Ceiling speakers

My new tacoma 4x2 will have 2 ceiling speakers, Where are they located middle,back?. Who makes the radios for Tacomas and do they (and speakers) sound decent? Thanks

 

Wow, Really? They are in the ceiling? Curious to see this. I think JBL does some of the sound systems if its a special package.

 

they're in the middle. they sound ok

 

they sound like crap... they are not part of the jbl package, but i dunno if they are in the double cab, these ceiling speakers replace the 6.5 that are usually in the back doors in the access cab, BAD MOVE, now i have to cut my rear panels for some 6.5s and so my system would sound ok

 

well with one comment "they sound ok" and the other comment "they sound like crap" I get the feeling they aren't the best, but thanks for the info

 

The sound system (non-JBL) in my Access Cab--regular front speaker set, Flux-Capacitor Sub, and ceiling mounted speakers--sounds just fine to me.

 

they are god awful, if u fade it all they way to the back you can hear how bad they are

 

Yes, well if you drive just the tweeters you can hear how bad THEY are, too.

As part of the speaker system, they sound fine.

 

They're not great, but if you don't push too much power to them they're not too bad. I usually run with the fader set to about F4.

I you're tall enough, the speaker can basically be right behind your head, so it can get distracting if it's too loud anyway.

I've got a few functional mods and gear to pick up before I get to it, but I'm planning on putting a decent aftermarket system in at some point and replacing the ceiling mounts with some door-mount 6.5's. with an amp under the seat

 

yeah tweeters dont really sound the best, but if you look at it as if these are replacements for standard 6.5 speakers in the rear door panels, it is bad, if you had a 6.5 response from the ceiling, or more bass to compensate for loss of bass with ceiling speakers, then it would be ok, i really dont know why they put them in there. cool feature, but makes no sense, probably just cents...

 

Reviving this ancient thread whilst rethinking my speakers... How does one get to these ceiling speakers... or to the wires that go to them... in order to run or extend the wires to the rear wing doors of an Access Cab where a set of 6.5s can be mounted? I'd really hate to mess up the headliner.

 

If you're not going to use the roof speakers, it's probably best to splice into the audio harness at or near the head unit and run new wires through the rocker panel raceways to the back side of the access doors where the hinges are. The stock wiring isn't likely to be much better quality than the factory speakers and you'd be better off ignoring it vs trying to extend it, especially if you're pushing higher-powered speakers than the OEM.

If you have an after-market HU, the crutchfield harness adapter likely has all the wires labeled so you can sort out which lines are the ones you'd want to re-direct. If you're thinking of keeping the factory speakers handling the "treble" frequencies and just using the new 6.5s for "bass", I'd think that it'd be best to wire the cross-overs behind the dash so their high outs can just feed the factory wiring.

 

Yeah, identifying the wires in the dash is easy and I do have the harness adapter that connects my Pioneer NEX to the factory speaker harness. I just don't feel like taking the dash and interior apart to the level required to run speaker wires all the way back there. I dunno. Some days I want to do it, but most days I come to my senses and don't.

 

Anyone have Pics of the speakers?

 

I can get some, they are utter garbage and sound quality is better with them completely removed or at least disabled, they aren't even really speakers they are smaller that the tweeters and are referred to as "headliner exciters" as they attempt to use the headliner as the speaker cone they are bonded to.

They're glued to the back of the headliner appropriately directly above the front seats, at best they sound like a crinkling above you if you notice them at all.

To remove them you pretty much have to drop the headliner.

 

If that's the case, and unless there is a non-destructive way to drop a headliner, then the best plan is probably to cut the left and right rear speaker wires from the head unit where they connect to the adapter harness and run new speaker wires back to the wing doors. It is sad having the Pioneer NEX rear channels connected to those ceiling speakers. Totally wasted power that can't really be used.

 

That's what I did, just ran in 2 channel until earlier this year when I dropped my headliner to do Dynamat and Dynaliner.

I removed them then since I already had the headliner out and needed the clearance for the Dynaliner insulation.

Still have the headliner exciters in a drawer in my toolbox.

 

If you were looking to add a separate power amp (I've typically put them under the driver seat on trucks in the past), that'd simplify some of the speaker wiring, but you'd still have to pull the HU out of the dash to connect the RCA to the amp.

If you had some plan to chase the "rear"/overhead speaker wires that didn't involve either pulling the headliner or the dash console, I'd love to hear what it might be. Wires so rarely need servicing in the middle of a run once they're installed that there's probably no diagram in any manual that would be remotely helpful at flagging a spot where the right wires could be easily identified/tapped other than at either end.

With the relative ease of popping out the console/HU and lifting the rocker covers compared to pulling the head liner, combined with the improved sound quality you'll have from running a decent speaker wire to the access doors rather than using the small-gauge OEM wires for most of that run, the hard part may end up being to set up a flexible weatherproof conduit into that door since there's no reason for one to exist in the original design, depending on how you're planning to modify the inside door trim to expose the speaker.

 

How does the headliner come off/out?

 

I am slowly coming around to this thinking. I already have a 10" Pioneer Premier sub in a compact enclosure on the back of the cab (jump seats are gone) with that amp mounted directly below it. That is a very tidy install, if I say so myself. So I already have a good 8g (or is it 6g?) power wire there that I could tap for the new amp. And the seat comes off easily enough. And the rocker covers come off easily enough. Plus I'd have to figure out how to cut openings and fabricate or adapt mounts for the new speakers in the wing doors. All this stuff adds up to a day's work. And I don't recall if my NEX has pre-amp outs or if a new amp would have to be able to take line level inputs.