2003 X-Cab 4x4 Budget Audio Build

Howdy Folks!

So after 12 years, the factory tunes in the Taco were getting a little tired

Here's the truck in need



I had a few things in mind to start. I didn't want to modify the stock charging system, so I probably have about 30A to work with. I want to modify the truck as little as possible. I want it to sound great at decent volume. And a final and seemingly impossible goal...I wanna do it for around $500.

I started small with a Kenwood DPX 501 BT head unit & replaced the factory speaks. I'm pretty limited in the Taco on speaker selection & staying relatively OEM, so I went with NVX V-Series 5.25 separates up front & Quart ONX 5x7 out back. Boy howdy has Quart gone downhill. They don't sound awful and provide decent fill, which is all I want from them, but they'll get replaced at some point.

I wound up making a set of adapters for the door to go from the factory oval to a round woofer. For that I hacked up an ABS clipboard & cut it accordingly. I wish now that I'd taken more pictures of all that. I didn't quite suspect at the time that I'd go further. It was always a possibility, but I wanted to see what I could do just replacing easy stuff.

Kenwood DPX 501 BT



NVX V 5.25 separates. A hand file was used to round the stock holes to accept the tweeter pods. The tweeters rotate inside the pods for easy aiming...a critical feature with these tweeters





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Of course it was not enough. I realized pretty quickly that I'd need a sub. And an amp for at least the front end. For this I chose the US Acoustics Lisa and an RE REX v2 8 inch subwoofer. I thought I could get away with more, but this is all the space I was willing to give up....~.74 cubic feet of interior space which will basically just extend the armrest all the way to the back of the cab...sort of.



2 channels will work with the NVX separates while the other 2 will be bridged for subwoofer duty.

The first thing I wanted to do was get started with the enclosure. I only have room for a single eight and it will need to be sealed. I think I prefer this option anyway - especially considering the small space inside the truck. I think it will fit my listening preferences well also. Mo bass; mo problems. A sealed 8 will do. The Lisa claims to make ~170W RMS bridged at 4 ohms. This seems to be about perfect for this sub in this configuration. I hear these amps are a little underrated anyway, but there isn't much out there about them just yet.

Building the box.

I used 3/4 inch MDF although I was tempted to use 1/2 since this is an 8. It's a reasonably heavy driver though & I talked myself out of it and will just live with the slight increase in enclosure size.



I used a portable table saw to make the cuts & could have done better with a real table saw. But way too much sanding & I got all the pieces square. Then it sat like this in the garage for a week while I worked & pondered what I'd do about a baffle & mounting hardware.

Baffle roughed out with a jigsaw.



Then sanded & attached for a fit test



All good!



Everything got disassembled, cleaned, glued, reassembled & cured.

Next up was pulling the head unit & running RCA & turn-on wire. After that I started running 4 ga cable for the power & ground. It's overkill for what I'm doing here, but allows for easy future upgrades.



Once more I wish I'd taken more pics, but for the most part have been working against the clock and not always in the best conditions.




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So how am I doing with the cost so far? Good question. I kinda wanna know myself.

Kenwood DPX 501 BT - $120
NVX 5.25 separates - $54
MB Quart Coax - $35

$209 to upgrade my head unit & realize my stockers were about done.

Plus

REX v2 8 - $60
US Acoustics Lisa - $150
Misc wiring & terminals - $60
Carpeted Enclosure - $60

$330 for the next upgrade

Bringing the grand total to $539 . I've paid more than that for single components.

Not only that, but I'm kinda shocked to pay $60 for a sub like the REX. And so far the Lisa doesn't disappoint, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

After the glue cured, I overcaulked the box (it will be carpeted) and installed the driver.



I used T-nuts in the baffle to accept machine screws. I'm not installing polyfil just yet. I wanna spend some time with just the box so I can really tell the difference.



Testing the box





Carpet is next. And mounting. I'm still trying to contrive some sort of quick-release.

I found some funny money!




Lots of tweaking & finishing to come, but all the equipment works and the box sounds delicious!

 

Well, I'm digging the sub. It's good all the way down to 20 - which just sorta moved air, but it kinda stunned me at 25...for an eight I'm floored...nice & strong. Haven't clipped it yet.



As expected, the polyfil made a big difference. I put in roughly a half pound - glued to all the interior surfaces. I understand that a ratio of roughly 1.5lb/ft³ is somewhere in the neighborhood of optimal returns. I believe the interior airspace of my enclosure to be right around .70 ft³ (after the compensating for the baffle). This is among the larger sizes recommended by RE for a sealed box. So my half pound or so leaves some room to be desired.

That most definitely extended the bottom end though. It also seems to have smoothed frequency response. That's all seat of pants mind you, but it definitely goes lower & more confidently. The gains needed to come down right away as the stuff I was listening to last night was way bass-heavy as I switched the truck back on. Speaking of seat of pants, it has more rumble to it...more of that and less pingy. It's more bass than I need...keeping some in reserve.

