Need Some Car Audio Advice

[SleeperLS]

I am looking to upgrade my 2010 Toyota Tundra's audio system and need some input as I have been away from the car audio game for about 15 years. I need some opinions on some of this stuff, primarily front speaker choice, rear speaker opinion and amp wiring kit.

I have a 5 channel amplifier from my old SQ build that I would like to use to save some money, plus it is a really nice amp. I can hide this behind the rear seat, which is nice. It is a DLS Ultimate A7 series amplifier. Manual calls for 4 AWG wire minimum, should I just do that or spring for the 1 AWG? Here is a link to the spec sheet on their website... Ultimate A7 - 1000 Watts 5-ch. amplifier. I am going to use every channel.

Rear speaker options are really limited. Since the rear speakers are behind the seats and mounted low, do I need a good speaker back there or can I just throw some $60/pair back there and call it good in order to spend more money up front?

Front door speakers are the big ones I am uncertain about. The Tundra has a 6x9 in the front that are so shallow, there is only a couple replacement 6x9 speakers on the market. Most people use 6.5'' or 6.75''speakers in its place. I feel like a round speaker will have better sound quality than a 6x9, but I might be wrong on that. Should I stick with 2 way 6x9 or replace them with 6"ers? There is also a 2'' tweeter placement in the dash panel by the windshield. I am completely undecided if I need to get a component set and put the woofer in the door and the tweeter in the dash, or just get a 3 way coaxial in the door and get tweeters for the dash. Need some pro opinion on what will sound better as I don't want my ears bleeding from highs.

All thoughts are welcome. I am mainly needing to know what amp wire kit gauge I should go with given the amp specs, will cheaper rear speakers be a bad idea, and what the hell should I do with the fronts? Thanks for the help in advance.

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[OffshoreDrilling]

[MENTION=98]smug[/MENTION]

 

[SleeperLS]

First post simplified. None of the links would work and it was too long.

 

[smug]

4 gauge should be good for that amp

No rear speakers, just none. No point to because unless you have a DSP and cam add like 40 milliseconds of delay and play them very quietly the rear speakers will draw the front sound stage down and back. We dont want that.

I would not to a tweeter in the dash along with a 3 way or 2 way coaxial in the door.

Stock headunit? Aftermarket?

Willing to try and learn how to use a DSP?

Why is the door speaker mounting location shallow? I'd assume the window gets in the way. I would look at 6.5 inch component speaker sets and dont be afraid to spend some coin on these. Also be prepared to make your own speaker adapter ring.

Deaden the hell out of the front doors.

 

[SleeperLS]

4 gauge should be good for that amp

No rear speakers, just none. No point to because unless you have a DSP and cam add like 40 milliseconds of delay and play them very quietly the rear speakers will draw the front sound stage down and back. We dont want that.

I would not to a tweeter in the dash along with a 3 way or 2 way coaxial in the door.

Stock headunit? Aftermarket?

Willing to try and learn how to use a DSP?

Why is the door speaker mounting location shallow? I'd assume the window gets in the way. I would look at 6.5 inch component speaker sets and dont be afraid to spend some coin on these. Also be prepared to make your own speaker adapter ring.

Deaden the hell out of the front doors.

Good to know about the rears. Going with a Pioneer 4200NEX head unit. Not really looking into using a DSP right now. The windows get in the way and the stock speaker grilles on the door panels are close to the speakers themselves, although there is unecessary plastic that can be shaved down on the back of the door grilles to gain some room.

I have been researching some components and actually ordered some factory tweeter sail panels that came in the jbl equipped Tundra to mount the tweets up there. I am just going to ignore the dash mounted tweeter and not hook them up. I looked through a lot of component sets and I have settled on some JBL GTO609C components. I am willing to spend more, but I wasn't happy with some of the other component features. I don't want super high tweeters, so I wanted a silk tweeter and most of the higher end ones had metal of some kind. Thoughts on that component or any other one you would recommend?

 

[Yaj Yak]

4 gauge should be good for that amp

No rear speakers, just none. No point to because unless you have a DSP and cam add like 40 milliseconds of delay and play them very quietly the rear speakers will draw the front sound stage down and back. We dont want that.

I would not to a tweeter in the dash along with a 3 way or 2 way coaxial in the door.

Stock headunit? Aftermarket?

Willing to try and learn how to use a DSP?

Why is the door speaker mounting location shallow? I'd assume the window gets in the way. I would look at 6.5 inch component speaker sets and dont be afraid to spend some coin on these. Also be prepared to make your own speaker adapter ring.

Deaden the hell out of the front doors.

people always gave me shit for not having rear speakers in my pricks.

preeeeach [MENTION=98]smug[/MENTION], preach!

