2020 Entune - Factory Integration

Man that’s a much cleaner looking oscilloscope screen than my little handheld luimy I bought. What do you use for an o scope Dolby?

 

It's a Tektronix TDS 3012, two channel color digital phosphor. It's so old it has a floppy drive!

 

Lol I don’t imagine those things age updated very often and if they’re good they’re good for what they do. I actually been looking at some similar to that by Hantek and siglent I believe arethe brands for $250

 

Thanks for the additional info. I'm really torn between Hertz,Audison, and Hybrid Audio Technologies.

 

Subwoofer build pic dump *abbreviated version* because y’all don’t need to see every step. I did want to kind of show the landmarks and the end result though.

I opted for MDF because it’s universally agreed upon as one of the most uniformly dense materials, a trait beneficial to subwoofer performance.

Originally I was thinking fiberglass pods over the wheel wells but I was kind of sold on this once it was suggested to me by a friend to add a tray on top and try to match it up with the wheel well trays.

The shape of the legs matches the shape of the 4Runner grille, and the carpet in front mimics the hood line. The paint on front looks remarkably like Magnetic Gray. The rest is just trying to make it look like it belongs instead of tossing a generic sub box in the back.

I did go sealed because that’s the kind of bass I like and also the option for the fewest variables, at the expense of some low frequency extension, but Win ISD says this shit will hit hard at 35Hz with maximum recommended manufacturer air space and again, probably exactly what I’m going for. In the end I fell 0.01 cubic feet short of that. I think it will be fine.

I’ll have comments once it is up and running. Right now the amplifier is in back order.

 

you could put that in a t4r on the lot and the sales guy wouldn't even know it was aftermarket. Love the "tray" to hold little stuff

 

That’s a very nice compliment Destin, thank you. I really didn’t want something shitty that looks out of place.

I still have a divided insert planned for the top so it’s not just one big tray, and I think it will be black to add some contrast. Conveniently, I can build several and just use the one with appropriate sized sections for whatever I need at the time.

 

Trying to get my wife to want a 4runner in the near future and I may be making my way up to SC if she gets one

 

Let me know then. Maybe we can do science or something.

 

Holy hell that looks friggin amazing dude! Agree 100% with destin it looks OEM! That’s the nicest box I’ve seen I think and love the Toyota trd stripes. Very nice work Dolby

 

That's a slick enclosure - nicely done.



Seriously though - what's up with the rack full of amps in the background? Somebody's gettin' down!

Something you may find of interest - since you went there: Which Is Better for Sound? - YouTube

 

You guys are very kind. I do kind of have to give a shout out to one YouTube channel that really inspired me to try harder, see some techniques, and that I found really interesting. If you think you’ll get ambitious at some point in the future, warm up on this guy:

https://youtube.com/c/CarAudioFabrication

The amps are spares that I keep for the sound systems I install and maintain. These ones in particular, I removed from service to be transplanted into more appropriate systems because they weren’t being fully utilized, like putting a 2400W amp on a 500 watt speaker, so I’m moving them somewhere bigger and amping some subs with them. COVID put a lot of stuff on hold so basically I’m storing them until stuff gets rolling again. I do keep a couple 18” sub cabinets around so I can test equipment coming through. Installing an amplifier that has an issue sucks so I do what I can to prevent that from happening.

So that guy in the vid you linked, I’m positive I’ve watched him before, his accent and mannerisms are fairly unmistakable. Like I think that I’m into audio, but that guy... damn.

 

That's Peter Kulicki. He's legit...and IMO gives some of the best audio education I've ever seen in video form

 

So have you had time to make a comparison with this setup and the Mille legends setup? I’d love to hear your opinion of the two in comparison. I’m trying to decide between Mille legends and thesis mid range

 

Kind of.

So, as we all (who are shopping JL) know, almost all the JL stuff is on backorder. Presumably there's a supply chain issue there, but the consequence is I'm still waiting for my forever subwoofer amplifier. I chose to use the JL HD 1200/1 for those Sundown subwoofers. Because of this situation, I have installed a punk ass JBL GTO-501EZ mono amplifier for now because I had one available.

https://www.crutchfield.com/S-3I4tLoMB6Te/p_109GTO501E/JBL-GTO-501EZ.html

I put one of these things in my daughter's car many years ago on a 12" JL subwoofer, and not a wussy subwoofer either, but I set the thing up and I don't think it was a week before she came back with a blown sub. Crutchfield replaced the sub because they are like that, and I put the new one in, which she came back some time later and said it's broken again so I'm like /sigh but came to discover the tinsel leads were jacked up. The woofer went beyond excursion and there was some evidence of a lot of heat, and I was more like /damn wtf. I'm positive it was set up correctly...

Anyway, I put a different sub in, one that can handle like 1500W and she ran like that just fine until she totaled the car or something, I don't remember. It made me wary of this amplifier though. So mine is on back order and a buddy of mine lent me his that was pulled out of his son's Civic, which they have decided is going to be a race car and doesn't need no damn woofers, so it's been sitting on the shelf for a few years. I think my daughter sold hers on the interwebs.

