'01 Tacoma DoubleCab Audison/Hertz Daily Driver

Hello guys, my name is Nico, I am a long time lurker of the forum and I figured I would finally introduce myself, say hello, and try to contribute for a change. I am a music lover and I would throw myself into the category of being an "audiophile". I am far from an expert, but I know what sounds good to me (that's the most important thing, right?). Also, there are not too many builds on 1st gen Tacoma DoubleCabs concentrated mainly on SQ so I felt obligated to share my experiences with this hobby. . Anyways, enough of the about me. Let's talk about the journey I took to get where I'm at now.

My truck was my first and only vehicle, I remember first getting it back as a sophomore in high school. I'm pretty much emotionally attached to it and I have no plans of getting anything new anytime soon (sad right haha).
Obligatory pics of my humble daily driver:


Untitled


Untitled

I've always wanted a "system" in my truck, but I was always too scared to try and put one in myself. Finally (6 years later) I pony'ed up and bought the Hertz ESK 165 component set at the urging of 2 of my really good friends. In addition to that I added a 2 channel pioneer amplifier and bridged it to power an 8 inch alpine type R sub which we put into a custom box behind my center console. This lasted a little less than 4 months until I got the urge to upgrade. "The next step is to go active and get a TA capable headunit," was the advice from my two pals. So, I purchased the new alpine pdx-v9 and the pioneer p80rs when they both first came out. We tuned it and to keep things short, I was blown away by how much better it sounded. I was skeptical at first cause I thought my system sounded good, but adding the EQ of the p80 as well as going active absolutely improved the system in every way ten fold. We all know this still was not the end of it. I wanted more and the ESK 165's had hit their peak. They are wonderful for the price, they really are, but they coudln't satisfy this insatiable lust for sq that had become my main hobby. Soo, what's next? Well, my friend Jon was not using his pioneer p01 headunit (japanese version of the Pioneer P99-rs) or his 2-way Audison Thesis set so I purchased them both as well as a sub box filled with 2 Hertz HX250d 10 inch subs from him for a steal of a price (gotta love your best friends, guys).

So in went the p01 in place of the p80rs



You always hear about how the p80 looks and feels cheap and I never thought anything about it until I got to see the p01 in person. SQ wise it is a steal for the price, but compared to the p01 the quality of materials is lower (as it should be for the price).

Now, what to do with these MASSIVE tweeters? Heres a pic for some size reference (ignore my girlfriends "books" please



I had these fiberglassed into my a-pillars by a local shop and they did a great job. These tweeters are contructed with solid aluminum and are quite heavy so they were quite the chore to mount. Here's a pic of how they did it.

Back side of my a-pillar:



Finshed A-pillars wrapped in matching headliner material:

by

Other side:



Both Before putting them in



IMHO a-pillar placement for tweeters is where it's at if you want the stage height. Ive heard these tweets in the kicks and in my stock locations and they still sound good, but stage height always is not what it should be.

Talking with my two pals, we went over the differences between kick panel placement and door placement and how essential it is for the midbass to be in a kick panel with a two way component set. So we took my friend's old sealed kickpanels with the thesis midbasses still in them and just put them in my truck along with a quick tune so he could show me the difference in stage depth and width (albeit roughly). Well, he was right, it was a huge difference, immediately noticeable. My stage was now directly in front of me as opposed to being pulled to the doors slightly. So custom fiberglass kicks were the next step. I contracted another local car audio shop to fabricate these based off of a build Mr. Bing (he's amazing) did a while back. The only difference between my kicks and his were that I wanted the midbasses aimed at my dome light. Here is the link to that build on DIYMA, just scroll down to see the kicks: http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...ple-sq-build-2000-toyota-tacoma-xtra-cab.html

Pics of my kicks in progress: Here is my floor and kick being taped off



Fiber glass mat laid down:



Once they were resined and dried, Flush mount rings were made and aimed
http://www.flickr.com/photos/83487470@N07/7647236540/in/photostream

Kick panel mold cut and shaped

Untitled

Mold cloth pulled, covered in carpet, and vent hole cut



Vent hole cut into original kick panel and covered in CLD tile. Inside of kick is also lined with CLD. You can see jooonnns old kick panel in the bed of my truck which we used to try out the positioning at first



Finished kick panel! Yayy



Final shot



the sub box was placed on my back seat with the subs facing the rear. These have the perfect amount of bass for me, I love them. I got the box free basically, but Im looking for a better solution to still have at least 2 people to be able to sit there, but keep my two subs. Any suggestions? Different box design is all I can think of, something more vertical (negatives of having a truck and wanting bass).

