Upgrading my audio to the modern age - can I get a reality check/second opinions?

Hey all, so my setup that I self-installed back when the truck was new is now getting tired and needs some modernizing. Can some of you guys in the know give me a check to see if I'm on the right track? I haven't looked at audio in some time, I remember @ItalynStylion being pretty smart if he's still around.

Existing build found here, all nicely listed out

Current issues:

• Old HU is going out.
• low end sound is very weak. Not sure which exact component is to blame, I'm claiming HU with weak preouts.

My local shop recommended the following proposal, in steps. This is based on me having an Android phone (and an iPod classic, if needed)

1. Install Kenwood DDX9903S: This is the do-it-all solution, and gives Android Auto. I was thinking about a Pioneer AVH-4200NEX, but the shop guy said that's what he has and it's pissing him off with failures. He's also seen a lot of Pioneers come through the shop with failures. His next HU is going to be this Kenwood.
   1. DDX6903S would be next choice if Android Auto wasn't important, but I wanted most everything else
   2. Alpine CDE-W265BT is the last proposed choice, provided I don't care much about Android or a fancier screen
2. Install new RCAs (I am asking for this, I don't feel confident the current set are that great)
3. Review setup and determine if there's anything more to do
4. If sub itself is to blame, get new box with an Audiomobile Evo 2410 paired with an M-Car 250 passive radiator

So, my questions are

1. whether the HU choices make sense or if a different brand would have made sense. Before, my choices would have been Pioneer SPH-DA120, AVH-4200NEX, DEH-X8800BHS, simply because I could understand the Pioneer website (eveyone else makes terrible sites)
2. Is Android Auto worth it or is it junk?
3. Is any of that gear stupidly expensive, and I could do better for less?

 

Subd for answers. I, too am lost

 

Really depends on what kind of sound you are looking for.

Are you going for a SQL or SPL build? In my younger days (I.e. high school), I wanted to set off car alarms. When I discovered my love for music, I switched over to sound quality builds.

I haven't done my stereo in my Tacoma yet, but I did install a great system in my Tundra. Hertz Mille components, all active, with a BitOne sound processor. Even without subs in that build it sounded amazing.

 

I would not be so quick to blame the HU for weak low end. How much have you messed around with phase, crossover points, and gain? A higher preout voltage is equivalent to increased output power, which you can affect with amp gain. So if you want more bass, crank up your amp gain. Does the new HU give you more DSP controls than what you currently have? i.e., adjustable crossover slope, more EQ bands, time alignment?

 

I'm not terribly familiar with your current situation and how it sounds but here are my thoughts.

If the subwoofer is working, but insufficient, it's unlikely the issue is the headunit. It's job is to provide voltage to the amplifier to be multiplied into a higher voltage. The gain knob on the amp is intended to compensate for headunits with varying ranges of voltage. As for the RCAs, if you're getting sound through them today I see no point in replacing them. You won't hear a difference. So long as you aren't getting alternator whine or noise through them I'd keep what you have; spend the money elsewhere. The headunit looks nice and Kenwood unit's have always been solid. You'll love Android Auto.

The subwoofer you have is decent but you're stating it's insufficient. When you turn it up loud, does it distort or does it simply "top out" in terms of how loud it will get? Your amp seems fine for the time being. It makes 600RMS at 2ohms and you have a dual 4ohm subwoofer I'd HOPE is wired with the coils in parallel. 600RMS should be plenty to get that little W3 to full excursion. This is why I'd imagine it's starting to bottom out (runs out of mechanical/usable throw) and it starts to distort. If that's the case, then you need more subwoofer. The one you posted is kinda neat but it's also VERY expensive; $550 from what I read. The second issue with it is you'd need to find a place to mount not 1 but 2, 10" woofer cones. And mounting area is at a premium in the cab. Why not try a thin sub from JL for a similar price or even less? The JL Audio 13TW5V2-2 would be my pick. Should sound better than what you have, handle more power, and has nearly double the cone area as your current 10" woofer. The 2ohm version would be ideal with your current amp. Not sure how big your current box is but the 13TW JL sub might even be able to fit in there if you simply cut a larger hole in your existing box. How much airspace is in the existing box? I'd say it's worth a shot at reusing.