Slapped some carpet on the box while I was at it



Bolted the sub back in.



Well, it looked like the right carpet under the fluorescent lights



Anyhoo, this is essentially the idea. I need to make a grill & hide the amp. Amp should be easy enough, but I want this thing to disappear. Maybe I'll be on the lookout for a better match for the carpet. I did a bit of a hackjob on it anyway, so it was good practice.

Oh, the tweeters. I may have mentioned before that they were a bit harsh. If so, I'm mentioning it again. However I discovered that when I rotated them further off-axis and into the dash & windshield that not only do they sound right, but they set up a stage that just wasn't there before! For this reason, I probably won't stick them behind the doors, but will leave them and play with the aim 'till I get it just right. I was considering replacing them before I did this.

So far so good regarding the charging system. I've given it considerable play in the garage over the last couple of nights & 2 hours is no problem off the battery. I drive with an extra 110W of lights in addition to headlights and they don't dim a bit. I really need to install a voltmeter though...on the short list.

This is where I stare at things for a while & solve these few remaining problems. And tune. This thing's sounding pretty nice as is. Once I calmed the tweeters & pulled in more midrange using the head unit's built-in parametric EQ, I'm calling the SQ goal of this build a screaming success. Actually all goals were met with the exception of a mostly stock appearance, but I'm working on that. I think I'm going to use a baffle to make a speaker grill which will cover the driver only with speaker cloth to minimize any sound alteration.

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I sort of dropped the ball with the posting over here, but I think I'll play catch up today.

I'm dropping a bunch of cross-posts into one post here, so if it reads a little funny, you know why. Some of the original posts are text only & will not be included, but in the case that anyone is actually reading this and confused about something and would like to become not confused just speak up. Oh, and I'm separating the posts with periods - like this.......

That said, carrying on...

Hi again folks! It's been a while since I've posted, so I thought I'd follow up with a short update. The install has stalled as the weather has been awful, work was busy & the holidays took the rest of my time (SO worth it!).

But I've been doing a lot of tuning & listening & have discovered some issues. The one which will probably be addressed first is the vibration. Around 100 Hz down to maybe 80 Hz I have a big resonance problem throughout my panels. I don't notice it that much until I'm tuning single frequencies, but then it becomes hella obvious. There are other frequencies as well, so some mass damping is in order...probably some sound insulation too.

And I just won't be able to live with the NVX separates too much longer I'm afraid. However I'll probably give them the benefit of the doubt and see how they fare through the panel treatments. I still don't think the tweeter will survive the guillotine though. It seems to be the big problem. Sort of. I think I've pinned my issue with the NVX set. It sounds great sometimes...always with electronic music. But once I ask them to give me accurate guitar or vocals they can't bring it home. And the tweeters are still hissy. But again, if it's electronic music you want, they'll produce. And I do like my share of electronic music, but not all the time. That said, I try to keep in mind that I'm usually driving and some of this picky business does not matter. But even the noisy '03 Taco cabin won't hush these NVX tweeters when they wanna speak.

I have my eye on the Morel Maximo at the moment, but squeezing a 6.5 in the doors will be a chore. Yes, I realize it's a leap from the basement budget department, but I'm still well under a grand and by the standards of most car audio enthusiasts, I'm still safely in the cheap bastards' club.

I've also been rethinking the sub. While I adore the RE, I've discovered that I can use the same space, about twice the power and a much more complex enclosure to mash a Sundown E8 leaps beyond the capabilities of my current driver. I wish I had double the space I have now. I really do LOVE the REX 8. It sounds amazing. But it needs so much room to get down & dirty and I just don't have it. And the E8 is kinda sexy.

That maybe means a new amp. Actually the Lisa would work nicely with an E8 - delivering an advertised 340W bridged @ 4 Ohms. It's been a nice amp so far. A new & more powerful amp would be found for the front stage & maybe for rear fill keeping the whole thing under 550 Watts. 500 was the target cutoff as I still don't want to upgrade the alternator. I'm also an older cat & don't ask so much of a sub amp full-time.

I did get a few hours above freezing one day to try a half-cocked idea I'd gleamed from some other post which used a router & threaded rod. So here's the idea. I'll use the scroll saw to cut the hole & just let the saw pivot around the guide.



It's hard to see, but the blade started angling & finally broke off before I could even get in a 90 degree slice. I knew it was a longshot, but in the spirit of cheap, I figured I'd give 'er the ol college try. I could use a router anyway.



Idiot's day out, I know, but learn from it if you wish.

Oh, for what it's worth, I'm trying to make a ring to cover the sub with that mess above. I've decided against any sort of pre-made grills which might color the sound & instead extend a ring or 2 and cover with grill cloth and maybe another sort of barrier within...maybe a few bicycle spokes hammered between layers as a backup.