Untitled

Whew that was a lot of typing. After everything was finished it was time for a tune. With the help of my friend we tuned each of the 31 bands the pioneer p01 provided. Our taste in music is practically identical so I knew he could make it sound amazing as usual. He went through each of the 31 bands using the focal test tones and tuned it in literally less than 10 minutes. After that we sat and listened for a while and he only went back and modified a couple of bands and he was done. It was just really impressive to me. He was pointing out things in songs that I know really well (or at least i thought I did) that I have never noticed before and would have never noticed unless he pointed them out. A big big thanks to him. We got the TA down pact as well and my image was centered. The vocals were right in the middle of the dash with the instruments on either side of it. I listen to every genre of music except country (does Taylor Swift count?) from Madonna to Yelawolf to Cartel to Anne Murray to Underoath. Completely breathtaking. Here are a few shots of my eq curve for anyone who is interested.



[/url]


Also I for should have mentioned earlier that I lined the whole truck except for the roof with CLD/CCF/MLV and it is so much quieter even with my loud exhaust. Huge difference, but it was a PITA to install all of it. I'm severely impatient so I literally did the whole truck in 24 hours with the help of another buddy (haha, I know, I have great friends). Heres some quick pics

All seats out getting ready to CLD/CCF/MLV back wall

035

Rear door panels off

032

My friend RJ helping with the fitment of CCF/MLV to the door panel

033

CCF/MLV installed on rear door using the provided velcro Don supplied me with (good, strong stuff)

034

Front doors being done. Still have my old ESK's in there, might give them to my brother

022

Old pic of my ESK tweeters mounted in my a-pillar when i first got them

020

My PDX V-9 when it first came in and its supplied Berth sheet

029

031

My p80 before i got the p01

025

SQ loving husky named Titan

Untitled

That's the end of my journey (until my next paycheck). A big thank you to Lance and Jon (my two pals) of course for all the advice and help installing as well as to Sound Solutions and Auto Sound Specialists in Charleston, SC. If you guys have any questions feel free to ask, I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed going through all of it.

 

Some more old pics of me installing my old setup

Installing my old ESK 165's in the doors into the custom birch mounting plates we traced out onto birch wood. MDF rings were then cut out and glued on top and the speakers mounted. Barely cleared the window

400409_10100524814110237_1243329208_n

My friends and I finishing up construction of the MDF box for my old 8 inch alpine type R sub which we put behind the center console.

394607_10100533204450927_23827323_n

Covering box in contact cement before we wrap it in grey vinyl.

385008_10100533206262297_1151914005_n

Laying the vinyl out

395931_10100533202998837_930024358_n

Vinyl laid down and getting stapled where you can't see

391868_10100533208797217_72657342_n

Final pic installed. Good little sub. Thought it was good enough, for the space savings, but it wasn't ;P

328243_10100281595956368_135961635_o

Here is a better pic of what I'm running now. Still trying to decide ideas on a custom sub box to go directly behind the drivers eat so that i have seats open for the occasional 2 people and for my husky to lay down comfortably in the back seat. Ignore my gf once again haha


subs

 

Jelly of the head unit. Those things are sick!

 

Thanks buddy. They really are. I should have listened to the hype and bought this one straight out, I would have saved A LOT of money. Part of the fun is experiencing and actually hearing the step up in headunits, so in that regard it was definitely worth it.

 

Good work. You reminded me that I need to change out my stock speakers. I blew them.

 

Go for it! any ideas with what you want to go with?

 

Any chance of you making it to a meet one day and letting me listen to this?

 

Yeah, I'd love to go. I see that you're a pre-med student at USC. I graduated from there in 2011 and I work as a nurse here in Columbia. We can meet if you want and you can give it a listen any time. I work weekends fri-sun off during the week so just shoot me a pm and let me know.