 

Couple thoughts about this

1 - There's many products for car audio. Crossovers, active EQs, amps, etc. The 'simplest' install that will give you 90%+ 'good' quality is a good head unit and speakers. For the last +10%, you have to get amps, active DSPs, crossovers, and tune for HOURS. Decide how far you want to go and stick to it. Personally I think speakers an a head unit are good enough for most people. Defiantly don't just do the head unit, do speakers too. Low end speakers will cost you about 40 bucks a pair.

2 - Android Audio and iOS specific solutions are gimmiky. All you need is a Head Unit that does Bluetooth and it will work with almost any phone made in the last 2 years (the phone must have Bluetooth). Spotify, Pandora, local sound files on the phone, all of these will send sound and calls to the head unit. Hands free calling is a very nice safety upgrade to older vehicles.

3 - USB input. Get a deck that you can plug a USB stick into. When your phone doesn't work, you can still listen to some local tunes

4 - Don't forget to consider Alpine too. But like you say, their website is ass. Look at the head units on Crutchfield, they have the best website in the buss. Find what you like, and if you need 'extra' help, buy it from Crutchfield. The extra money is worth it for their support. If you can operate on your own, find what you like on Crutchfield and then search for the model number on Amazon and Sonicelectronix. This will save you a few bucks, but your on your own.

 

I'll respectfully disagree here. Android Auto and Apple Car Play are ways you can integrate the phone into the headunit for more than just music. Android Auto lets you use Google Maps on the stereo screen. Way better than just piping the sound through the speakers and holding your phone so you can look at that tiny little screen. If you don't think Android Auto is worth it you've probably not used it.

 

Ah, that's pretty cool, I didn't know you could wirelessly do display mirroring with it. That would be handy. When I'm doing a lot of Nav, I'll connect via wire my phone's MHL/Slimport via an adapter to my Double Din's HDMI port, and do display mirroring. It's handy for maps, but cumbersome with the wires.

Bluetooth gets it done for me for most of the time. Music and phone calls work great with it.

 

Dude i have never heard of that passive radiator sub. That shit looks dope! I want to hear one of these things! The sound like it would be perfect for our trucks as they can be placed into very small enclosures.

 

Hoo, lots of questions, I like it! Here goes:

Always SQL, I want accuracy over sheer volume. I'm not looking to win any competitions, it's simply for my own enjoyment, especially on long drives.

I'm not an expert at this. I tried to be educated about it when I was younger, but got enough conflicting information, hearsay, etc., that anything I know by now is probably worthless.
The HU has the following adjustments:
Bass Adjustment, Fo: Has Hz settings for 60, 80, 100, 200. Currently set at 80. I don't have a clue what this does
Bass Adjustment, Q: Has settings for 1, 1.25, 1.5, 2. Currently set at 2. I don't know what this does
Filter Adjustment: Has Hz settings for 80, 120, 160, off. Currently set at 80
Subwoofer Volume level: Has settings from 0 to 15. I keep it set between 10 and 13. Anything lower than 9 might as well be the same as off. Settings of 14 or 15 seem 'messy'