For 75% of my music this setup sounds great. For electronic & dance music it sounds amazing...yeah, bass-heavy stuff. The NVX separates appear to be made just for it. They dash through traffic & wind & general chaos. But they're just too edgy. And as much as I love the REX, Ima just come out & admit it - I love the brown note. The E8 gets me a little closer.

..........

Just dropping by for a quick update. I finally got the chance to spend a couple hours messing around with this thing. I had some motivation too. I borrowed a router to make these rings, but didn't have the hardware lying around to make it work. And it needed a bit. Then it occurred to me that maybe I had the blade locked the last time I tried to do this with the jigsaw. Turns out that's where I went wrong. After replacing the blade on the jigsaw & unlocking the rotating head things went much more smoothly. The router went back into its case - unused.

Using the same pieces I started with last time



Once you get going, the surface is surprisingly good. Now to do the inside.



A few minutes with the sander and 2 rings!



That also sort of illustrates why I don't work on this thing very much right now. There's de-icer or ice everywhere. Winter's just a pain when you aren't getting to ski :mean:

Trying to decide how I wanna do this. Originally I was thinking I might sandwich some protective something or another between the rings, but now I'm thinking maybe just something thin under grill cloth. This sits out a bit further than I thought it would.



With 2 rings. I may not use both of these...we'll see. My thinking was to use these to help keep things out of the sub by virtue of depth alone (along with grill cloth of course).



A quick thought, as I'm trying to keep this low key, was to just try & use box carpet for grill cloth. A quick inspection of the carpet however changed my mind. It's way too thick. Grill cloth it is. So I guess I'll hit the local craft store the next time I'm close...which should be soon.

Oh, and I stuffed the rest of the bag of polyfil in the box. I think I used about half before, which puts me a bit over 1lb/cube.

We have some nice days coming up & work is slow so maybe I can get all this finished up before too long.

.......

Chipping away...

I still needed an amp guard so I can toss stuff behind the passenger seat. And I guess in a pinch I can haul a passenger.

Seeing if I can get lucky with some scrap MDF from the enclosure build. I'd planned to use some thinner plywood, but the MDF should just fit.

Boing!



I think I can work with this



This will allow the seat to slide freely & protect the amp from whatever and still give it a little room to breathe. All this is only visible when the seat is slid fully forward. I think I'll trim my power wires back too.

Making sure the swing-out cupholder still has room to breathe. I could see it going altogether in the future & maybe taking this whole space to mount an EQ or sommat.





Getting carpet. It's still kinda chilly out, so pressure seems to helps with curing. I got it all cut & glued & is curing in the laundry room. I made the mistake of putting the enclosure in the truck before the glue cured & thought I'd avoid that this time. It's kinda stinky.



To see how it all fits tomorrow.

Oh, the extra polyfil made a notable difference. Really glad I did that. I was way short of where I needed to be.

.......

Looks like the carpet held just fine & I couldn't smell it in the laundry room this morning. Time to try out the amp cover in the truck.



Looks like it's gonna work. I put all my weight on it last night so it should take anything I decide to toss back there.



Oh, I forgot to mention in the last post that I found some fabric at the local Hobby Lobby, and it's as close as I could find to grill cloth, but it's no grill cloth. It isn't very stretchy although it appears to be mostly acoustically transparent. Looks like Ima just have to place an order.

But since I bought some to play with, I decided to do a practice run with this stuff. I'm glad I did too. This is tricky business.

The back - looking rough



The front looking just as rough. Among other nOOb mistakes, I think I used too much glue. In my defense though this really is a crappy material for this application.



It doesn't look as bad if you back off a bit. Here's the general idea.



Now to find some real grill cloth & wrap this up! Err, for now.

.......

Not much building going on here lately. I'm still trying to round up some grill cloth & have returned to tuning. I never have been all that satisfied with all this. And so I start poking around with places in the head unit I never go...like LOUDNESS. I've typically always considered that a useless function & left it alone. However, in the spirit of trying new things, I pushed the button. It sort of gave me some good news



All along the loudness, which I had refused to visit and to my credit sometimes hides among the menus, had been set to 2 . I'd been trying to tune around that. So it got turned off immediately and another couple trips taken through the menu to see if I missed anything else. Man, I feel like an idiot, but just glad I found it before I started chucking stuff.

I rotated the tweeters back on-axis, set the HU EQ and levels back to neutral and started tuning again. The tweeters are still a little hissy, but only a bit of the time. Turning them slightly off-axis helps. I keep thinking a more efficient midrange like the Dayton Classic might be a good replacement. Might sound better too. These sound pretty good, but I've discovered they don't like to reach down too low. They seem to really wake up when I cross them at 250 Hz, but I don't like my sub playing that high (but that's from experience with ported enclosures...maybe I should give this time).

