2020 Entune - Factory Integration

So you seem to know a ton about audio so trust your judgement based on what I have read. I contacted a few shops locally to me and sent them this build list to see what they would quote me.

Kenwood DMX1057XR
JL C1-690 for the front doors and tweeters.
JL C1- 650x for the rear doors.
JL JD400.1
JL CP108LG-W3v3
JL JD500.1

A shop owner messaged me back and said he has a 2017 as well and he would suggest not going with the C1's because they did not sound good in his Tacoma and that he had gone with Audison. He suggested going with this build instead.

Kenwood DMX1057XR
APK690 for the front doors and tweeters.
APX6.5 for the rear doors.
JL CP108LG-W3v3
JL XD700.5

Cost is not really that far off from my budget and only like $300 more than when I priced out the JL build. Do you feel that it is worth the increased cost? Would it sound much better?

 

Oh yeah, JL C1 speakers are no match for those Audison components. Hands down do that. I was going to frown at the C1’s before I even saw you were looking at Primas.

I think you are a tiny bit under powered, and I have no personal experience with JL XD amplifiers, but this looks like a nice moderate system. I really like the Kenwood eXcelon Reference stuff.

 

Ok cool. I will lock that in then. What would you suggest as an amp for that setup if you feel the 700 might lack the power needed?

 

Adding more power would complicate things because then you are looking for a different subwoofer. As it is I think it will have good balance between your speakers and subwoofer. It also gets a lot more expensive really fast so cost/benefit gets hard to justify.

This has the potential to be a nice clean moderately loud system.

 

Thanks for the advice. It is all getting installed on Thursday. The only change I made was to upgrade the Amp to the JL VX700/5i. I am hoping the extra $400 will pay off for the hours and hours I spend listening to music in the truck.

 

Yeah I think so. The built in DSP will provide a lot more tuning power. The stand alone JL DSP costs about $400, so if that’s all it’s costing you extra, you get a nicer amplifier plus the DSP.

Ive been wanting to find an excuse to install some of those VXi amps.

 

Welp... looks like I'm talking the wife into getting a 4Runner . Damn good build

 

So I forget when it was that I ordered this, months ago, seriously months and months ago... (fuh-evah). But, it has arrived and phase 3 begins soon.

 

Great decision going with the VXi700/5. You’ll be happy you did

 

Alright, amp is installed. I’m annoyed by how long that took but I didn’t really have a plan until I figured out under the rear driver’s side seat is the only place it would go. I mostly had the wires all run so that saved a lot of effort.

I might do a tune up tomorrow and put up some results. I did a dirty level set yesterday when I hooked it up and it turns out I was only 2V lower than where I ended up setting it up today per JL’s recommends. Not bad I guess.

 

Do it bump doe? Loved my JL HD & still kinda disappointed in myself for selling it earlier this week but it was only sitting. At least another Tacoma owner will be using it. Great little amps about the size of a sheet of notebook paper with clean power and great efficiency

 

Yeah the bass is pretty strong. It's going to get dialed back a smidge when I do the tune I'm sure.

 

I thought I had taken a picture of this installation but I can't find the stupid thing on my FONE so /shrug, maybe another time I'll have the front passenger seat out and I can take a picture then. I was pretty sure I took one while all the wires weren't crammed in there so it would look promising in terms of neatness and I planned to show it here so you all could be like damn that's gonna be NOYCE, and I could feel all kinds of glory and stuff. No glory.

So, suffice it to say the 4Runner is using not one but TWO DSPs because that Audison BIT kept nagging at my brain with it's stupid input stage de-EQ opacity and I just NEEDED to see what the factory radio's output signal looks like, but also the parametric EQ is maddening to use (just let me type in my damn numbers shit! I hate rolling my finger on the mouse pad to try to get to a specific spot and constantly yo-yo past where I want to be, then give up because it's not going to happen), so I added a damn Audio Control between the stereo and the AP8.9BIT. Thinking behind this is, at some point you have spent so much money already so % wise what's another fucking $600...