Monoblock has settings for gain, subsonic, and filter. Recently I toyed with the gain, and I had it set up at around 80% and played with the subsonic all over the place.
I was over at my Dad's last weekend, so I pulled the sub and checked wiring, removed all wires, tested with a high-end Fluke meter set to 200 ohms. Each coil read "24.7", so I'm not sure what to make of that. I'm home now, and I am tempted to try again with my cheaper Craftsman meter with some brand new batteries.
Anyway, with the sub sitting on the front seat and the rear seats out of the vehicle, I was getting frustrated. Not knowing a good place to turn to, I subjected everything to Car Toys (which is like gambling with a Jiffy Lube or Firestone). They fed me a line about how the voice coils were fighting each other, which, unless they hooked things up wrong as they were putting it in and had to rewire, or the sub is incorrectly wired from factory, shouldn't have been an issue in the past because, back when I first installed, I triple checked everything against the support manual from JL to verify my own wiring. They couldn't find anything wrong, other than the sub volume is just really weak. Car Toys guy said the filter was turned up to 60Hz which was cancelling out the sub, so he set it to 40Hz. This seems really wrong to me, but I don't have facts in my head like I used to and I'm just starting to question my sanity.

I'm getting some hiss during low volumes or during silence in a song. I was assuming it was possibly the RCAs. I had some Memphis Audio 5ch RCAs lying around from my last car, and that's what I'm using for both amps. They always looked kind of flimsy, and I had other Memphis RCAs go out in the past, so I'm not ruling it out.

I would go deaf from the front speakers before the sub would get anywhere near an uncomfortable level. I could probably just set the filter lower on the front speakers and they'd do almost as good as the sub. As I mentioned, sub does feel a bit sloppy when the sub volume is set on the HU to the full setting.
I'm overprotective of the volume the sub gets since I've never truly heard what it sounds like when a sub is about to blow, so I tend to back off once anything doesn't sound 'controlled'.

One would think so since JL only rates it to 300W RMS

I don't have the power to do this
I'm not clipping
I can just get... flubby. That's the most accurate word I can attribute to the messiness I was talking about above.

That's what I thought, but with space being limited and the market having changed drastically since 2008, I haven't researched what is good, bad, or the normal price for things. Back then, stuff like the 13TW and Kicker solobarics were brand new technology and cost a mint for what else you could get from those companies.
The particular shop that wrote me this quote also has Audison, Morel, Alpine, Kenwood, and Hertz as their standard companies to give an idea of where they might be coming from.

Shop guy was quite confident it would work by replacing with a new box. I have the passenger side available of the rear wall, (e.g., I have the '60' available of the 60/40 split). Shop guy was worried the current sub may be hitting against the back of the seat during operation.

Current box is a half-height Marv box, as you see below (I was weird and was attempting to get some storage space above the box. It didn't really work out like I thought). Box has an L-shaped cutout so that it fits under the horizontal middle bar of the back wall, and then flush against the back wall. A 13" would be too tall for the box. Marv said he built the box specifically for this sub, so it should be somewhere near the 0.625" that JL wants. I can measure later today.

I am a set it and forget it type of person. When someone talks about dinking with an EQ on every song, that's ridiculous. I'm trying to drive. I've operated a sound board before, and when you do that, you aren't trying to do many other things. I like the idea of 'auto time alignment', for instance.

Mine cost around $400 on a group buy. I really don't want to replace them. That was a splurge moment when I was making salary + commission. I miss that paycheck.

I'd like to drive around with somebody with Android Auto (I guess I can't refer to that as 'AA' ) to see what it's like, because that could tell me a lot in a short amount of time. I need to see if there's some good youtube videos. My guess is that it would be nice to operate for audio, but really restrictive for navigation. Regardless of the feature set, I'd have to have AOA 2.0 at minimum with a plugged connection. If you aren't using a plugged connection, then the audio quality suffers down to the BT standard, rather than utilizing the full potential of the HU's DAC, at least from my reading.

I'll always have my iPod classic plugged in until it gives up the ghost. I'm thinking it's still going to be my primary media storage device. The thing I will miss most is losing alphabet searching, unless I go with another Alpine.