 

Trying to make it to med school just gotta get these damned general education classes out the way first. If I'm ever planning on being in the area I'll let you know. I'm hoping to follow the basic path of this build minus the kick-panel and sub's on the back seat. Maybe you could bite my idea and do this box design, I rode around with the cardboard mock-up for a while so that I could see how comfortable friends were with it back there and they didn't mind it.
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/au...-head-idea-thinking-out-loud.html#post4368642

 

X2 blew mine out also

 

You must have read my mind, because I was going to design basically this exact same thing for my subs. Like to the T exact same. Only difference would be since I have two 10's I would stack them vertically facing the rear seat. Basically like my box is now, but it would be vertical and I would make it so it looked like it belonged there. IMHO this is the only way to get solid bass in our gen 1 double cabs. Shallow mount subs just don't cut it for me and this is coming from a pure SQ standpoint. Anyways, I was also toying with the idea of switching to an all JL setup as well as a single sub solution, which would be 1 12w7 or 10w7, and a HD600 and an HD1200 amp. So many things I want to try, but I just love the way my two Hertz 10's sound and I'm afraid to change it, but I guess I wont know till I try haha. More $$$ down the tubes but oh well.

 

I wouldn't do an upright box unless you attach it to the back wall using the child support bar or something. That box is 2ft^3 or so IIRC so you've got a good bit of room. Look through that thread and you'll find my measurements of the box. I was planning on using dual W6's firing out the side toward the passenger's legs and make it like a center console of sorts and that would have worked fine it's just that my summer job hasn't brought in as much money as I was expecting so I'm toned it down a little bit.

 

Yeah I'm planning on attaching it somehow, otherwise it would topple over haha. I've tried the subs in every orientation from upward to side to facing the front firing. It sounds the best literally by a longshot pointing towards to rear firing into the back seat. Something with the subwoofer sound waves bouncing off the backseats and being reflected back towards the driver makes it sound louder as well are more defined and punchy if that makes an sense. Something to think about.

 

I know exactly what you mean. I do installs as a side job and get very anal about thing's like that. It drive's my Dad, and sometimes customer's mostly friends, crazy. I agree about it sounding best facing the seat my first set up was an 8" L7 I took out of my S10 a few day's after I got the Tacoma and put in the Tacoma best way was facing the seat.

 

Yeah, the only bad part about it is you cant show off the subs you spent your money on! Haha but it just adds to the stealth factor I guess, which is good. I'm saving a few pay checks worth of money so I can splurge all at once. Still haven't decided if I'm gonna try out a JL sub or not. I definitely think I want new amps though. My friend will give me a killer deal on his Audison LRx 5.1k which is another option I have vs buying two separate JL HD amps. So much to think about. I'm about to get my truck repainted and I also want to get the whole interior reupholstered to leather so I have some pretty big plans, just don't know what I want to put my money towards first.

 

JL's are amazing sub's just overpriced, but I don't mind it that much because in my experience they are that good.

 

Yeah my friend has a 13w7 and it's pretty amazing.

 

So I think I pretty much decided today that I'm gonna go with the all JL setup with the amps and then buy a 12W7. The box is gonna be just like how you mocked up but I think I'm going to fiberglass the upper part so that it slopes down and makes it look more cohesive with the whole car. Will cover in gray vinyl or something to match the inside. Now I just have to work and play the waiting game. Will keep this thread updated as I go along.

 

UPDATE:

So I got a killer deal on a 10W7 in a prowedge enclosure that I couldn't pass up from crutchfield.. And it just came in.



So I yanked out my two Hertz 10's put this sucker right in the middle and guess what.. perfect fit and I get my two back seats back, mission accomplished. Here's the room for the back seat passengers. I only took pics of one side because obviously the other side is the same.



Now ask me how it sounds..

 

Switched out the old scoshe and random home theater spare RCA's out with a new 4 channel and 2 channel Krystal Kable RCA's from knukonceptz. These things are EXTREMELY well made and I was very impressed with the quality. They are much thicker than your average RCA however.