Revamping my stereo - do I keep the old subwoofer too?

Hi all.

I bit the bullet and decided to dig a little more into the audio on my truck, and I'm trying to decide what does and doesn't make sense. My current setup (aka the ubiquitous 3rd Gen Kicker system) is as follows:

• Stock Entune Premium H/U
• Subaru / Kicker Tweeters
• Kicker 46CSC6934 6x9s | https://www.crutchfield.com/p_20646CC693/Kicker-46CSC6934.html
• Kicker 46CSC674 6 3/4" | https://www.crutchfield.com/p_20646CC674/Kicker-46CSC674.html
• Alpine PWE-S8 Sub | https://www.crutchfield.com/S-h5JQBL5vNti/p_500PWES8/Alpine-PWE-S8.html

It sounds very okay but ultimately not what I had hoped. The highs are clearer than stock, but I don't get much, if any mid-bass out of the 6x9s and with the current HU settings I get nearly nothing out of the rear doors. The subwoofer is also very okay in that it gives me the higher frequency bass but sounds really bad when it tries to go into the lower range stuff. For example, take the seminal rap song "Still Fly" by Big Tymers which has a very distinct bass line that can sound great on a smaller speaker because of the higher toned beginning of the song and then it drops lower and lower. My subwoofer sounds great until it starts to drop down, then it just sounds...sick.

So, fed up with that, I decided to purchase the following in hopes to get some more out of this truck.

• JL Audio Stealbox | https://www.crutchfield.com/p_13694654/JL-Audio-Stealthbox.html
• Kenwood Excelon X802-5 | https://www.crutchfield.com/S-Jiy8DFDU7LK/p_113X8025/Kenwood-Excelon-X802-5.html

I plan on using speaker level inputs and already have a custom harness made to do this courtesy of @daveeasa . Having run 10's in all my previous cars I have very little concern that it will give me the bass response I want (I like tighter bass than the noise you can get from a 12-15" sub). I plan on tuning the sub channel down into the 250-300W RMS range as to not risk damaging the sub. The speaker channels should be fine as-is as the speakers can handle the amp power and I'm not at risk of overruning the OEM wiring. I know I should pull new speaker wire to the doors but I loathe doing so. I did it with my STi and that was a day of my life I'll never get back.

So, with that background, here's the question:

Do I keep the Alpine subwoofer to get the higher frequency bass? I remember back when I had a pair of 10" Polk subs and a mono amp on them they sounded great at low frequency (I had the LPF set at 100 hz.) but I always felt like they were missing something (the aforementioned "Still Fly" being a great example). My 6x9s do not have a ton of bass right now, but I don't know what the impact of the amplifier will be.

I guess I'm struggling with the thought of whether it makes sense to just keep what I have intact and run it because "more speakers" or whether to buy a new bin and sell the Alpine unit.

Obviously the JL Stealthbox has a more robust range and has more power, but do I say screw it and run it.

Thoughts?

 

The alpine is under one of the seats?

I don't know that I've ever seen a car with an 8 and a 10. There isn't a lot of difference there in terms of driver size, though these two solutions are rather different in their performance characteristics.

If you were me (or I were you) I'd sell all your old stuff (keep the stealthbox and Kenwood), put money into a Pioneer 6600, then work towards high end door speakers. But I'm biased against Kicker for no good reason really, probably from my youth based on their rather lowbrow advertising.

EDIT: You have a sweet amp, all set there. You're golden.

 

Sorry for the entirely incoherent reply above. Edited a billion times to try to clean it up.

TLDR: I'd worry that the Alpine vs JL would be a constant battle, too loud or not loud enough, to where you're fidgeting with crossover slopes and gains in an endless loop. But maybe they end up playing nice together. You can try and see.

 

The Alpine is in the driver side storage bin. The amp was just shipped today actually.

I not looking to change up anything I’ve already bought, just trying to figure out if I should remove or retain.

The 5-channel amp is an easy solution for what I want. The 6600 is a beautiful HU, no doubt, but I’m tapped out on truck budget. I’d rather put it towards a project car at this point. If the Alpine just had a little more on the low end it would be okay, but it doesn’t and I’m always fighting the EQ and the sub volume knob. Sometimes I’m changing it per song, and that’s just a pain.

When I had my STi I had the whole two amp, two sub, component etc set up with an early Pioneer Avic-D3 and it was fantastic. My Vette has a full Boston Acoustic setup with I believe components (came with the car and I haven’t take the speaker grills off) and a 5-channel amp / custom sub box. I have a Pioneer NEX-4200 in it now with CarPlay and it’s just not that much better than the Entune for my day to day usage.