I have a bit of a mixed feeling on them. My current HU from them operates great on a day-to-day basis, and even proves to be more user friendly than many current HUs. However, Alpine liked to ding the hell out of you. You want bluetooth? Separate module. You want time alignment or increased preout voltage? Separate module. Everything is an add-on. I don't know if they carry that same principle these days or not.
I currently have a chart with columns for RCA voltage, number of USBs and locations, mirrorlink compatibility, pandora, pandora station creation, aha radio (which I know very little about), android connection (android auto, appradio one, MTP, AOA 2.0, etc.), DAC (most are 24bit), Auto EQ, Time Alignment, Video, HDMI, CD/DVD, HD Radio, price, rebate, and Price Found. I've listed 8 of the Pioneer models and I have a questionable set of answers for most of the Kenwoods at this point, but it's hard to compare when the manufacturers won't give you the same specs.

 

so many replies in this!

 

I'm debating the need since I have one of those Tech decks and I'm using a Nexus 6P. The benefit would be having less devices to poke, and bigger buttons. However, there's weird times when you need to stab the phone while driving to get something done that voice control just fails at. I know you aren't supposed to operate a phone while driving, but there's times when I'm in the middle of nowhere, or at a long stop and I want to get driving directions. Yes, I'm that terrible. Trying to tell the phone, 'navigate to Gabe' and having it say, 'navigating to McDonalds' really isn't helpful. I am willing to change my ways if Android Auto really provides a significant ease in UI over having the phone in close vicinity.

Android Auto requires a wired connection. As soon as it's plugged, AA kicks in and won't let you leave. Only way to avoid this is to not have the phone app installed or not be wired to the deck.
I've seen where you can use a Chromecast or Belkin's MiraCast (the Belkin is supposed to be better), which is better than the HDMI, but that only shows the picture, it doesn't allow you to operate from the deck in the same way that you could do with Android Auto. However, that might help cut down on cords for you.

It's apparently old tech, but not as mainstream for some reason in car audio as it is for home stereo. Its supposed to be very easy to set up and works great. The display I saw with the Audiomobile gear had the active sub and passive sub back to back in a box not much bigger than a large shoebox.

 

I like to be thorough and I think it gives you the idea of all the crap I'm trying to think about and answer for myself. While it's good that I leave no stone unturned, it also ends up where I'm exhausted and sick of myself by the time I'm way overdue to just go and buy some damn thing

 

Two Words: 8 Track.

And don't look back. You're welcome.

 

I'll give this a read and reply later.

 

Screw that, I want to cruise at 33 1/3 RPM

 

Before you go spending money....let's try some different settings to get the most out of your setup.

In the "bass adjustment" section...you're essentially adding bass boost. You have it set to 80hz so your components and your sub are getting boost. The Q setting is how wide a frequency range you're allowing that boost to encompass. Imagine a small "hill" on a graph centered at 80hz. This would boost 80hz and only the frequencies immidiately by 80hz. With a large Q setting (like what you have) it is allowing it to boost a LOT of frequencies around 80hz. This is not good I'm thinking. I'd suggest you set the Q setting as low as it will go and set your F0 frequency to 60 (at least for now).

Currently your filter adjustment on the headunit for where the main speakers play down to is 80hz. Yet that idiot at Car Toys set your low pass filter on your amp to 40hz. This means you're system isn't playing frequencies between 40 and 80hz. This is likely why you're unhappy, there's a big hole in the bandwidth. Set your low pass filter on the amp to 80hz. This should also help.

On the monoblock, set your subsonic filter to ON and turn the dial so it is centered around 25-30hz. A sealed subwoofer won't do well on anything below 25hz in that type of alignment so there's no reason to watch it struggle. This setting alone will help "clean up" the sound. This will take a large burden off the subwoofer. I'd start at 25hz (9'oclock position) and try 30hz if need be; no higher than that or you're missing critical frequencies. I'm thinking 25hz is the sweet spot.

Each coil on the subwoofer should be in the neighborhood of 3.x ohms on your meter I'm thinking. It's also important to make sure they are wired in parallel. Here's a picture of parallel wiring. Be sure to pay attention to the polarity.