Anyway... getting them both to fit was tricky, the DM-608 has a larger footprint than the Audison 8 channel amp (?? wut ??) it's true, and having them mounted on a piece of plastic, and then getting that piece of plastic under the seat without worrying about any moving seat interference wasn't going to happen. I had to raise it off the floor so it doesn't interfere with the air vent that's there and I puzzled on it for probably two decades, AKA about 3 hours before realizing I only had to raise something directly above the vent, and the other device could sit on the floor, because there's more width available (between the seat struts was at least 2" less) and I ended up making a shelf for the DSP above the vent, and the amp sits basically under the seat rail on the door side. It all worked out great, wish I had that picture...

So here's the result of poking around for a little bit, I took screens of the Input stage of the DM-608 so you could see what you are sending to your amplifier from the factory radio. It's very sad but good to know.

Front L/R Factory Stereo output spectrum response.




Rear L/R Factory Stereo output spectrum response.



Initial thoughts on the Audio Control DSP primarily concern my utter surprise that the EQ is not independent channels, but L/R channel pairs unless I haven't figured something out yet. I mean for the money you should at least get all of the features of the JL which is $200 less as well as the input analyzer but so far as I can tell, nope. It also has its own GUI quirks that are annoying, but that's mostly about how it displays on your computer screen, forcing you to scroll up and down to see the entire page. The channel mapping isn't very intuitive, mostly because the labeling is confusing on the input/output pairing function. I do like the EQ, but I wish you could toggle between graphic and parametric depending on your preference.

I don't have an actual tune in yet but for now it's all up and running and sounds fine. I'm looking forward to screwing with the ACCUBASS. I moved the sub amp signal from the Audison to the DM-608, and already there's a noticeable difference in terms of low volume presence.

 

Yup, I didn't figure it out initially. I just watched an episode of Kick Back with Dean and Fernando earlier this week and someone in their chat asked what DSP is kind of the easiest to use and they hands down said they thought the Audio Control was the most user friendly, specifically mentioning the JL software as being a little confusing, especially at the input stage but I wholly disagree with them on that, the JL is thoughtfully laid out and I didn't find it confusing at all, and the Audio Control just isn't IMO. It's all there but I feel like you have to find all of the controls and figure out what exactly the buttons do, where this isn't the case with the TwK, stuff is just obvious and well laid out in the JL software.

That said, once you figure it all out, I suppose it's not hard, and the Audio Control has some useful features that the TwK does not. Overall, of the DSPs I own and have been screwing with, my preference in order is such:

Audio Control > JL TwK > ------------------------------------------------------------> (very last) >> Audison BIT

The only reason the JL TwK is not first is due to the signal RTA feature that Audio Control has. It's extremely useful to see the signal you are working with before it goes out to other components, especially when you are using a factory head unit. About the only positive thing I have to say about the Audison BIT is that it obviously has been built with quality components and it is wonderfully clean and transparent.

It was tough to get the wiring clean, having all this shit under one seat and arranging them for connectivity was a challenge. I finally was able to make it reasonable but if I have to screw with any of the connections when tuning, like to grab the signal so I can check it on an oscilloscope, I have to take the seat out or it all ends up untucked and I risk ripping something out of a connector. It's really important to nail your signals down before putting your truck all the way back together if you do something like this.





Side note, I found this kick ass RC car body on Amazon for my Rustler VXL and frankly it's pretty much tits AF now.



Because I couldn't stand only having two RTAs, I decided earlier this month that it was time to add another one so I picked up the Audio Control DM-RTA and I'll be going over that pretty soon. I grabbed the kit because I just really like having cases for everything and theirs is a nice case, the foam is really good, and everything you need is included. They even included one of those bluetooth modules so I can screw with the DSP on my phone and have the DM-RTA displayed on PC instead of toggling between windows (which is what I actually did because the phone app is just really small to look at, so probably use a tablet instead).





I've used it once so far and for the price I think it's kind of a must have because of all the functionality you get for the price. Besides the RTA function you get polarity checking, volt meter, oscilloscope, and a full set of test signals built right in. It's really a complete car audio analyzer, but also could be used for setting up any sound system.

I'll probably kind of compare it to my other analyzers, I haven't set them up side by side yet, and I don't know how accurate it is really. I will likely connect one of my calibrated microphones to it because the one I got with the kit is not. It wouldn't be fair to compare it to the SMAART 8 kit that I normally use, which is a multiplexer that measures transfer function, but it would be fair to compare it directly to the Ivie IE-45 that I also use.