Oh, that's another thing I started messing with. I'm not crazy about my head unit's crossovers (they seem to introduce noise) so decided to use the ones in the amp. With the sub & mids crossed @ ~250 Hz through the amp, along with all the other things I did, this sounds like a completely different vehicle. It actually sounds very nice. I thought the sub would be annoying playing that high, but blends right in & provides a lot of depth while still easily dispensing with the low stuff. Staging got worse as the tweeters are no longer aimed at the dash, but it sounds far better.

I thought I'd be pulling the trigger on a new sub by now, but think I've talked myself out of it. The Sundown E8 has been in the shopping cart for some time, but have been hearing that it doesn't really like to play much above 80 Hz (and still sound good). Since I don't want to bother with the complexity of a separate midbass driver, I may have settled on the best subwoofer for my needs already - especially after that last polyfil addition...that made a YUGE difference. And again, so far feels right at home crossed at 250.

Jury's still out on the separates, but they sound WAY better than they did before. Stunning really the difference those tweaks made. I'll most likely stick in a set of Dayton Classics at some point as it's pretty much plug & play. I'm going to make some plywood baffles to replace the ABS ones in the door...might do that then. Gonna treat the doors then too I think.

Oh, I ran across an old photo of one of my old cars the other day. I was a little more of a basshead then This is my '89 Civic Si - circa 1992



.......

I've been thinking about how I wanna mount this grill & ran across something at HD today that got me thinking. I decided to pick up a pack of neodymium magnets for the chore.



These things are crazy strong for their size. Seems like they'll work nicely.

A little super glue to hold the magnets to the ring



I forget that most things are produced at or near sea level. As they travel up to 5400 feet, differences in air pressures can spell trouble with sealed containers. In other words, the super-glue was pressurized & kinda shot out the tube unpredictably. Fortunately there was nothing too vulnerable in the way, but the practice grill took another hit. Oh, one of the surfaces on the ring was very clean prior to gluing the magnet. The other 3 I just kinda let happen after stripping back the cloth. None of them will budge. I've tried to get them off. They aren't coming off.



These little things are pretty strong. I set up a little practice board to see how they'll perform with some screws with rounded heads first.



In that configuration, they will hold all day, but when I banged around on the board, they started to vibrate and eventually came off with a lot of force...more than they'll ever experience in the truck in a driving situation, but still. So I went for some drywall screws with very flat heads, slightly sunk into the carpet. No matter how hard I hit the board it won't come off like this. If for some reason I need to take it a step further, I can glue magnets to the heads of the screws (minding polarity, of course).

Enough with the practice grill. The one I intend to use getting magnets.



These things really are tiny. There are larger ones available, but I think these will get the job done.



Still need grill cloth & practice with it a time or 2 before making the final one. Now to order some grill cloth - unless anyone knows where to find it in the Denver/Boulder area?

.......

Getting close now. I'd been riding around using various means to hold the enclosure in place, but today finally got around to bolting it down. It took a while, because I wasn't sure how I was gonna pull it off. I dreamed up a dozen or so bracket scenarios, but wound up going with 1/8 inch aluminum bar - 1 inch wide. This lets me use 2 existing holes in the rear seat mounts. I was going to use the seat bolts themselves, but they have a lot going on & squeezing in there was going to take some modification. But I got lucky & these 2 brackets are about exactly the width of my enclosure...which means I can use straight aluminum bar



I decided to try my hand with staples instead of glue for the grill. This is what I'll be using once the grill cloth arrives. I got some inspiration from Milton & had a go with the ol' Swingline. Turns out it's just perfect for running small staples in this fabric. Hope it works as well with grill cloth, but I don't see why it wouldn't.



I'm going to use this fabric until the speaker cloth arrives. So far I can't tell any difference with the ring or without. The cloth seems to make no difference that I can hear and to my pleasant surprise there is no noise from the magnetic mounts! They stay put even bouncing around driving & hitting bumps. Securing the enclosure made a difference too. I didn't realize how much until it was done. Next time I'll do that sooner.



Just a couple small items remaining. Seems everything sort of all fell together here at the end. I got my tune right. The enclosure mount came together nicely. The truck sounds great and to date I'm still well under $600 . Let's see, last time I left off at $539. I bought some aluminum & screws the other day for about $10. Grill cloth shipped is $15. So barring any further unforeseen expenses, the grand total of this build comes out to a whopping $564 . Boing!

.......

I never ordered any grill cloth. Shortly after that last update I lost my job & decided that things like orders from Parts Express would just have to wait until I can find a new one. However today while I was out working on doing just that, I tripped across a Jo Ann Fabric store & decided to take a peek inside. Lots of fabric in that place and I hardly scratched the surface, but thanks to my 'guide' I didn't need to. After a few minutes and a half dozen things that might work, I found it. It even feels like grill cloth - kinda heavy & stretchy. And it's 40% off! Although I've been quite good about spending cash lately, I didn't figure $2.60 would break me and I'd like to get this done.

In the case that you wanted to try this stuff for yourself, here's the particulars



It's much darker than the stuff I found before. And much less inhibiting.