I ran the stuff and put it in the 4Runner and got it all set with the JBL tone, using the bullshit blinky lights on the amp to set the input sensitivity and fired it up. It seemed all fine until I put on a Rihanna song that had some heavy bass and that shit went absolutely fucking crazy. I mean it was LOUD AF, and I started thinking shit, I have too much sub, but then remembered back in the old timey days how this model amp smoked two perfectly fine JL subs in my kid's car, and my buddy kind of said he had the same experience with his kid's Civic when he hooked it up to some old school RF Punch 10s I gave them.

Bottom line is that I think this particular amp has some kind of shitty flaw to it, where it doesn't have a linear ramp and at some voltage it just goes nuclear. It's still installed and my subs are fine but it's turned down to chill, good thing Sundowns are tolerant to huge spikes in power.

I swear this is relevant so bear with me, I like to ramble sometimes.

So, before this subwoofer stuff, I had a good bit of time with the Primas hooked up to the BIT at 35W/CH and got a good listen to them at lower power. After the sub amp was connected, I decided the 6x9 door speakers needed more power because they weren't dynamic enough. I then reconfigured the amplifier to run the dash speakers at 35W, and bridged 4 channels (2 per side) on the amp to get 130W on each of the woofers. Well, this made me pretty happy, and I've been listening to it like that for at least a couple weeks, maybe a month. It's really getting to where I'm figuring everything out well enough to decide what the stereo's final form is (until the factory radio craps out and I replace it).

So this is an 8CH amplifier, and the 4Runner has 8 speakers. I'm using 6 Channels up front, and the last two for the rear. Because the 4Runner has the rear door and rear hatch speakers connected into the same speaker circuit, for right now I have those last two 35W channels running 4 speakers, and I've been kind of frowny about that, trying to think of what to do about it.

I've decided to run Front L/R from the factory radio to the BIT and use that for its input signal for processing everything, mapping the Front speakers and Rear doors using its DSP. I'm then going to loop back the rear stereo output to the rear speaker OEM wiring and run the hatch speakers off of the factory radio's amplifier. I may not even replace those speakers, I haven't bought coaxials for that location yet. I'm cool with this configuration because frankly, I can't even hear any of the rear shit anyway, not even the back doors as it is now. I'll also be running all of the replaced speakers on the front output which doesn't have a nerfed AF EQ on the output, so it will be less tuning to bring the rear doors up to reasonably flat.

I was going to work on this reconfig today but I've been building fairy gardens for grandchildren and haven't gotten into the 4Runner for a while to do anything, but how it is, with the front woofers bridged and the 4 rear speakers on 35W/CH it sounds reasonably kick ass, and it's not even tuned.

What I would say about Audison vs. Mille is kind of the same thing again... they are different but I love them both. I still hop in the truck often and crank the shit out of it and it just kills so hard. I'll always love that sound system. What you would do really depends a lot on how hard you plan to run the stereo. The Mille PRO speakers will have a higher threshold for sounding good at extremely high volume than Audison speakers will. I have not heard Thesis speakers though. Both Voce and Prima speakers sound incredible, until you reach that point where they don't wanna, and you can hear them start to lose accuracy, which is the case for almost all speakers really, and they perform better than almost anything I've ever listened to... except the Hertz stuff in my truck when it's cranked all the way up. That's the only real difference.

 

Thanks man! I bought the Mille legends 3” and a new helix dsp.3 that’ll replace my JL twk 88. Bout to install them as we type! Glad I went with Mille legends I think although it sounds like the audison thesis would be a better fit with the Utopias. We shall see soon

 

What made you decide to pull the TwK?

 

Just kept reading about how much more powerful the helix is so I had to give it a try and see what the rave is all about

 

I took a look and they certainly did do a good job selling it as having very high quality components on their website. Lemme know what you think about it.

 

It’s got ALOT of features and seems to be pretty future proof for at least a couple more years. Not as easy as the twk is to use but I think I can get used to it. it has many many features such as its own graph rta that essentially uses whichever rta mic that you’re measuring with in its software. If you’re using an oem headunit it has pre signal equalization that allows you to fix an attenuated signal or a chitty signal from the oem headunit either summed or individually as front, rear and sub stage. It has 30 bands of parametric eq per channel and high shelf, all pass, low shelf filtering. I like the extra bands especially for the below and above crossover areas I feel it allows you to transition crossover points a little smoother. although I’m not using all 30 on any channel. Maybe 16 max per. It overall sounds a little bit smoother to me than the twk 88 as far as sound(this is hard to explain) it just does. @dolbytone if you have a use or are trying to decide on what dsp to buy next ive gotta day I’m very very impressed. It’s a powerful processor and I didn’t think the twk 88 had anything wrong with it... it doesn’t it’s a super dependable and good dsp but the helix is better IMO