Probably next weekend I'll get around to that since the wife doesn't have my entire next weekend planned out (yet).

This week I finally get to tune a room with line arrays. Looking forward to that too. Maybe I'll put some of that up as well.

 

So now this system is pretty finished. I remade the plastic mount for everything under the front passenger seat. My original one was not adequate after all of the changes. I mounted the DSPs all there and moved the amplifiers to the rear.

Final piece ended up being the Epicenter Micro. GET AN EPICENTER!



It’s been hot, I’ve been sick. It’s been pretty hard to get the motivation to bust out the rig and EQ this system so right now I’m running with levels and crossovers and no EQ. It’s been weeks and I’m thinking this is actually really good already.

Bottome line, here’s the stuff installed. This is a fairly powerful setup. The sound quality is excellent. The subwoofer just really kills.

Speakers

Audison AV 1.1 - Front Dash
Audison AP 690 - Front Doors
Audison APX 6.5 - Rear Doors
Audison APX 6.5 - Rear Hatch
Sundown SD4 10 D4 - Custom box, Cargo

Amplifiers

Audio Control ACM 2.300 - Tweeters
Audison 8.9 BIT (bridged x4) - Door and Hatch
JL HD1200/1 - Subwoofer

Processing

JL FiX 82
JL TwK 88
Audio Control Epicenter Micro

TOSLINK digital optical out of the FiX into the TwK. Analog 2 channel out of the FiX into the Epicenter. Epicenter output into TwK. TwK 8 channels out to the three amplifiers.

I didn’t know until I tried it, but you can concurrently use the digital output and two channel analog output of the JL FiX, which was really nice because that gave me the full range signal for the Epicenter loop while keeping everything else in the digital path. Just as convenient, the TwK enables you to use two analog inputs on channels 7/8 concurrently with the L/R digital optical input so I was able to still loop sub through the DSP. I thought I was going to have to run subwoofer around the TwK directly to the sub amp and use the crossover there, but nope, full DSP functionality on all channels. Two thumbs up to JL.

 

Adding an AUX Jack. I did this in my 4Runner, almost certainly applies to Tacomas with the same radio.

Most people never noticed but they deleted the AUX port on the Entune 3 factory radios. I'm sure the thinking was nobody would ever need it since there is Bluetooth, USB and Car play. I'll get into the why later but for now, this is what I did to enable AUX Input on my 2020 TRD OR.

There are two options for the harness you need that I found. There may be more.
Naviks $100 - https://naviks.com/i-24076947-2020-2023toyota-tacoma-entune-3-aux-audio-input-interface.html
Car-Solutions (China) $36 + Shipping ($70) - https://www.ebay.com/itm/266245834219

I chose the Chinese one because it looked a little nicer since they added foam to the vehicle side connector, and I preferred the shorter harness. The Naviks might have larger gauge power wire, I'm not sure, I'll explain why I noticed this later.

What you choose to use for your jack is up to you. I chose the 33mm Toyota AUX jack with the 8 pin socket to install in the glovebox next to the USB jack I added to connect to my DSP (it's under the seat). I was wanting to cover bases I wasn't sure I'd have to because of the way AUX is enabled for selection on the factory radio.

RCA Pigtails -

$7 RCA to Speaker Wire Adapter, 18AWG 2 Pack 3ft RCA Male Plug to Bare Cable Open End, UIInosoo Audio Cable, Red and Black

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097XV7QNL
AUX Jack Connector w/ Pins -

$10 Guangcheng 2 Sets 8 Pin Tyco Amp Auto Connector Socket Electric Wire Terminal Cable Harness Male Female Plug Compatible with Toyota 1376352-1 1565804-1 (Color : Lavender, Package : 2 Set of Female)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09V7HN2FZ
33mm Toyota AUX Jack (not OEM) -

$15 EVRBUL Aux Port Input Auxiliary Jack Adapter Compatible with Toyota Corolla 2009-2013 Tundra 2007-2014 Tacoma 2009-2012 RAV4 2009-2011 Sienna 2011-2013 Highlander Avalon Sequoia Replace# 86190-02010

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D95H8FHY

AUX Enabled


Wire/Pins added in this harness


The gray wire is not two wires, it's a loop between two pins on the connector. This is a function typically handled in the Toyota AUX Jack itself. The Toyota AUX Jack closes a contact when you insert your AUX cord and this tells the stereo to enable AUX input to select. I think it's this way because older radios would toggle between SAT and AUX on the same input depending on whether or not a cable was plugged into the port. The black/yellow/yellow are L/R audio and ground going to the female RCA Pigtails on the harness.