So you can see the difference in the fabrics - roughly the same distance & lighting

Old fabric from Hobby Lobby



New stuff from Jo Ann



Next to one another draped over my keyboard - single ply



On the sub. You see a lot less cloth and a lot more grey without the flash...I'll take that picture some other time. The grey matches both interior and box carpet better & provides less contrast.



Yeah, so I neglected to orient the fabric in a way that works with the rest. Live & learn. I'm not taking this truck to shows or anything. I'm not going to pull it back off & do it again 'till I need to so as to put as few holes in the ring as possible. It is MDF. Here with the flash again you can see just how 'transparent' this stuff is.



Another locally sourced item. Sweet!

 

While I was out going through some boxes today I tripped across the mic that came with my home receiver. It's almost cheesy, but the only mic I have so I thought it was time to get familiar with REW.

The cheesy Sony mic



I just wanted to run a test measurement to see if this mic even works. It's placed next to my right shoulder. This is at 250 Hz instead of the default 200 Hz cutoff point as my sub is supposedly crossed there. I'm not entirely sure what all this means, but can tell it can use some work. I'm gonna try a full-range test later, but my laptop needed a charge & I needed dinner.



















All this new information, or at least access to it, may inspire me to get myself a real mic & some processing or at least an EQ. I think I'll play with this mic a little more first though. Maybe I'm selling it short. Either way it's fun to play with .

Oh, and I think I owe the fine folks at NVX an apology. I'm liking this kit now. I still need more midbass, but they keep surprising me. I'm in no rush to replace them anymore.

That peak around 80 Hz and trough around 180 Hz are leaving me scratching my head though. The trough I can hear and knew it was there although haven't been able to fill it yet. The peak around 80 though isn't obvious. Mostly cabin gain I'm guessing? I kinda gotta throw this mic a bone 'cause it's picking up what I'm hearing and showing me exactly where it is regarding slacker frequencies. I may be able to bring in the 180 (I really don't like my sub playing this high, but for now it will have to do), but not sure what to do about the hump. Maybe let it slide 'till I can actually do something about it. I'm using the head unit's parametric to smooth the low end & don't really wanna abandon it to address the 80 Hz issue. But maybe I'll give it a shot. I can always go back. And I'm assuming this mic is trustworthy. I think I'll be on the lookout for something local as that goes. The cord on this one is a bitch anyway.

 

I haven't updated this one in a bit as I haven't done much with it aside from turn knobs, but it's time for an upgrade. Some things are just bothering me too much. I'm still keeping with the budget theme, but it's time to spend some more coin. I know how I'll do some of this, but don't have it all figured out & any opinion might prove helpful.

First, my NVX 5.25 midranges are just weak. I know they don't have much power on them, but I'm making adjustments anyway. If I ask these things to play any midbass, they snort at me and I have a big hole just above that. These will be replaced with the Silver Flute W14 5.5 inch wool cone woofer and new custom baffles. I'm going to keep the NVX tweeters and the passive setup for now, but this is all working toward an active 3-way setup. I intend to use the Lisa for the front end and find another amp for the sub - once I find an 80PRS or suitable replacement for my current head unit...but this is down the road a bit more.

Sound treatments are also happening this time. CLD tiles are going on the panels along with a generous helping of MLV. I've also ordered the Silver Flutes - which should be here by the weekend.

But first the UPS man came to see me a few days ago.

I've read dozens of anecdotes supporting or dispelling the idea that XTC foam speaker baffles in untreated doors make a difference. The claims are all over the map. Some claim they're suitable for rain-guards only, some say they change the character of the sound dramatically and some claim no difference at all.

That said, I've decided to see for myself. I have a set of NVX VSP 525 components in my doors which leave a bit to be desired - at least in the midbass and lower midrange. Perhaps these baffles will help?

I analyzed truck before and after to see if any quantifiable difference is present in this application. But I should offer a qualifier. The main issue with this idea is that I don't have a calibrated mic. I only have the mic which came with my Sony home tuner & it has no calibration file.



However since this is a single-parameter comparison, I assume that relative differences will be sufficient.

Here's the final result. The blue line represents the base measurement without baffles. The red line represents the test line with baffles.



Here I've zoomed in on the frequencies most likely affected.



No foam baffle



With foam baffle



Qualitatively I hear a difference. The mids seem louder and clearer. I fed them more volume knob than normal on a short shakedown drive and they did it very well - not a hint of distortion. Keep in mind that I have these crossed pretty high. My sub is taking up the slack, which I don't like, but somebody's gotta do it. I need to listen to it more, but initial response is positive.

These are sealed pretty well. If I move the foam, the cone moves in lockstep. This makes me think this application would be bad for midbass, but these don't like to make midbass anyway. There's a bit of airspace left in there - maybe an inch behind the woofer and whatever's filling the voids.

