Gen3 JBL question

Yeah the amp work is the hardest part for sure. Door speakers are easy. Head unit is crazy easy.

 

Hmmm...I'm minimally handy and have replaced door speakers before. Maybe I'll put in the door speakers and new head unit...same me a bit of cash. Have him do the amp/sub installation being I'd probably screw it up. Are aftermarket head units a plug and play if I can get a matching harness? I've never replaced a head unit like the one in the tacoma. Just basic stereo/CD units with no touch screen.

 

Definitely some soldering involved with the head unit. And a decent amount of diagram reading. But if you’re happy with the factory head unit, don’t swap it unless you just want to spend the money. The AmpPro will get you the audio signal you need

 

Good to know. I am happy with it.

 

Well…showed the wife the quotes and she was less than thrilled. I’m also having a tough time swallowing $3600. I may try the $600 route and replace all the speakers first and see how that sounds.

 

Try Crutchfield.com, they're very helpful & have been around for decades. They always send all adapters, wiring harnesses & such for free. Give them a call, try it you might like it

 

You’ll be underwhelmed. Just want to warn you.

at the end of the day, no matter what speakers and sub are there, the JBL amp is still powering them.

We can put nice big heavy tires on our trucks. But that doesn’t make our baby V6 any more powerful

 

My vote is you build it out on paper, everything, deadening, wires, adapters, shrink wrap, fuse holder, tools, everything. Make a spreadsheet. Obsess over it for two weeks. Column out all of the pricing.

Think hard about how it all fits together. Really dig around for exciting alternatives, don’t just bag and tag on stuff like Alpine R equipment. That stuff is frequent flyer bitch mile and for similar expense you might be able to do a lot better.

Once you’ve gone mental moving all the pieces around in your head and shopping/digging around for everything and you pretty much have the specifications and the actual expectation set in your head you can start purchasing equipment.

I would start with the Ampro and work out to speakers. Once everything shows up plan the install. You can have a shop do things you aren’t capable of, but there’s no way I’d let a shop install speakers. They never do it right. To get the best result you have to fabricate something because there is no perfect mounting bracket that I’ve ever seen on the internet.

Bass knobs, DSP controllers, extra charging ports is the hardest but most satisfying part of finishing up. You have to get creative sometimes.

Keep your OEM speakers. You need them for measurements, but also to throw back in when you sell the truck. Make sure everything is 100% reversible.

 

Was a decision ever made? I'm in this dilemma also as my Taco came with the premium tech package which I did NOT want but in this new car market I didn't want to lose a chance of never seeing a Taco build ever coming through again. Ideally I'd like to keep the OEM headunit and would love to have a custom harness made at the amp location and run my own 5 channel amp with a custom fiberglass enclosed subwoofer along with new speakers.

 

As Dolbytone suggested, I costed everything out. The product pricing the shop gave me was a bit higher than what I could get on crutch field. So, I think my final decision is to go the OEM audio route and do it myself. I watched the install video and other than time consuming. It doesn’t appear that complicated. I just need to decide whether I go the amp/sub route or do the whole package.

 

Yeah they aren't the best

 

who’s not the best?

 

OEM audio isn’t great? Curious to know. Don’t want to blow $2-3k on a system if it’s going to be mediocre

 

My understanding is you get a pre-tuned DSP with OEMAudio so that’s not the direction I would go. My preference would be something I have control over, otherwise it’s about like the OEM system, a black box you can’t tweak on.

For some people it’s probably fine.

 

Yeah, on their website they said they’ve engineered their system specifically for the Tacoma interior. Seemed to have great reviews. I’ll definitely research this forum on specifics. I called them today for a little Q & A. Missed the call back so I’ll call them tomorrow.

 

Haven't pulled the trigger on anything yet. Life's been busy. I did see a plug and play head unit on trail grid pro. There's not a ton of info/reviews on it, but it seems like a good product and it's plug and play. I just wonder if replacing the head with this will be worth it.

https://trailgridpro.com/shop/head-units/sony-xav-ax8100-plug-play-bundle-16-19-tacoma/

 

Personal opinion: Sony head units are trash

I will say that I have been out of the industry for 2 years and haven’t installed any of the models that have been released since then, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. But when I was installing, a large portion of them got uninstalled. Either buggy software, glitchy performance, or strange things where something simple like the backup camera trigger just simply wouldn’t work.

 

I very much respect your opinion. You know FAR more than me.

So, I went to another shop and got another quote. They will utilize the stock head unit using an Ampro. Replace all speakers with alpine R series, install two additional tweeters in the rear doors and put in a slim speaker box with 2 kicker 10's (don't know what series they were). It's not a custom fit box like the other shop so I will lose the back plastic cover apparently. There will be no sound deadening in the cab. Also he will install two Hifonics amps under the seat to power it all. Before tax was $2650. Would take him a full day to complete. I said I'll get back to him. I'm somewhat familiar with Kicker and Alpine, but have zero experience with Hifonics. Decent? Garbage? The other brand I saw on display was JL and JCPower.

 

Man I really wanted to say this but sometimes I feel like I bitch about stuff in general too much and just skip saying things I am thinking.

My perspective on this is a little different though, I’ve worked with Sony professionally in the cinema industry for the last 12-13 years, and have serviced their cinema audio products since around 2000.

Sony just has a habit of writing heavy, overburdensome shitty software, doing things unnecessarily the hard way, and not playing well with others. About the only thing Sony I buy anymore is the PlayStation and certain android televisions.

I still think for car audio that Kenwood EXcelon XR is the best overall head unit, JL HD or Audio Control for amplifiers, JL for DSP, Audison or Hertz for speakers (which one depends on the kind of system you want) and I don’t have a strong opinion on subwoofers really, that’s a moving target.

 

I’ve heard of Hifonics but never used them. Same for jcpower. And JL is good stuff but they’re price tag is hard to swallow.

i don’t like the idea of tweeters in the rear doors, but we all have our own flavor. If you want it, do it.

lots of shops are pushing alpine r series because they’re having pretty big discounts right now. I’d check the line item price to see if they’re trying to charge you full price to add in some extra margin.

also make sure they’re selling you good wiring and not CCA crap