I got the 8 pin AUX jack because I didn't know if the jumper would lock me out of some other functionality in the stereo and I wanted the option to wire that into the jack rather than have it just be looped on the harness. My 8 pin connector for the jack hasn't arrived yet so I'll add the pin out for that when I have it installed. When I tested the added input I was not locked out of any other inputs so I will probably leave the loop and skip wiring it to the AUX jack.

WHY on earth would a guy need a damn AUX jack? Besides stuff like external players with AUX out, for myself I needed it to tune the stereo using SMAART 8. I've been wanting to take specific measurements for tuning the DSP, measurements that require my RTA software to send test tones through the stereo so it can compare the input signal to the measured response from the microphone. This is how you get really precise on delays, phase, and measure transfer function magnitude. I tried a Bluetooth transmitter which the stereo would not sync to. I tried a AUX to USB adapter, which typically works the other way but the bottom line is the stereo works as a U-Disk, meaning digital file playback, not analog through USB. Nothing was working out so I started looking into adding AUX to solve the problem.

Why is the size of the power wire an issue? I only noticed it because I already have a jumper harness installed for adding aftermarket stereo equipment. The add DSP harness jumper I already have installed has larger gauge wire on the power pins than the Add AUX jumper harness does. Also I did not want to install a jumper harness onto a Jumper harness (one is enough), so rather than install what I bought from eBay, I de-pinned what I needed from that harness and added them to the vehicle side factory harness, my DSP harness has all pins populated so the stereo still sees the added wiring.

So that's it, if for some odd reason you want to add an AUX jack to your 2020-2023 (maybe 2024 IDK) Entune 3 factory radio, it CAN be done, it DOES work, and all you need is is 5 extra pins worth of wiring to make it happen.

 

Also, I haven't updated this build yet but basically I've ripped all the shit out and installed the Arc Audio Blackbird. This is where it's at boys, I'm tellin' ya. I think same deal with the Helix DSP because they both do a lot of the same stuff, but IMO the Arc Audio DNA DSP has absolutely everything, and more of it.



Most DSPs allow delay at the output after summing has taken place which isn’t adequate, and the consequence is you’ll have some cancellation in the signal, weird voltages and a frustrating time trying to tidy up the signal path. I put a lot of effort into it but still always had something not quite right, some hole to fill, smeared midbass and my sub really wanted to hit at 63Hz so I had to force it to play nice which was a lot of EQ and hassle. It has since settled on around 45Hz which is more in line with the box size, and sounds natural.

Here’s the problem, L/R front from the factory radio:



Sorry for the glare, the sun was out. So this is what you are summing sub signal from unless you preemptively correct it. I think the Kicker Key can do it, the Helix DSPs can do it and the Arc Audio DSPs can do it. I tried for a while with the Audio Control DSP and it just wasn’t happening because delays are set after summing and channel assignment. What’s the recipe?

Apply a delay to R channel equal to 114.3mm, it’s .33ms or .34ms if you only have milliseconds, the signal will barely precede or follow, it’s very close. Also, turn R channel down 1.9dB. Once you apply these settings to the input signal your L/R phase and amplitude will match and the summed subwoofer output won’t totally suck and you’ll have L/R signal balance for everything else.

Got the bass squared away and now I’m trying to figure out how to remedy the factory all-pass filters. I’m confident there is one at 315Hz, but it also looks like there are some in the midrange. I need to work on it a lot more (this is why I need the AUX jack).

I'm currently working with a guy to make a dash Speaker grille that includes a tweeter pod making it possible to mount a 3" midrange in the factory dash location and still mount a tweeter because frankly, a two way speaker in that location is going to have a totally shitty tweeter. I'll have that for the 4Runner but I can share details when it's done so someone that has the ability can work on a Tacoma version.