That low level hiss comes from your tweeters, right? That's typically what happens when the gain on your amps running your speakers is too high. If you can imagine, an amplifier has a noise floor (the hiss noise) that comes from amplifying a low level signal. If you rely on the headunit to provide a stronger signal and you don't ask the amp to do as much work, the noise will be less. As an example, maybe your normal loud listening volume on your headunit is 15 out of 40 and your amp gain setting is 7 out of 10. The preferred method would be to have your headunit provide more voltage by using more of the volume adjustment, say 30 out of 40, and then lowering your amp's gain setting to a lower number. Think about it like blowing up a picture, if you start with a higher resolution picture you can blow it up larger before you see the pixelation noise. But if the original picture/signal is small/weak, you end up with noise when you ramp it up. So is the same thing with amps. I'm betting you can get that hiss to go away by doing what I've stated above. You'll need to lower your subwoofer level on either the headunit or the amp when you do this too so it is balanced with your mains. I'd suggest the amp.

Flubby is a perfect description. You're starting to hit the limits of the sub. The subsonic settings I mentioned above should help. The other bass settings might too. Try it and report back. It won't be a night and day difference but it should allow you to get a little more out of it.

Me too. No shame in it. When you get it right, finalize it, and enjoy it.

 

now THAT is awesome! Hi Fi at its finest

 

Done. Changes were fairly minor, if any. Maybe a bit of extra brilliance in highs... but I think it was a placebo effect. I couldn't really tell, and that sort of outcome wouldn't make sense I'd think.
I also have a Treble Adjustment Fo, with settings for kHz in 10, 12.5, 15, 17.5, currently set to 10. Going off a guess, I would assume that it would require the inverse of the bass, and I should set it to 17.5? If I'm getting this right, the graph would then form a U shape.

woot, so I was initially right, just not fully on the mark.
The hard part with my amps is there are no markings for any of the levels. For instance, the gain says 'Gain', with one side being '-' and the other side being '+'. I either get good at guessing, or there's some scientific way of doing it. I haven't found a guide on all of it, so if there's a reference how-to, I need to find one. At this time, I've found JL's 'amplifier setup guide', where they talk about setting the gain through reading voltage... yet only give you settings for their current lineup. I tried guessing that what they are doing is taking the RMS wattage of the sub and dividing it by the DC resistance, then taking a voltage reading off the amp. For instance, my sub is 300W RMS with DC resistance of 6.94, so I'd want a voltage of 43.23 reading from the amp...? They don't talk about any other setting from there, so it's a bit limited in help.
The only other way I know is from using test tones, but I didn't have any guidance on subs at the time.

Same issue as above, I'd be guessing (other than just going straight for 9:00 and playing from there)

Ooh, they added color since 2008! That's nice I have to still do measurements here later on today.

Yes, sound is from tweets. When I originally set it up, I had a test tone, wherein you turn up the gain up until you hear an 'eep' from the speakers, then dial it back a hair. Was this incorrect? maybe I didn't have HU set right.

 

If you turn on your "defeat" setting it will negate any bass or treble boost that's in play. That will send a totally flat signal to your speakers. Might be better but I'd have to hear it in person to be sure. If your system NEEDS a bit of boost at certain frequencies then it would be useful; but I can't hear it to tell you if it does.

For the subsonic, set it to 9 oclock or a touch lower. The dial goes from 20-50. Thus, we can assume 12 oclock is 35hz and 9 must be 27.5hz. So shoot for something like 8:30?

Your setting of the gains via voltage or clipping is fine if you intend to get ALL of the power out of the amp. However, that doesn't balance how much subwoofer and how much mains you'll have. I guess what I'm saying is, if you set it that way you'll likely end up with really loud mains and a sub that doesn't work for a living. This is because your main speakers are much much more efficient that a subwoofer.

I typically set my gains by ear since that's what matters most. Try what I said by turning down the gain on your 4 channel amp and just using more of the headunit volume knob. The sub will need to be adjusted down too.