My Budget Friendly Stereo Upgrade

If you're going to put the other set of 6x9s in a box, I would go with a 6.5" component set in the doors for your truck.

Something like these: http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Car/Speakers/A-Series/TS-A1606C

In the rear go with something like this: http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Car/Speakers/A-Series/TS-A6976R

If they're in boxes, you should get decent bass out of them (not as good as a sub, be still decent).

 

Noted!

Thank you so much Capt! Valued Advice! Looks like a nice set-up....

what size "stock speakers" are provided in the door panels?
I am curious.. With-out having to get dirty before I have the new replacements...

 

@Air

What did you come up with?

 

6x9s in the front doors and 6.5" in the rear doors on my truck. Since you don't have rear doors, you should just have 6x9s.

 

Regular cabs don't have 6x9s, only 6.5

 

thank-you Nathan!

 

Capt

Regarding the tweeters, did you simply unplug them from the harnesses or did you cut/ rewire existing wires?

Great write up, really enjoyed following this thread!

 

You can't just unplug them or else you'll lose the door speakers also, you'll need to splice a couple wires. It's really easy though, just cut the wires going into the tweter, and the wires coming out of the tweeter to the door speaker, then splice those together.

 

When I looked up the rear speakers you used on crutchfield, it stated that they wouldn't fit due to the mounting height being too high. Did you have a problem with getting them to fit, or did you have to modify it in any way? Thanks for the good write up.

 

No problems at all. The windows go all the way down still and I wouldn't even say it was a close fit, there's still a ton of room in there.

 

Thanks. I think the issue they claimed was the front mounting height, as I read it would be from front of speaker to the door panel/speaker grill. I'm guessing no issues there either.

 

I have a 2012 DC also. Since you already have bought the 6X9's and 6.5's spend a few $$ more and upgrade your door tweeters.
Just use the factory wiring takes about 20 minutes a door and makes a lot of difference in the highs as now the tweeters are not directed at your feet.

Front Door




Back Door

 

The JBL tweeters like I have above are directional and pivot in their mounts.
And since anyone rarely rides in my back seat I have all 4 pointed at the front.

 

TRD-ED what speakers did you go with (other than the tweeters you already listed), and are you happy with them?

 

I definitely plan to add some tweeters in the near-ish future. With the upgraded door speakers, the factory tweeters sounded bad, but with them disconnected you can certainly tell that they're missing and the sound stage isn't ideal.

 

I went with all JBL. Not because Toyota uses them in their upgrade system. But because after much research then in 2014-15 they were for the money one of the best rated speakers around. Rating aside I went and listened to several top rated brands. The JBL's sounded better than any of the others I listened to in my price range. I did listen to some that sounded better but way more expensive and were component speakers.

I'm driving the 2 front 6X9's (

$119 GTO939 GTO Series 6x9" 300W 3 Way Black Car Coaxial Audio Speakers Stereo

GTO939) and the rear 6.5's (GTO629) plus the 4 door tweeters with as 4 channel Rockford Fosgate P400 amp.
100 watts to each speaker / Tweeter combo. The Tweeters do come with crossovers.
Rockford sends a birth certificate with each amp showing how it tested. This one pumped out a little over 635 watts.
I have another single channel P400 Rockford amp driving my 12" sub. It Birthed about 620 watts.

 

That is some serious sound. Did you add soundproofing as well? Curious to see how that makes a difference with a woofer - if its as good as the Captain is advertising I wonder what it will do for a sub.

 

I have not added sound proofing.....Yet. That is on my list of too do's.
The JBL 6X9 and 6.5 door speakers made some difference. They replaced Kenwoods I had installed over stock in 2012 with a Kenwood Double din head unit with Navigation along with the 1st Rockford Fosgate amp. Which was a huge improvement over stock. I then added the 4 directional door Tweeters in 2015. And then added the 12" sub and the single channel Rockford in 2016. Both those mods were icing on the cake. The Tweeters placed up high really brought out the highs. And no 6X9 can reproduce the bass of a good quality Sub being driven with some high quality clean wattage.

 

Wow this thread was super informative!
I just put a pioneer deck and pioneer speakers 6x9 and 6.5 into my 08 DC. This really needed to be done since the stock radio was such crap and my state has gone to
-you can't have anything in your hands-no distractions for driving.

This is what started the whole ordeal to change up everything! I picked up a pioneer deck and speakers from ebay as a package deal for $90, plug and play wires for the deck and speakers $15, both speaker mount sets for about $25, and my single din dash mount for $25. I am still using my stock tweeters but only for now.
So far it's a major difference in sound and quality, and now legal for me to use my phone- hands free.
After reading this thread though I definitely want to put some of that noise reduction on the doors. Maybe later on install kicker sub, tweeters, and amp.

I think this is the next step in this little project.

http://m.ebay.com/itm/Kicker-43TCWR...%3A36a55e8f15e0abc55a8a0bc5fffe9941%7Ciid%3A9

Super simple install!!