Premium Audio Upgrade for less than $250

@bshammer0 love the upgrade now that i am done with it. haha. It is the perfect amount of improvement at the perfect price. im not a huge audiohead type. I just wanted more sound. hated how when i had my windows down i had to max out the volume and it still sounded like crap. and although the Noico took me forever and was a pain, i do feel the road sound is less while driving.
this and my clazzios have been great mods to the truck for me. now to lift it 2 inches to make it look more like a "TRUCK".

 

Description says it has hi-level inputs built in so all you do is tap the rear speaker wire under the door sill for audio. Pretty easy install. Also needs one power wire to battery and one ground to chasis.

 

So no rca's?

 

No. High level input or rcas. Some will argue pre amps (rcas) is better but if your pricing a 100$ amp sub then no need to buy all that. Stick to just the hi input harness it comes with. If you click link and go to bottom full install instructions explains why u dont need rcas.

 

Thank you sir!

 

The headunit wiring I believe is the same between the second and third gen. I used one of these so I wouldn't have to cut any wires:

$36 Add An Amp Amplifier Adapter Interface to Factory OEM Car Stereo Radio System for Select Vehicles - Add Subwoofer Bass Amp etc.- No Factory Premium Amp- Compatible Vehicles listed below

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CQUL240

 

Hell yes! Thank you.

 

That's mostly the damper doing that. Wedging a bit of butyl rope in between the outer door skin & crash bars helps there too (leaving slots for drainage of course). What he's doing in the video is absorption of the speaker's back wave inside the door cavity to hush echoes and fix phase issues. It has the potential to make a nice impact on what you're all doing here. If nothing else, it's going to block some outside noise.

 

Looking for opinions... which would be better replace factory speakers or add powered sub? Looking at Rockford Fosgate Prime Series.

 

Has anyone done this on our Tacomas yet? Would love to see the patterns made to fit in the door and how difficult it was to get them in there.

 

I'm considering replacing just the tweeters, and adding a sub. Then if I need to, I'll replace the speakers.

 

I still haven't found the time to do this yet, even though I have all the necessary stuff now. Also, I am really OCD so I know it's going to take me way longer than most likely most of you guys that say you did the whole job in a couple hours. For that reason, I think I have been putting it off because I am not looking forward to taking the doors apart and being super OCD about doing it all. But, I do still have my 99 Taco that I can drive if I end up having to break this job down into multiple days of work.

Anyways, you say the Noico reduced the bass from the front door speakers? What exactly do you mean? Are you saying the Noico on the door panel or the stuff you put inside the cavity where the speaker mounts? I'm just curious because I don't want to have any bass reduction. I'm still pondering the idea of perhaps running an amp to these door speakers to really get the true potential out of them, but still keeping the stock head unit. I just don't have much knowledge when it comes to wiring amps, at all

 

I was referring to putting the Noico BEHIND the speakers in the door cavity. The bass is still plenty strong for my tastes but I did notice a slight reduction in midrange bass although it does seem clearer/better defined. I actually took my doors apart 2x (it doesn't seem like nearly as big of a pain the 2nd time - I could get them off in 5 minutes...) Doing the Noico on the door itself is a no-brainer though and quite easy to hit any major vibration / rattle points.

 

Ohh I see. Well, now I have to decide if I should put anything in the door cavity or not. After hearing differing opinions and input from people, I was considering gluing some foam inside the door cavity behind the speakers like one guy suggested. Now, I'm not sure what I should do lol

 

I think the foam is a good idea actually and had I thought of that beforehand I'd probably have gone that route. but honestly, I love the sound and have no plans to do any further mods in the the near future. maybe down the road if I get bored/have time on my hands (rare) I'll mess with a powered sub or something but I definitely have no need for an amp. I can already pierce my ears at max volume and I don't need any more than that. Been to far too many concerts standing in front of loud arena speakers in my life to do further damage at this stage!

 

Haha, nice. My hearing isn't too damaged yet (as far as I know). Yeah I am just having a hard time deciding what to do. I am the type that prefers to do work myself that way I know I can be responsible for it, and being OCD about stuff I can be as thorough and neat as I want. Also, since this truck is still brand new to me (my first ever brand new vehicle) I worry about someone damaging the interior if they do any work to it. So if I did decide to do an amp, I would wanna try and do it myself. But the problem is that I don't have really any knowledge on doing that stuff. What a dilemma lol

I guess I just need to replace the tweeters/speakers and do the Noico and maybe foam inside the cavities, then see how it sounds. And if I feel an amp would be a good idea, ill have to look into it. I just hate thinking about having powerful speakers that are barely even being utilized with not much power going to them. I just need to find a good time to start on this project already so I can decide

 

The sound deadening slows things down quite a bit. The speaker swap out can easily be done in under 2 hours. I think it took me about 10 hours or so with the sound deadening. I'd never done it before and I was definitely nervous about messing things up. It gets faster as you go and get a feel for how to apply the sheets to get the proper bonding.

 

Yeah, I probably ended up spending about an hour or maybe a bit more per door on the deadening - and thus I only did the fronts and have yet to do the rears given my primary reason was to minimize any bass rattle and the bass is in the 6x9s FWIW

 

Yeah, I think I am gonna do the tweeters first just to "get my feet wet" and also to see how big of a difference they make like everyone in here says. Then I think one of these days I will mount the speakers to the brackets and see how much modification needs to be done in order to make that work. That way once I am ready to take some doors apart, my speakers will already be ready to install.

Since I am expecting the holes in the speakers to not match up with the brackets, I am actually thinking about drilling how ever many holes I need to get the holes to be straight, then putting some skinny bolts in the holes, and securing them with washers and nuts, if possible anyway. I don't like the idea of angling all the screws and just hoping they grab, and don't strip out once I tighten them down.

 

I have definitely been dragging my feet on getting this done. When I first discovered this thread, I literally read every page in here over the course of like a week or so maybe lol. Then I quickly ordered everything from the OP, and I have had it all for a couple weeks now at least. I have been lazy, and also just putting it off because I know the sound deadening is gonna be time consuming for me. I wanna get it done so I can report back to this thread how my experience goes. If I was single, it would be much easier to find the time on a weekend to do this project that's for sure