Difficult Car Audio Experience

I bought an android touchscreen headunit. The company offered a Toyota harness that was plug and play for pretty much everything including the steering wheel control. The Toyota harness was actually made for a Toyota Hilux but it fits the 3rd gen. I bought a harness on Amazon to retain the oem backup camera. It was around $15-20 bucks. The oem backup camera has a great quality picture.

 

I dont have the jbl but im pretty sure its similar. The company i bought my headunit from offered a harness for toyotas that was plug and play. That harness retained my oem steering wheel controls. This is the harness i bought to retain the oem backup camera to the aftermarket headunit.

 

My headunit:

 

Not quite sure what you’re talking about here. I was a mobile electronics installer for 14 years but have been out of the car audio game for a while. When hooking up an amp with a factory headunit you need a line output converter to convert the high level signal to a low level RCA to run to the amp. Not sure what you’re talking about with Bluetooth to the amp. Unless they started making amps with Bluetooth now. Anyways you don’t push sound threw the head unit. You send sound from the head unit to the amp. They make really good converters and they also make $20 dollar converters. That alone will make a huge difference in sound. That’s what converts the signal you’re sending to the amp, which then in turns amplifies that signal. If you like the Entune as far as appearance, GUI, and functionality then keep it and get a good DSP/LOC that will allow you to keep the factory unit. If you want a better unit and don’t mind losing the factory unit, than get a good aftermarket unit and add like a maestro or something where you can retain your factory steering wheel controls and XM and stuff if you want it

 

That’s what I’m saying... I don’t see how the head unit is the problem with all the aftermarket stuff

 

Not a Toyota but my stock radio does sound better running stuff on Bluetooth from my phone vs the radio or cd player maybe this is what op is referring to.

 

Try a better installer, lame that he didn’t run new wires to the speakers. You should not need an aftermarket head unit to have good sound.

 

+1 on upgrading the wires. if you're gonna do it, do it right

 

Unless I missed it we don't know what amp he used or the wattage it's giving each speaker.

He might not need new wiring at all.

 

It's not the headunits fault exactly. HU is just passing the signal along at this point in your system. Something is probably not optimal with the DSP in the amp. It is definitely possible to clean up the signals coming from the stock headunit and use them with whatever amp and speakers you want. Why this clean up is not going well in your system is hard to say. DSP in the amp may be shit, guys at the shop may not know how to set it up, etc.

 

Sounds to me like an install issue. My Entune system sounds great wired to my Kicker front component amp and sub amp. Tons of range and loudness. My only nitpicky complaint is imaging, but they have a system I'm going to try to fix that as well. To be fair it's really not Kicker's fault, it's windshield reflected tweeters fault.

https://www.kicker.com/key-smart-amplifier

 

He's using this amp:

https://www.sony.com/electronics/car-amplifiers/xm-gs6dsp

 

Seems like it should do the job. Probably just a matter of the installer guys not knowing how to tune it.

 

I think the same thing. Problem is, most installers (at least the ones in this area) are installers, and install, but don't tune unless you set a separate appointment for tuning, and it adds up. One of the reasons I will not go to the local place unless I positively have to. A buddy of mine had the local place do a 3 way active set up in his Jeep, connected to an Audison Bit 10, and didn't tune a thing. Charged him 4 hours for a tune separate from the install...... My buddy is a "hand over the credit card" kind of guy though......

 

I tried using the H/U in my 2nd gen and had nothing but issues. Ended up with a pioneer carplay unit (sph da120) and couldnt be happier. Have 5 ch amp driving all kicker speakers and one 10 sub. Can wire the reverse camera right in and get the adaptor for steering wheel controls.

 

Yeah I'm sure that happens all the time. On a side-note this is one thing that the O+ system brings to the table that is often overlooked I think. The tune, especially when feeding an OEM headunit into a DSP, is paramount and when you go off on your own not only is it going to cost money if you can't do it yourself but you never know what you'll get unless you have an "audio guy" you trust. Is along the same line as tuning an engine.

 

The 3rd gen 7" Entune seems to be a pretty good unit. Regardless of which HU, though, that amp is nice and you should be able to tune it. Or spend a bunch more money, get the Maestro unit, and do a review thread!

 

I'll be honest, what I am running right now with no DSP, has been fantastic. Once the crossovers are hooked up to the Morel set I bought (I haven't installed the tweets yet, that's tonight), it's gonna get better. The Audison sub is perfect for what I listen to. But the head unit is the premium non-JBL. Clean power, proper gain and I'm good.

 

thank you very much....appreciate you help

 

Sorry for the delayed response. Couple of quick clarifications on what’s going on. I have the EntunePlus head unit with the 6” screen. This is not the EntunePremium system or the JBL system. I have found many many reports online that these stock head units have some sort of crossover built in that weakens the low frequency signal to prevent damaging the low quality “paper” stock speakers. Seems like half the people say this is true, and have new head units, and the other half say it’s BS and have figured something else out that I haven’t.

Let me clarify the Bluetooth comments. I play 100% of my music via BT steamed from my phone. When I BT music to the stock HU, the subs are almost non-existent even with full gain and tuning on the Sony amp. (The amp is wired using high-level inputs.) If we turn the bass setting all the way up on the head unit they start to show up but it also drives bass to my mids. On the other hand, my amp has the ability to Bluetooth directly to it (like a BT speaker when you’re drinking by a camp fire on a cold winter night) and play music directly through the amp, bypassing the HU. When we do this, the entire system absolutely slams. This tells me the components, amp, subs, etc. are sufficient to produce the kind of sound I want. However, I refuse to control my music from my iPhone using a 2-star rated Sony app. That is a car crash waiting to happen. I want to control my music through the entire interface like it’s 2018 and not 1998.

So, process of elimination, when music is played “through” the HU there is no bass. When we skip the HU and push music directly to the amp, it jams.

It is possible that a high end LOC with tuning capabilities like the LC7 etc. that I have seen posted on various forums is the solution, aka the flux capacitor thing we joked about in an earlier post, taking the weak low frequency signal from the HU and boosting it up before sending it to the amp. This concept is way beyond my technical expertise.

At this point, I am going with a new head unit. Looking at the Sony 5000 series head unit that supports Apple Car Play. We are using a series of adapter to retain stock steering wheel controls, USB, backup camera, mic, etc. Did not want to spend this much money on my system but I guess that comes with buying a $30k truck with limited features. At least I know what I have when this is all said and done. Hope this is helpful to others. This whole experience has my blood pressure through the roof.