350hz, and the dash midranges don't start until about 3khz, the point is to essentially start over with gear that is filtered in a way that there's no gap between the different types of speakers. the solution gets rid of the stock speakers, amp and their filtering, which is really what i feel is the root cause of all this. i think the components that are installed in these vehicles are of good quality, but the filtering choices made are poor. but there's no easy way to get rid of the filtering without major adjustments in the speakers.

the only filter that's easy to bypass is the door speaker amp filtering, but as i said, the stock speakers resistance level could pose a powering issue to the head unit that could result in bad sound as well.

so is it going to be better? i would and have run a similar setup in my car at one point, which is why i have no qualms about recommending this type of setup. it's good enough for those that weren't looking for seat-shaking bass most times.

could it be better? yes, just like everything else, throwing more money at it could make it louder/clearer/better. but this is about as easy/reversible as it gets without going into adding amps, line output converters, and/or a subwoofer.

fyi, i helped a tacoma forum member select some gear for a moderate sub install. just the box, wiring, 1-channel amp, and sub came to $510. so of your $1k budget, adding a sub would only leave about $250 if you were to want to change to a 5-channel amp, or run a larger power wire with distribution blocks ($) and install a 1-channel and 2-4 channel amp, plus additional speaker wire.

i would expect adding a sub to your setup would cost approximately the same as his did. so while it's still within your budget number, you would need to be the one to determine if it's worthwhile. i would recommend taking this step first and figuring out how satisfied you are with the cheaper alternatives. to many it's not worth it, to some it is.

A couple of comments on your comments. First, I thought the Hakone system was universally panned as sounding much worse than the Limited stereo out of the box - I mean barely usable. I just don't think the head unit has enough power to do the job on the door speakers especially considering they do the majority (all) of the job with respect to the low frequencies.

Specifically, I agree that the stock speakers aren't that bad and that the major problems with the system are stock filtering decisions and lack of power. In other words, I think that if there were a way to add a DSP in front of and replacing all built-in filtering, more power and, (for most) a subwoofer, while utilizing the existing speakers/wiring, you could end up with a pretty decent sounding system for as little money as you could expect to spend (maybe even $600-$800 or less if you could find used equipment). Problem is you can't and then you throw in the fact that all the speakers are 2ohm and you have yet another wrench in the system.

I think other than rewiring the whole car and replacing almost everything but the head unit, simply replacing the existing amp with a better one using the existing harnesses may be the best way to go
https://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=83809

Second choice would be a plug-n-play subwoofer if it existed.

Just my thoughts.