I get the Kicker thing. I just saw that they had a good rep in the 3G forum and at the price point it made easy Christmas gifts without fighting wiring doors. I had Polk components, co-ax and subs in the STi and was quite pleased.

 

Oh, wait, the stealthbox is already bought or not yet bought?
If you haven't bought it yet, sure, play with the alpine for a bit and decide. The stealthbox is way cooler though and you have the amp so may as well use it.
If you have both, move the alpine under the driver's seat if you can fit it with some rear seat spacers? That'd be the only reason to keep it. Having two dissimilar subs in the back doing battle, just seems off to me. Too bipolar for my taste.

 

I have the Stealthbox in my possession already. That was bought because the Alpine doesn’t do enough for me on the bottom end. The Kenwood amp was on backorder and shipped today. This was simply a case of “do I keep the Alpine?” or so I sell it and source an uncut driver side bin.

The amp is going under the driver seat.

 

Ah, cut bin, I see. I can send you mine.

 

3-Way lower door speakers AND Subaru tweeters

Fellas, you gotta pick one. There is no sonic advantage to running multiple HF drivers on the same channel until you get into the VERY ADVANCED audio system category. There is nothing but down side to doing this, I wish people would stop.

Ditch the Alpine sub. Fix your front stage.

You may be able to get more low end up front if you do everything possible to treat the door and mount them absolutely properly (solid mounting brackets, weather strip, and mate the speaker to the door panel either by using the correct bracket to get the right depth, or install something like fast rings so you aren't trapping sound inside the door). Kickers need all you can give them to help them perform. I don't know how yours are mounted but it sounds like they aren't installed well. 3-Ways plus the Kicker Subaru tweeters doesn't help the spectrum balance either, or the phase alignment, which have a negative impact on clarity and imaging.

With the factory radio, there isn't jack you can do about calibration so you have to pay close attention to all of the other details. 100Hz low pass for a sub is too high IMO, you get a lot of voice fundamental and since you don't have time alignment, there's no way to move that forward in the cab and it just makes for muddy incohesive sound. Standard beginning setting is 80Hz.

 

Another thought. If you have a cut bin anyway on the driver side and you're doing stealthbox on the passenger side, maybe you can use the cut bin to your advantage and mount the amp there by cutting it some more. If I weren't going to swallow 100% of the free space behind the seat for a sub box, I'd want the amp back there vs under the seat. Especially with real winters. Building an amp rack is pretty fun, not super high stress, good winter project.

I think one guy managed to get close to $500 spent on the pioneer after doing some shenanigans with something. Honestly, my two big spends so far, headlights and head unit, I don't regret either one bit. And I wasn't an etune hater at all, just that the full screen and carplay and all, it's way way better and that's the thing you interact with the most. Sort of like how you might say the SR5 or SR is all you really need but OffRoad isn't something many of us regret spending on.

I can send you my maestro harness if you want, that's one that I wouldn't mind re-doing now that I can crimp, might save you some time.

 

Shoot me a message what you want for it. Shipping from CA isn't going to be cheap, but I'm sure we can figure something out that will make sense.

When I first dipped my toe into this, I didn't anticipate running an amp, or I'd have gone with a different set of speakers. I didn't go with a set of components simply because if memory served me then, I'd immediately have to amp them, etc. Luckily my ears aren't calibrated nearly well enough to hear the differences in sound stage. It's interesting you say 80 Hz, though. When I had my STi I had the LPF set at 80 Hz and by my ears it sounded like I was missing a ton of low end until I shifted everything up to 100 Hz. Maybe with the stock HU like you mention I'll have to get creative with the filters. I've got the Metra brackets, but I'm sure I can figure out a way to stabilize how they're mounted. I've seen a thread or two here on how to disable the tweeter on those particular speakers which could help the sound stage.

I appreciate the offer, but the stock HU is where I want to be ultimately. CarPlay is cool, don't get me wrong, as I have it in my car, but there's things I don't care for with that as well. I'll figure out where I want to mount the amp, but given the size of the hole I made in the rear bin and how crappy it ultimately looks now that I look back at it, I'd like to start fresh.

I'll be yanking the Alpine then.

 

1. Figure out your goals/what YOU want.
2. Budget appropriately.

You are never going to get good sound out of that head unit without some sort of DSP fixing. Concentrate on your front stage. I removed my rear speakers and covered the holes. If you want to see what happens when you don't have defined goals, take a look at my build thread. It's so wishy washy with audio progression, it's ridiculous.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/coastierons-progression-of-idiocy-journal-bs.527020/

Here is where I am at:

 

Ron, you've had your share of equipment trouble too. I've enjoyed following. Gotta order up my door skins at some point too, those look cool.