So far I like the result even though it's temporary...wish I'd done it initially actually, but ONLY because these drivers won't travel far. Xmax is like 1.5mm. Next up will be the Silver Flutes, with the rear cut out of the foam baffles, in treated doors!!!

 

A few new items for the Taco - all from Sound Deadener Showdown. In the kit is 10 CLD tiles which would be enough to do 2 doors, a bunch of velcro for the MLV and a roll of butyl rope. Can't wait to see how well it all works!

Everything appears to be top-notch in both materials and manufacture. Don does a nice job of packing everything so it's protected. There were sample pieces the size of CLD tiles of MLV and melamine foam. In all I couldn't be more pleased with a box-trot.



Before committing to the whole truck I wanted to try out what I estimated would be enough for the doors & x-cab. I'll need more CLD for the x-cab it turns out. Oops.

The Silver Flute W14s showed up too.

No install pics of the CLD & woofer install save this quickie I snagged before reassembly. It was cold & snowy out & I had to work in the cramped little garage.



Really nice build quality for the $20 price tag. I don't see how they sell this driver for $20 really.











Compared to what came out







So first impressions.

Stunning. These have far more definition/clarity than the NVX. Guitars sound like guitars, etc. I expected an improvement, but this is something beyond just better. I disabled my sub to try these for the first time & ran them full range. I had to check a couple times to make sure my sub wasn't playing. These things DIG! The door treatments most likely helped, but the driver is doing most of this. It's just blowing my mind.

Oh, I had to scrap the XTC foam baffles. The baskets are too big to go in. Anybody wanna buy some cheap midranges?

.....

Made a bit more progress on the deadening.

First I wanted to share a graph though.



The red line here is the FR with the old NVX woofer still in the door (in the foam baffle) and the subwoofer on. The green line is with the W14 woofer (no filter on the low end) in the door before MLV but after CLD with the subwoofer OFF.

I got the MLV on the doors. I may do a layer of foam on top of this since it'll be so easy. For the unfamiliar the MLV (Mass Loaded Vinyl) is 1/8 inch thick and weighs one pound per square foot.




In all I think I have 4-5 hours in each door. That's CLD, MLV and new baffles. A good chunk of that was prepping the surfaces.

I'd been listening to the new woofers for a couple days and started getting used to them. However after hanging the MLV the character in the cabin changed dramatically. The 5.5s don't seem to make near as much bass, but they seem much louder in the midrange and they can play as low as they like at the moment. I had to turn up my subwoofer gain. Twice. After that though, things started coming together.

A short driving test demonstrated that's definitely a nicer place to sit and a good bit quieter, but now I can hear my motor more. That's where I was headed next anyway. Hopefully a layer as far up as it can be on the firewall & onto the floorboard will tone that down a bit. Big improvement so far though. And I have a bunch of MLV left

 

Very detailed! Great build page.

 

Thanks gkomo. I'd love to provide more, but more often than not I wind up working on this under some less-than-ideal situation for taking pictures.

I made a little more progress today. I really don't want to hang any MLV in the back yet as I wanna get CLD down first. But since I was hearing my motor more I decided to try the floorboard/firewall thing. The way I understand it I'm not hearing my motor more because it is louder, but because my cabin is that much quieter. It really is getting quiet in there.

I realize the general idea with MLV is 100% coverage, but I also understand that some in key areas can have an impact.

Toyota puts down some sort of attempt at deadening, but I'm not sure how effective it is. It's pretty rigid, so maybe it has dried over the years? Anyway, some CLD wouldn't hurt down here either, but I don't have any.

Under the carpet



18"x33" pieces fit in both sides quite well & required very little trimming. All I had to trim on the driver's side was a small notch for the factory carpet velcro. Toyota actually uses something similar to MLV that comes down the firewall & these overlap. I may fuse the 2 when I get some appropriate adhesive.



Of all the steps in this project this was far & away the easiest. The doors weren't hard, but required a lot of patience. It also made a profound difference. 100% coverage necessary my hiney. That little bit hushed up the motor, suspension and tires big time. I haven't had it on the highway yet, but around town it feels like a totally different truck. Like a luxury vehicle really...just nice & quiet. All this not only did away with audible vibrations, but it almost feels like I changed the truck suspension. It's just a totally different tactile experience.

I'm sort of at a stopping point for now, but I think I'm gonna try running these tweeters off head unit power & giving this woofer the whole channel. It just needs way more power. Seems like every time I make the truck quieter I make the tweeters louder anyhow.

I'm funding all this by selling off old motorcycle parts, so looks like I need to go sell a few more things. I'm ready for a PRS 80 and a new set of tweeters now. And another amp. Anybody wanna buy some lightly-used motorcycle gear? Or a more used motorcycle?

 

Great build and pictures. An excellent resource I saved for a time in the future for myself.

Thank you for sharing.

 

Thanks ronoc. Looking forward to seeing your build once you get it going.

 

I'd been sort of thinking what I wanted to do with the extra butyl rope and MLV scraps. I don't know why it took me so long to think of it, but the rear hatch panels are pretty cheesy from the factory. Time for an upgrade.