 

[Bruce Jibboo]

What if he is nailing a side piece in the back, would Marvin gaye sound good with no rear speakers lols

 

[SleeperLS]

I was looking through the people pioneer 4200NEX features and the EQ in that thing is pretty sweet. It looks like it has a built in dsp and can adjust timing to each door speaker and the sub as well. Should I take advantage of that and get some rear door speakers?

 

[SleeperLS]

EQ functions. Technology has come so fucking far since the last time I have dabbled in this stuff.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t_hcq2fjHkI

 

[SleeperLS]

I am inpatient, so I went ahead and ordered some stuff. Ordered a stinger 6000 series amp wire kit, 3 sets of their 6000 series rca's, 14awg stinger pro series speaker wire for the doors and 12awg stinger pro series speaker wire for the sub (awesome that crutchfield sells this stuff by the foot). I have always had good luck with stinger wiring stuff in the past so I figured I should stick with it.

Also picked up a pioneer 4200nex head unit per copperstacks and outlaw recommendation. JL audio 8" W7 in a stealthbox designed to fit under a small part of the rear seat. I went ahead and ordered the jbl gto series 2 way components for the front. If I don't like them or want a better sounding set up I can return them and upgrade. Unfortunately a lot of the higher end stuff is too deep. Pretty pumped to get back into a good sounding system.

 

[smug]

Sounds like you are off to a decent start. Are you sure the 8" sub will be enough for your liking? The 4200NEX is a damn nice radio and yes, take full advantage of the simple built in DSP. That is so cool. Order some Sound skins sound dampener for the front doors because you will thank me later.

I am curious if the DSP in that radio will let you run the front speakers active instead of using the passive crossovers.

I would still use the front speakers only and see how you like it. If you truly hate it you can always add rears. I was very unsure about the no rear speaker deal until I tried it.

 

[SleeperLS]

Sounds like you are off to a decent start. Are you sure the 8" sub will be enough for your liking? The 4200NEX is a damn nice radio and yes, take full advantage of the simple built in DSP. That is so cool. Order some Sound skins sound dampener for the front doors because you will thank me later.

I am curious if the DSP in that radio will let you run the front speakers active instead of using the passive crossovers.

I am not a huge bass guy these days, just a nice all around sound guy. The w7 seems like a beast of a sub and it is wired for 3ohms in this enclosure, so it should crank out some pretty good bass for what I like. Worst case scenario is it sucks and I have to return it to crutchfield. It seems to get some good reviews though.

I ordered the $20 microphone that is used for the auto EQ, so I am actually pretty excited to see how that works out.

Also ordered the boom mat inserts for the front and rear doors to protect the speaker since I guess these are wet doors. I plan to cut the bottom of them out to let the speakers breathe. I would like to throw in a bunch of sound deadening, but that stuff gets expensive so I will have to wait just a little bit to get that.

I am curious how everything will run with the head unit and my amp. The DLS amp I have has a lot of options on it, so I set it up per the manual last night for the speaker set up I am running. We will see how it works. It has frequency filters for every channel and some other stuff I don't understand much, I just followed the instructions.

 

[SleeperLS]

I have some rear 5.5" 2 ways laying around that I am just going to throw in for the shit of it. If it messes with the sound too much I will just take them out. I am hoping the auto EQ will make the small amount of extra effort worth it. They aren't anything special, just some old fosgate speakers I had that were decent at the time.

 

[SleeperLS]

[MENTION=98]smug[/MENTION] is it ok if I mount my amp this way? I have never mounted an amp with the inputs facing up. I don't have any room to mount it flat in the truck so it has to be standing up some way. Manual says no inverted mounting, so I am assuming they mean upside down. This allows me to access and see the inputs and adjustments instead of them facing down toward the floor where I would not be able to see anything. . Also, more of the cooling fins will have more air space as opposed to the other way around. Thanks for the input on this. Appreciate it

 

[smug]

I assume that is a class A/B amp so it needs to have sufficient cooling. I would think it is okay as long as the seat back is not right up against the heat sink of the amp.

 

[SleeperLS]

I assume that is a class A/B amp so it needs to have sufficient cooling. I would think it is okay as long as the seat back is not right up against the heat sink of the amp.

Yup, class A/B. It does have a built in fan switch/terminals to hook up a fan if needed. Some pics of the space might be helpful, my bad. I also did a back seat mod that allows me to fold the back seat down. I can always just plop that passenger side down while I am driving if it gets too hot as well. I am going to mount it on some 1/2" wood dowels along the length to allow some air space between the back as well. Not sure if that is worth losing a 1/2" in front though.

 

[SleeperLS]

I am unsure if mounting the amp with all of the inputs facing up instead of pointing down is ok, but I am having a hard time finding a reason that it wouldn't be as long as there is airflow like you stated.

 

[1quick]

I've mounted amps like that never had any issues, you see them in boats all the time mounted in weird ways

 

[smug]

I think it will be fine