Premium Audio Upgrade for less than $250

We don't need no sub! Driving around with those crappy speakers we had you (at least I) forget how much more fun it is to drive with your ears pleasantly distracted!

 

OP updated to add sound deadening suggestion. Title changed to reflect experience shared in the thread

True - inexpensive, but nothing sounds CHEAP about the sound in this thing anymore

 

Help! Anybody...

Rear passenger door won't open...

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/need-help-rear-passenger-door-wont-open.511685/#post-16092887

 

Thanks for the update. Until now I wasn't sure if it would make an audible difference. Noico matting and roller tool ordered.

 

Did the Kicker CS series speaker upgrade on the doors. Excellent sound along with the previously installed Kicker tweeters. I can crank it up to max with almost no distortion. I do want that extra bass so I'm tackling installing the Kicker Hideaway tomorrow.

By the way anyone interested in buying a full set of Non-JBL 3rd Gen Tacoma speakers? Only used for 11K miles!

Like others have said, they sure perform good for what they are...which is not much.

 

Got the front door speakers and tweeters installed and WOW! Huge difference! You can really crank it and sound quality is crisp and bass is damn good considering it's amplified by the factory deck. Tomorrow I'll install the speakers in the access cab doors.

I used the Noico sound deadening material, it worked great! I placed two ~10"x6" pieces behind the speaker cavity (one above the bar, one below). Also put scrap pieces randomly inside the outer door skin panel. No shakes, rattles, nothing!



I did something that I hadn't seen others do... I put the plastic/felt back on over top the sound deadening material. Certainly can't hurt.



Wow what a difference!

 

Just installed the speakers tonight. They sound great! Now to get the tweeters ordered!

 

Thanks for posting the pics. Very clean install of the matting. Please post pics of the rear doors also. Will be doing my access cab next week and your pics are a good guide.

 

X2 as i will be doing my access cab in about a week or so, i'm waiting till i get all 6 speakers and some sound dampening material and do the entire install at one time

 

I put some behind and some on the plastic as well.

 

Did the 6 speaker install/switch out this morning. As everyone else has commented "wow, what a difference". I'm looking forward to listening to my stereo now and those tweeters make a huge difference.

I had one 6x9 speaker that seemed blown when I put it in, rattled/vibrated with a little bass, passenger speaker is fine. If I pushed on the speaker a little the vibration/rattle went away. Called Crutchfield and they are sending out a replacement, man what great customer service!

Even with one old speaker the sound is amazing to me. Thanks again to everyone posting on this thread and @bshammer0 for starting it.

A couple install notes/tip -
- For the tweeters - using a stick-magnet tool to hold the screw closest to the windshield for the tweeter while you try to set it helps and keeps it from falling into any cracks. Its a tight spot.

- Front doors - remove the triangle piece molding first before trying to remove the door panel. I did it correctly the first time but the second time I didn't & 2 of the white tabs broke and fell somewhere behind the door. Any idea where to get new ones (its on there with just 1) or where to fish it from behind the door?

Was a pretty straight forward install and didnt take too long even taking the driver door apart twice. I put the speakers in the bracket Thursday night so that save me time, I would recommend doing this too.

 

I suggest check autozone or advance auto parts. They stock all these types of clips on a tree rack in the store.

 

To mount the speakers to the plastic surrounds, you guys utilized the 8 shorter screws?
Seems like we don't need to use any of the supplied metal clips, correct?

Thanks!

 

so for those of you sound deadening the doors, Did you notice a big difference in how quiet the cab is. I'm getting ready to do the front doors and bought enough to tackle the back wall later...The difference between my 2011 and this 2017 with road noise; The 2017 is quieter in the front but more road noise seems to come from the back wall area than my 2011.

 

no clips needed

 

No clips - didn't use hardware with the mounts. Just screws that came with the speakers. The others are too long.

I've only done my front doors with the deadening thus far but that alone already made for a quieter cabin. Did change my mix a bit for the EQ though to get it dialed back in. Bass (to me) is better defined but it isn't quite as loud - likely something to do with the material we put behind the speaker.

What's great with the sound material is that everything is SO clear if riding along at 20% volume. Bass and all.

 

Is the best option for 2nd gen owners to make a bracket for the tweeter like the one on page 22? Also, the speakers are plug and play in 2nd gen as well correct? Everything looks the same

 

TL;DR version: BUY THE $%#$&* TWEETERS!

Long Version

%$@# ME....how in the HELL do tweeters alone make that much difference ?!?! Honestly, if I had not already ordered the other stuff and had just ordered the tweeters, I may not have bothered with the other stuff at this point...that's how much better it sounds. My 12 year-old daughter heard the stereo and made a comment about how much better it sounds...and she made a point to tell me she doesn't know a thing about stereos but she knows when something sounds better...lol

On the down side what should have been a 20 minute job total, Toyota assemblers (humans or robots, I don't know) turned into a 3 hour job for me. When they screwed one of the bolts that holds the passenger grab rail on the a-pillar in, they cross threaded it enough to eat up the first 2 rows or so of threading on the nut. Soooo, the threading was not long enough to bite in threaded portion it attached to when I tried to put it back together. I spent two hours trying to make it work including dremeling the collar washer it uses hoping it would allow more threading of the bolt to get through, but not luck. Fortunately about 5 miles away we have an ACE with tons of great metric bolts, so I ran over there, picked one up, came back and was then finished in literally 2 minutes. I should have done that in the first 1/2 hour of trying to make the bolt work. Even with the trip to ACE, minus trying to make the bolt work, it was like an hour total. My sound deadening is not coming till Monday, so I'm debating whether or not to install the door speakers right now or just wait til next weekend when I have everything. It's HOT outside at the moment, so I'll probably wait.

 

Got the rears installed on the access cab doors. The final result is spectacular. I take back what I said earlier, my mirrors do vibrate when I have the bass cranked full blast. Sound quality is so much better!

Placed a 1/4 section of Noico behind the speaker cavity and at the center of the lower cavity:


Used 1.5 sheets on the face of the door (removed all the clips/brackets/door latch mechanism). The door has a second cavity that in line with the seat belt mechanism - I didn't bother to add any on the face of the door in this area.









And cheers to the OP and everyone who has contributed to this thread for awesome recommendations!

 

Ok got the Kicker Hideaway installed today (installed the door speakers yesterday). I was happy with just the speaker and tweeter upgrade but WOW the sub does really make a difference. Went out with the family this evening and cranked it up going down the highway and it sounds great. The Hideaway adds that bass to balance out the whole Kicker upgrade.

I took off the back seat compartment and lined the back of it with the Noico sound deadening material. No rattles!

The whole sub install took me 6 hours. I had forgotten how many conections one has to make and how much trim you have to take off when installing a sub. I tapped the white and black (left) and light green and blue (right) speaker wires off the B pillars where they go into the door hinge.

For the auto-on feature I tapped into the usb port behind the arm rest console. The USB port is obviously just 5v but the power going into is the necessary 12v.




Any way. Love the sound. Really like the added ooomph the sub gives it. Be ready to need about 8' of extra speaker wire and about 8' of power wire to extend the right speaker connection, ground, and auto turn-on wires.



Finally found a use for the cubbyhole