Sad OEM woofers

After reading a few threads here lately on doing tweeters and speakers today I got inspired to install a set of Focals in the front doors of my Sport. They are great, of course, but the thing I wanted to show here is how cheaply the OEM woofers are made. The magnet is hardly bigger than a US quarter and weighs maybe an ounce. That is probably being generous. See below:

 

It’s no wonder why when I replaced mine, posted them up as free, nobody wanted them. Anything you still in there is gonna sound better. I went with whatever my go to dude suggested, the only thing I wish I did was sound deadening behind them.

 

Wow that's bad!

 

yup

did my Tacoma years ago, currently going through the Tundra speakers now

 

I should have done mine years ago when I put the first aftermarket head unit in back in 2011. I mistakenly believed that removing the door panel was a lot more work than it actually is. Still kicking myself...

 

I know they are crap... but smaller isn't always worse. There is a new tech that oemaudioplus uses:

6x9 Woofer Magnet Size?
You’ll notice that our New Front 6×9 Woofers (32-2015) have what is perceived to be a “smaller” magnet. The good news is you received the correct product and it exceeds the performance of it’s predecessor (as seen in our installation video). You have received our New 6×9 Woofer (32-2015) featuring Neodymium Magnet(s). This upgraded magnet affords us better magnetic density with higher power saturation limits and performance as the traditional magnet, only lighter and a smaller footprint when it comes to installation (eliminating the need to use spacers to clear the window assembly on some installations).

 

Agree, but that ain't no rare earth magnet in the Tacoma OEM woofer. More like a cheap refrigerator magnet.

 

Makes sense... does this new tech apply to my 2013 speakers?

 

Not new tech, rare earth magnets have been around forever. Just too expensive to use in run of the mill speakers when a bigger cheaper magnet will do the job just fine.

 

are they high end aftermarket speakers?

 

Remember we are talking woofers here where space and weight are not typically issues and you need a lot of magnet material. I haven't really looked into this in detail, but I'd be surprised if you find many or even any woofers with rare earth magnets because of cost and no real benefit. Not to say some Gucci brand doesn't offer one for some sort of bragging rights. But there surely are many middle and high-end tweeters that use the stuff since packaging is a major constraint and they would need only a few grams of the stuff, not ounces and pounds like woofers.

 

I don't know if this is changing the subject or not, if it is just ignore it. Does anyone know of a plug and play subwoofer to replace the one behind the seat on an earlier 2nd gen TRD OR? Someone blew mine out so I just unplugged it to keep it from rattling. I looked unsuccessfully for a thread on this but I am not real good at this yet. If there is another and someone wants to share a link, that would be great.

 

The ideal way to decide on speakers is hear them. Reading about what they sound like or reading opinions isn’t all that helpful. What sounds good to me someone else might not like.

15 years ago or so I drove all over and visited at least a dozen stores to listen to speakers. When I started looking for the taco, discovered the board with a bunch of speakers and buttons aren’t around anymore, at least I didn’t find any. Back then mb quart, infinity, polk were all very good and very similar. In my opinion, Boston acoustics stood out as a little better. They no longer make speakers for cars, bummer.

I’m lucky to have a place to go to I can trust. I ended up with pioneer everything. Sound quality is spectacularly clear. It doesn’t get too loud, no amps, which is ok with me, wanna save the little hearing I have left.

If you can find the board with buttons and speakers, you can listen and pick. If not, I don’t know, look at the crutch field site. Maybe you can find some car audio convention or something.

 

Haven’t been to an audio store in at least 10 years. The speaker walls and sound rooms are the way I remember it. Kind of a shame if they did away with it everywhere.

 

Yeah, back in the day you could even demo car stereos and speakers at places like Circuit City. There I go dating myself!

 

Thanks a lot for the info. Definitely will look into that.

 

Used to love playing with all the radios as a kid, those were some good days. Haven’t seen a display of radios and speakers in a loooooong time!

 

Just got done installing a set of Morel Tempo 6x9 components up front amplified by a Morel MPS 4.400. Morel Maximo coax 6.5’s in the rear.

The stock speakers are straight garbage. I just about fell over laughing seeing how tiny the stock magnets were compared to the Morels.

I will add sound deadening goes a LONG way to making the stock speakers sound better. I sound deadened my truck doors before I received everything and was surprised at how good the stock setup sounded.

I’ve seen a few shops around here with the speaker boards. It’s actually how I landed on Morels for my setup. Definitely not as common as they used to be.

 

Ex Circuit City road shop manager right here…. You’re not alone

 

Crutchfield says those don't fit Tacoma lower front door. What kind of adapters did you use?