This first cut was on the rough side, but I pressed it in anyway and unless it comes back off on its own I think it's there to stay.



Running butyl rope around the back of the panel to decouple the MLV and as an adhesive and to add mass. This stuff gets really stretchy if you want it to and is kinda fun to play with.



Rope all on. All the tools I needed for this. I only needed the scissors to cut the rope



MLV on the panel. This first one was a little rough, but I think it will be an improvement in a few ways. It's at least twice as heavy for starters



Easily had enough from another scrap piece to do the big panel on the passenger side



Roping the back



This one looks a little better. It's also at least twice as heavy



That flattens things out pretty neatly on the back side. The clips need some love and maybe a gasket will come in handy, but that's something to think about.



I still have a little rope left. What can I get into next?

 

Getting in a little more quality time today. I popped the driver's seat out and got to laying MLV on the floor under and behind me and on top of the transmission tunnel.

The big piece that will go on top of the tunnel



Luckily for me my floors are mostly rectangles and a piece 21" x 35" covers most everything.

All the way up to the hump where the front seat bolts live



All the way to the back where it steps up for the jump seats and storage hatches (what I was working on last time).



I'm using Gorilla Tape to hold all the pieces together. It's some pretty tough stuff so hopefully it will hold. I used butyl rope between the overlapping pieces and under contact points with the body.



This was the toughest and most tedious part yet. It's just tough getting half your body under the carpet, but as this is my only vehicle I'm reluctant to strip it. I don't have enough material to justify that anyway. I won't have enough to finish the truck, that's for sure, but I'll be able to get pretty much everything but the rear wall and it's fairly well insulated already - better than anything else in the truck.

It keeps getting quieter, but the parts I haven't treated are standing out - mostly as wind noise. But I had the opportunity to stand on it a couple of times pulling onto the highway and with the tunes at a normal level I could not hear my motor. This didn't start as a quiet truck either. The suspension's a little stiffer than factory and I'm using E-rated BFG AT tires. They're loud and transfer more vibration into the truck than most tires.

Weather got me again today. I can handle cold and windy, but it started raining on me. Guess I'll do the other side some other day.

I'll say it again, the quieter I get the truck the louder these tweeters get. For giggles I rewired things the other day for a spell. I ran the tweeters off 2 of the head unit channels, switched the crossover to -0 dB from -3 dB, and gave the W14 woofer the whole amp channel. While nothing went up in smoke and I think it could work, I don't have any way to cross it on the upper end. It was just too obnoxious full-range with no EQ. Tweeters were loud enough though.

I'm really liking the W14 woofer though. I can't cross it any lower than 100 Hz, which sort of hurts my feelings, but it's that or full-range with no subsonic filter. An 80 PRS would just solve all my problems. Someone remind me why I bought this cheesy, noisy Kenwood head unit? I haven't bitched about this thing much, but I'm starting to get annoyed by the menu surfing. It's aggravating and hard to navigate and skips over selections sometimes. Cut the power and this thing totally resets and defaults to a perplexing auto-tune. I still hate the control knob. It just feels cheesy & cheap & wobbly & imprecise. Other than that, it's just fine.

 

For all of you local folk enjoying this incredible weather, you're welcome. I have no pressing install-related issues at the moment, so the weather should continue to be awesome until that changes

In the spirit of staying cheap I removed the old foam rings from the factory speakers. It was a seriously tedious event, but you can't beat the fit and the price. I'm stunned that they came off as cleanly as they did.



Yet another use for butyl rope. It stuck to both the rings and the cutting-board baffles very well.



I'm convinced that I can hear a slight difference as a minor residual vibration or 2 have gone away.

I've been tweaking this thing a bit here and there. The W14 has changed things enough so that I just started from scratch with all the adjustments. The light blue line is with the NVX woofer in the sealed baffle and the sub on. The green line is the W14 with CLD tiles on the doors, but no MLV and the sub off. The red line is with MLV and some tweaking with the head unit's EQ and the sub on - as it sits right now. I gotta say it sounds damn decent like it sits. Plenty of room for improvement, but the best yet. It's to the point where everything I toss in, as long as it's a decent recording, sounds pretty good. That's a first.



That red space I'm thinking was eliminated by MLV (~6-11 dB!). And that's what's generated in the doors. I suspect attenuation from outside is even greater in this range. Sayonara fantasma rojo!



Quite a difference. Sounds like it too. Getting there

Oh, I tripped across an interesting little nugget a few days ago. I'd written US acoustics with a question about the Lisa and got a reply back from Mike Nicholls. Like Mike Nicholls from Zed Audio. Just sayin'.

Still haven't sold my bike yet, so no new toys for a bit. I had some guy offer me a gun for it the other day...some sort of 'tank killer'. Good times.

 

How did you do the corners with carpet? I'm having trouble with mine.