Mikey, I'll try to make time next week to pull the passenger back cubby and see how big it actually is as far as shipping to you. Agreed that might be ridiculous if it's $100 in shipping or something.

 

Understatement of the decade. But I will also admit that when I get bored - idle hands and all that. But I never sat down with a defined goal like I did with my last truck, and I had never delved into running an active system until 4 months ago.

 

In relation to the shipping of passenger cubby, I had a passenger cubby with the OEM JBL sub enclosure shipped to me in NC from CA in Dec and shipping was 71$. Granted the box may have been slightly heavier due to the sub enclosure being in there too so expect $45-70 due to size mainly

 

Right. That's exactly what I've already done. I've met my goals and what I want, and have the items purchased. This was a thinking out loud of whether the smaller subwoofer would gain me anything by retaining or not.

I get everyone wants to critique my setup and tell me how much it sucks, but that wasn't my goal by asking this question. Hindsight being 20/20 I should have just left the sub in, turn it down, turn it up and see how it sounded. Oh well, that's what I get for asking for asking questions on the Internet.

 

Self inflicted wound.

 

Totally was not trying to critique! Sorry you took ot that way. I was only saying, I ended up chasing quality, while spending too much money!

 

I can understand wanting to keep the etune. I get it. I was rather hesitant as well.

 

Also, some photos of your storage bin perhaps if you have them handy once you remove the Alpine? It might really fit your amp perfectly and since it's already slashed up you don't have much to lose trying that out. Could possibly mount directly to the plastic and use some metal backing, or a wood plate which is mounted to the plastic, or some spacers or metal or ...

 

Unnecessary.

While I truly appreciate the insight with the setting and stuff, when you launch into a lecture about my front speakers when I was specifically talking one element of my setup, it simply feels like gatekeeping. It plays as "hey, I've got a Taco lean after 5100s, well you should have bought Kings" or "I went from a Squier Strat to a US Strat and don't like one pickup, I bought a humbucker I like, but do I leave the bridge as is" and it's "well you didn't buy a vintage 59 Les Paul, so eff you".

I understand that from a strictly audiophile standpoint what I have isn't ideal. I've been down that road before, and in 2017 when I started changing things didn't anticipate going down that road again.

My gripe with the system was the low end, which I'm patching with the Stealthbox. In my previous systems there's always been a hole between what my stock speakers (or upgraded co-ax or components, depending on the vehicle) run and the large sub does. I was thinking retaining the Alpine (installed in 2017 when I wasn't planning on touching any part of the system but the sub) might patch it, but wanted some insight. The history lesson in the first post was to give a rundown of why I bought what I bought at the time. This wasn't a case of "I'm buying X, Y, Z."

If I was doing a system as a discrete purchase, would I do things differently, sure. But I'm not. I'm not an audiophile and I simply won't hear the differences. I know this about myself. Was there a jump in quality from stock to what I have, absolutely, but will I even notice a difference in the next step up? Probably not.

No worries. I think my frustration came from a case of "I have these components which I like and will use, do I retain or delete this component" and it turned into something else, which wasn't what I wanted to do. Outside of the gap between the speakers and the sub I wanted to fill I like how my stereo sounds. I know what it should sound like with a decent 10" sub, but there's always been that little bitty gap.

I'm done spending money on my truck at this point. In the past, I've gone past that point where I've dumped cash into something and it hasn't brought me any additional joy or anything. Once the "done" feeling hits, I want to ride that moment and be happy. I'm there with my truck, I'm there with my Vette. I'm thinking I'll save and get a 3rd vehicle for laughs. My original Toyota Pickup came out of this. I was going to change the wheels on my STi and realized I'd be into it for $3,000 all said and done for what I wanted and did the weighing of

It's a case of cost. By the time I buy the HU and the addendums, I'm looking at $1,000. Even if I hit sales and sold my stock stuff (which I don't do anymore) and I get it down to $500, a new HU isn't going to give me $500 worth of "I'm glad I did this". When I see beat up DC era Integras running around for $3,000-4,000, $1,000 towards that seems like a whole lot more fun than a new HU, considering I'm 95% content with the sound, especially if I anticipate what I'll get out of my new sub.

I just don't love the idea of wasting the storage space with the amp. If I'm going to remove the Alpine and gain an uncut bin, stuffing an amp in the middle of it doesn't really do anything for me. Maybe there's a better spot for the amp than under the driver's seat, but the storage bin seems like a waste of good real estate to put it.