Post Up Pictures Of Your Stereo Upgrades!!

Alpine halo 9

 

this setup looks nice and clean. what HU is this?

 

$921 Pioneer DMH-WC6600NEX 9" Capacitive Touchscreen, Modular Chassis – Wireless & Wired Apple CarPlay & Android Auto, Amazon Alexa, Bluetooth, HD Radio, FLAC, Backup Camera, Hi-Volt RCA

Pioneer DMH-WC6600NEX installed flush in a 2018 Sport that had the premium non-JBL entune headunit. Looks like it was made for the truck.

 

Thanks for the complement. I did the install myself. Pioneer 601-EX. It's a cheaper HU but has a lot of nice features.

 

I've had my headunit for about a year and a half. But added a few other things to my 2012. Don't have any pics of the inside of my doors but it's 3 way Dynaudio active. Couldn't get pics of my helix dsp, it's behind the arc amp.

 

Just took Hank to his first stereo competition. Burped a 134.4db which was class winning.

 

I didn't want to dump a lot of money into mine, but I added Infinity Reference components in the front, and the matching coaxial in rear. Was gifted a Pioneer GM-D1004 that I installed behind the OE HU to power them.

Then I designed and built a 25 x 9.5 x 6.5 ported box to fit, another gifted, MCM 55-2421 8" sub powered off an old cheap mono-amp that was collecting dust in my basement.



Huge improvement over stock overall; clean tight bass.

SQ > SPL for sure, but wouldn't mind more thump so I'm looking at the Skar IX-8 to eventually replace the woofer with; looks like it will work well in this box:

 

Excellent sound quality from this Sony double DIN. Easy installation, carplay works great.

 

Sony DMH-W4660NEX with iDatalink Maestro RR for steering wheel control integration
Scosche TA2111B mounting kit - not perfect but better aesthetics IMO than other options
OE Toyota black dash pieces and painted gauge cluster bezels
So far very pleased wit how this has worked out and love the wireless Apple CarPlay.

 

back-up camera and wheel controls still work?

 

Yes, both camera and wheel controls are working. Camera I needed to splice the factory wiring into Maestro RR harness, wheel controls are plug-and-play through the RR unit + TO1 wiring adapter kit.

 

I may end up replacing my HU at this point. I'm running two amps at this point, but I think replacing the HU would significantly improve the sound quality.

 

I replaced the subwoofer with the NVX VSW82v2 ($50 shipped). And built a new box tuned to ~32Hz for it. They recommend .75cuft for a vented box, and I got it to roughly 0.7cuft [from 0.5cuft] by moving to port to the top and just clearing that frame brace/brackets.

Sounds really decent, although I'm used to the bang of a 12" or two. Maybe down the road I'll work on something with a 10" or two...

 

How do you like the NVX subwoofer? I was thinking about running a pair of them sealed in a small box running the length of the cab behind the seats. Currently have a single 8" Kicker Comp R in a tiny sealed box and it's just okay...

 

4 8" subs fit nicely in the back of a 1st gen single cab... and the brand I have... Oz Audio, hit real nice. Now I'm going for competition loudness... you might not be into that... but 2 would sound great. Pic of my setup for illustrative purposes.

 

I'm in Chantilly, so you could listen for yourself. I'd love to hear another setup myself.

I'm still on the OE headunit so I know that limiting the ultimate performance. If I connect an audio source directly to my amp the sub sounds much better than the same song through the HU.

I was also doing some freq. response and cabin transfer function measurement tests and noticed the same thing. ( I'll post these later )

Keep in mind I'm not an expert here...

As far as the sub, I was looking for a budget sub with plenty of xmax and RMS handling. This sub is measured at 9mm, and I wasn't finding many others with more than that. The theory here was to get the most volume out of my compromised space/box.

I was using speakerboxlite to design my first box and just kept swapping in different subs to see which ones were a potential. These NVX subs have a recommended ported volume of .75cuft so seemed to work well. For the price and how they reacted -- on paper -- to the box I first built, I decided to go for it. (they are WAY cheaper directly through the NVX website, listed lower than Amazon or sonic, have a 10% coupon, and free shipping)

I also really liked how well put together these things looked: The foam surround, basket and integrated terminals looked very high-end to me.