 

You'll want to practice this a couple times on a scrap piece (of wood and carpet), but you'll want to overlap the carpet a bit. Using a sharp blade & keeping the carpet pulled tight, you'll be able to cut a line that matches and can be glued with no overlap. I'm sure I'm butchering the explanation. There's probably a good youtube video out there.

 

It took like 3 months, and I got to meet some interesting people because of it, but my motorcycle finally sold! Last night I ordered a new 80 PRS and a pocket to stick under it. I don't know why I hadn't been embracing the idea all along, but considering the lack of storage space and that my phone typically has to ride on top of the transmission hump, I think this pocket will come in handy. I may bore a hole in the top to run a USB cable through & hardwire another in one of the unused switch panels. This head unit has 2 USB ports on the back & I think I like the idea better than having them on the front...in the case that someone brings along some sort of oversized thumb drive among other things. And no chance of a dangling wire. I read the manual front to back last night.

This means I get to go active! I'm in the process of trying to find another sub amp to help with that. New tweeters are going in as well...just can't decide which one. Seas H1396? Tinale AMT 40? Scanspeak Discovery? Morel MT 120? I'm between 2 amps at the moment...Zed Mikro I or Crescendo Symphony 600.1 . Big power differences I know, but I'm still unconvinced on the sub too. I'd been pretty well settled on a SD10 v3, but think I'm going to take the time to consider every 10 made that will fit (within rea$on). While I like the idea of the SD10 and all that power on it, I think I need to be realistic about what this truck can offer from the stock charging system. That makes me want to use the Mikro. Plus the Mikro's just cool. And it's a ZED!

 

Sorta got lucky this afternoon & scored a brand new pair of Stereo Integrity M25 Tweeters for a nice price







At 30mm deep, I'm holding my breath, but I think they'll go. If I had a tail, it'd be wagging right now

 

Down to one last puzzle piece now. I have an Alpine MRX-M55 sub amp headed this way.



The choice was the result of literal assgobs of time weighing the pros and cons of each. I really didn't have a crazy set of expectations in an amp, but there was one thing in particular that I required and only a handful of amps even try. It HAD to have a subsonic filter because there's not one in the 80PRS and that may be the only processing I use. 99% of amps out there have bass boost, which I'll never use, but only about 1% have a subsonic filter...suitable to me amps in this price range anyway. That one thing disqualified almost every amp on the market for me. I was looking for Class D too, but that wasn't a deal breaker.

This one however seems about perfect. It can make 350W at 4 ohms and 550W at 2 ohms. This is certain to void the RE's warranty, but I promise to go easy on the throttle . The reasons I chose this amp are many. First of all it isn't much of a compromise. It's small, does everything I could want it to, the price was nice at 26 cents/watt for what appears to be very clean power, good efficiency and good looks.

And I like what I see in here



It'll be used at 4 ohms on the RE for now. I expect a reasonably significant improvement in the low end once I get everything settled in. I'll have a few bands of EQ for the sub, 16 in all, as well as a subsonic which I really need badly. The 80 PRS has separate left and right EQ as well, which is kinda awesome.

Which brings me to the last piece of the puzzle bit...which may remain missing depending on how much improvement I'm able to tweak out of the new gear. Everything will get double the power it has now - maybe a bit more. And that may mean that I don't need a new sub. I don't expect it to go like this, but who knows?

The Sundown SD10 v3 is still the frontrunner in the sub department, but as I've been trying to look at absolutely everything available, I don't want to settle just yet. Also on the shorter list are the Stereo Integrity BM MKIV, JL 12TW1, JL 12TW3, and Dayton Reference HF 10. All chosen because they will work very well in a small enclosure with little compromise regarding low end extension. They'll all also fit in the current enclosure with a baffle modification and are designed for that airspace. In addition they all get rave reviews.

There was a discussion a week or 2 ago about the evolution of car audio and the good points. This is definitely a good point. We didn't have these sorts of choices in the early days and now I'm trying to choose between 5 different drivers designed to kick ass in a small, shallow enclosure for reasonable money. I guess I'll say it again, as much as I miss the old school car audio days, we have so much more to work with now and the coin goes so much further. I'm pretty sure I like where we are now much better.

No deadening this time around for a few reasons. First of all, nothing is really bugging me now. If a tractor trailer pulls up behind me I can hear that well enough, but the front and the sides are quite dead. I still intend to get around to the rest, but just negotiated an early move date and may not have the time to get this done. I won't have a garage to park in at the new place, but I will have a much larger garage to work in during the day. I wanna hit the wheel wells too. That's my main source of noise.

Looks like it's going to be some time next week before all my parts are here, so not much I can do right now other than prep the space under the driver's seat for the Alpine, a fuse block and a distribution block - old school stuff from an older build or 2. I ordered a switch from PE as well so I can hide a valet switch under the dash to open the amp turn-on circuit...guess I need to run down a mounting location. Maybe change the erl......