anything good to say about powerbass 6x9 door speakers?

Howdy everyone,
I just got my 2016 DCLB TRD! Man I love this truck, but I did not get the JBL stereo upgrade and I'm regretting it now.

A local shop here in town is really pushing powerbass speakers. I listened to them today and they sound fine, for the price but I haven't heard much positive about these speakers on this forum. Any feedback, good or bad?

thanks

 

You can only go uphill from there. I'd be pushing pretty hard to get those out of my store too.

 

Powerbass isn't that bad, but you can choose the wrong drivers for any setup. In these trucks the lower door location should be relegated to upper bass only imo. Put a nice size tweet or even a 2-2.75" in the upper door to help plant true midrange frequencies on the dash. A set of small tweets in the sails will aid the latter option.

However, the biggest improvement I've seen in my setup was the use of time alignment and eq because of the large difference in distances between each location. Without it the sound seems to stay planted to the doors making the stereo sound rather poor. With that you make the most of just about any speakers you install

 

Bayboy and Rob, thank you for taking the time to reply. I know next to nothing about car audio, but even my ears can hear the trash speakers they put in the doors.

I would prefer to have the best speakers I can have (for under $300 a pair) but I live in a small town in Montana and this shop only sells powerbass and focal. I don't have the guts to try and do the install myself, so I'm looking for after market speakers that will fit in my truck without a ton of modification.

Rob, if you have any suggestions for better alternatives than the powerbass, I'm all ears.

thanks

 

For starters you can do way better than PB for $300/pair. Here's a few I'd consider given what you're planning.

Front:

Image Dynamics ID65 CS ~ $140
Morel Tempo ~ $220
JBL GTO 609 ~ $200
JBL GTO 600C ~ $120

Rear:

Image Dynamics CTX 65 ~ $130
Image Dynamics ID 65 ~90
Morel Maximo ~ $130
Polk db 651 ~ $65

Certainly not an exhaustive list, but given your budget, I'd consider at least all those. You can get a nice set of speakers for $300/pair but a lot were left off the list because you intend to use head unit power. All the above will take an amp in the future though if you wanna go down that road. It's usually worth it. Easy enough to get all of 'em around $300 or less too & still get some decent gear.

 

Thanks Rob! The shop here in town of course offered to charge me more for the install if I bring my own speakers, but I'm sure it's worth the additional 50 bucks or so.

One more question, if you don't mind...how worried do you think I need to be about these speakers fitting into the doors of my truck? I am really just going off of crutchfield.com here which tells me for many speaker models they won't fit my vehicle/year. Maybe I should be on the 2016 tacoma forum asking these questions?

Anyways, thanks again for the information, much appreciated. I will check out image dynamics now...

 

I'm the wrong one to ask about fit, but Crutchfield can steer you in the right direction. Tell it what you drive and it'll give you speaker sizes. Or dig around on here. There have been a couple detailed builds with the new trucks. I think there's one in the sticky section. I think those will fit, but triple check before you order anything.

And maybe listen to the Focals if you get back to the store. Lots of folks dig those. They make nice stuff. Might be especially worth it if you're getting cheaper install rates. They will sound very different in your ride of course, but you may be able to compare the 2 side by side assuming the store uses the same equipment/signal to both.

 

Thanks again Rob. I just found an image dynamics dealer about 2 hours from here in Helena. They warned me that these speakers are power hungry and might not be best for running with a factory head unit? They also warned me that they are big, and don't fit in a lot of vehicles, so now I'm wary of them.

I wish I could hear the focals...the shop pushing the powerbass speakers says they don't even keep the focal 6x9 speakers that would fit my truck in the shop because the don't sound good???? The other focals I listened to there sound fantastic, so I am not sure if they are just blowing smoke up my ### or what...

anyways, thanks again for the feedback, feel free to ignore me when you get tired of my newbie questions!

 

Heh, no worries.

Yeah, you start running into that with nicer speakers. They tend to require a little more power than a head unit can provide to perform well....and sometimes space. And those were even their more efficient offerings I suggested. So much to choose from though. Good news is that most of the speakers better-suited for use with head unit power are inexpensive!

 

If I were going to use speakers driven by the headunit I would most definitely look into Pioneer & JBL. Not crazy about a coaxial 6x9 down in the doors, but if that's the route you're going that's what I would do. Perhaps add some additional tweeters in the upper doors that you can attenuate a bit. A component set would still be the best bet IMO.

 

Check out www.*********.com for speakers, adapters, and a few good videos on installations. Hope this helps.

 

i think they can advertise for themselves....