Here it is compared to the MCM 55-2421 I replaced. And the MCM compared to a 50watt Bazooka Tube sub that I actually pushed to ~150watt that I started with.

I'm pretty happy with this sub, it plays decently loud, clean, and accurate -- especially given it's only a single 8" sub. I have an old RF 12" P2D2 in a sealed box I threw on the back seat for giggles, and obviously it can't perform like that.

I listen to mostly rock, and it seems to blend nicely to that music. For 20-40Hz rap or edm or whatever it's obviously better than nothing, but not as loud as I'd ultimately like. Db meter phone app shows I'm really only hitting ~84dB, not sure how accurate if at all that is.

But I can hear/feel the 28Hz tone on the "Put On" on by Jeezy where otherwise it would be silent. And the MTV Unplugged version of "Hotel California" sounds pretty fantastic to me.

 

This is what makes me certain I need a new HU:



light blue is through the AUX, I'm using a line out convertor, so it's playing out the rear channel as well -- which is on a 80Hz HPF.


if anyone is curious about the transfer function:



pretty linear rise to +20dB from roughly 35Hz. The drop at 90Hz is interesting, probably probably due to the size/shape of the cabin.

I measured the sub in the middle of my front yard in the grass for the nearfield measurement. Tossed it on the backseat for the second and measured from the driver seat.

Just using my laptop microphone here.

 

Thanks for the offer! I might take you up on it at some point. I'm outside Leesburg.

I think I'm going to make a version of that ported box and give my single 8" another shot. Was that program pretty easy to work with in terms of figuring out port size? My main issue is needing to retain the child seat anchors, but that means the box will just be one really long rectangle...never done a port before, and the calculations seem a little over my head.

Separately, for what it's worth, changing the head unit makes a world of difference. I used an LC7i and it just amplified all the weird tuning of the OEM head unit. The bass response was allllllllll over the place.

 

Looks like that Kicker [red] plots pretty well in my current box against my NVX as well. Honestly, I forgot all about Kicker as an option and when I was looking into a new woofer; but it is also double the price...



It recommends a 0.8cuft enclosure at the min. My new one is just over 0.7 depending on the woofer displacement. That's why I did the port the way I did. You can see my first box a few posts back up, the vent takes up internal volume dropping that box to around 0.5cuft.

You can fit exactly 29.75x6.5x9.5 in that space. You can squeeze it to 7" deep if you knock off the mounting holes for the plastic panel. I didn't want to knock them off or the child seat brackets; mainly for resale.

I was toying with the idea of just using a 3" tube on the outside of the box or even extending into the area behind the other seat. My port is actually 2.5 x 3.5 x ~24" and I went with the square since I was able to go larger than a 3" round area.

I've always run sealed boxes in the past, in cars, where space wasn't a problem -- since I'm running the 8" I wanted to try to go with ported to maximize the output of the small speaker.

This image might give you some ideas too, when getting as most space as possible out of there beneath the brackets:




With that in mind, this is about the biggest shape, outer diameter, you're going to get in there -- giving around ~0.5 under the child seat brackets for a total volume of roughly 0.93 cuft before any displacement:



The biggest thing with the port is finding the balance between the tuning frequency and the port velocity. If you make the port too small, you can get chuffing/whistling out of it, but the larger you make it the longer it must be. As well as the lower you tune it, the longer the port length is needed, taking up more space, making the box size larger. It's all a push and shove here and finding the best compromise. Most people try to achieve ~18 m/s or lower. There's also cone displacement to worry about once you go ported, but if your amp has a subsonic filter you shouldn't really worry.

I downloaded the program BassBox Pro 6 at home, and it actually plots very close to speakerboxlite.com, so made me feel better about using it initially.

You're welcome to try my first box out just to see -- but it is on the small side for vented.


----


I'm highly considering just going with a Dayton Audio DSP-408 (or miniDSP) over a new HU. Would be cheaper and should be able to EQ it out nicely for less investment than a new HU. I could feed it just the Front L/R and split it up to the (4) door speakers and sub -- judging by the way the rear speakers sound in the truck, I believe Toyota is doing some tomfoolery to the rear channel output.

I watch watching some tuning videos using it and REW last night and think will be enough to really round out the sound and just leave it alone. I do feel like my tweeters with my Infinity Reference components are a bit harsh, so just a good EQ and LPF/HPFs alone would worth it...