Gauging Interest: 8" Tacoma Component Kit

I am going to answer with my opinion, of course, not replacing Stevens...


Cost is relative. I have not talked to him about pricing, but I can all but guarantee you this will be better than any pre-packaged set anywhere near the price. I have or have ran Peerless and Vifa drivers, and the quality is there, hands down... Some of their stuff is used in commericial sets costing several hundreds of dollars - like the Alpine Type X sets, current and past, and the elite level Alpine F#1 status stuff.

Bass is a pure function of air movement. Its not an accident that we both thought of the 8" for this reason. The one he is looking at has a cone area of Sd 221 cm2, with 11mm of p-p excursion. A typical car 6.5" driver has a cone area of about 140 cm2, and 6 to 10 mm of p-p excursion.

Simply put, yes, the bass will be a HUGE improvement, especially if you take the time to really treat the doors properly.

Would you be better with a sub - yes. Every time. With that said, I know of competitors (SQ) that run no sub with 8" drivers up front, or have the sub crossed over around 50hz.

Well integrated and installed 8" can really eliminate the need for subs, if you dont need the boom.

The ideal solution would be the biggest driver you can fit, well installed, and with a tweeter that matches up well, and then a sub that simply enhances the experience.

 

Well the truth of the matter is that a dedicated subwoofer will always be the best way to go if you're looking for bass.

The goal with this package is that if you don't want to give up your space and still want a rock solid bottom end this will do it. You wont rattle cars next to you but again that's not the point.

Essentially what we're doing is using a larger, beefier, midbass that has more cone area and more xmax (throw) that will be capable of reproducing lower frequencies much easier. We can successfully do this by using a tweeter that can play lower than most other tweeters so it can dig down to where an 8" speaker's top end response will naturally roll off with respect to off axis response.

Great news is that it will sound a million times better than stock in upper end detail too; not just bass. The drivers we're looking at using are really stellar performers.


Will it justify the costs? If I didn't think it would I wouldn't consider it a good use of my time to develop the kit. Realistically this is a component set meant for clarity in ALL aspects which includes the bass region. If you're planning on upgrading your front speakers and might consider doing a subwoofer too this is like doing both of those steps at once.

I'll refrain from speaking too early but I'm expecting this will sound better than pretty much anything you'll hear in any car audio store.

 

Our responses are nearly identical....great minds my friend


Josh, I think Matt and I are thinking Sunday the 17th for some testing if you want to come over.

 

Good golly, we sound alike...

 

Get out of my head!

 

So which 8" component are you guys going to use? and how will you mount them? cutting?

 

Peerless 8's and some Vifa 3/4" silk dome tweeters. I'd prefer not to go into detail till we verify what we'll be using.

Drivers will be mounted by a normal baffle. It shouldn't require any cutting that I know of. It should drop right in.

 

What Steven said.

Ill maybe answer a few questions if Steven is not around, but I will let him handle a lot of these. Your gig man!

 

the aluminum hds peerless?

 

I dont think so, but you should try them out and post up a review! Those look like very interesting drivers!

 

i'll let them be the testers and see how they do it and then maybe i'll pop in some 8 inch woofers in my front door. If it works then that would be sweet because i really don't feel like putting subs behind my seats and loose all that space.

 

I would be in then I can ditch my 6x9's and put in some 8" I will wait for some r and d to see how it turns out. Good idea!

 

I'm interested! I will volunteer my Tacoma as a test lab!

 

Those weren't as efficient as I was hoping for so I ended up going a different route. Remember, efficiency is KEY! A 3db increase is double the power. So if your headunit has 20RMS running a speaker that's 3db more efficient is like you're running a 40RMS amp!

 

You're welcome to come to the testing as well.

 

I've done a few tacomas with the dynaudio 8 in the the door with matching tweeter, they sound awesome, great mid bass and can hit the lows as well, they need a good amp to drive them factory unit will not do the trick

 

I recall many of the Dyns that I've encountered being fairly low sensitivity. A guy I know on the Lexus forum had an active 3 way and said they really needed some stout power to shine. Great drivers though.

 

I'm very interested in this kit, even if it involves a little cutting. My only concern is these drivers covering the frequency range well enough. I realize there will be a probably be a trade off of super-low lows (below 30-40Hz or so), but anything would be an improvement over stock. Testing will tell, of course. My idea was to somehow put the bass driver in the rear doors (I have a 2009 Access cab), and smaller drivers/tweeters in the front doors. This, however, will be much less work than that, so I am hoping it will pan out well.

I am already fairly sure that this "kit" will come at a cost considerably less than if you bought similar products from popular name brand equipment, as ItalynStylion is using a different brand that costs considerably less, without a loss in quality. We all know in some cases you pay for the name. (Can we say John Deere? ha ha)

Of course, Italyn, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Looking forward to the results of testing.