My Stereo Upgrade Plan: Look Okay?

Get yourself a new HU on top of all that. I put amped speaks and a powered sub via a audiocontrol LOC on my stock unit and never got the desired effect I wanted. Played around with tuning the shit out of that setup. After putting in a budget Sony double din the sound is leagues better, especially the sub, everything else left the same. The sub actually started to get on my nerves so much so I was thinking about selling it buy putting in an aftermarket HU the sub sounds WAYYY better, no longer a muddy sounding piece of shit.

 

Not gonna happen.

 

If you ditch the signal processor and do what I recommended you'll have money leftover.

Buy this single-din Pioneer and you'll thank me later lol

 

You say that but then 3 yrs later you’ll become me

Idk if I had optimized my speaker selection from the get go for a stock HU and then thought about putting in a DSP. And not an LC6,7,etc but something like the JBL/JL/etc DSPs. Even with me using an LC2i I had a hard time being satisfied with my audio and I’m no audiophile.

 

I won't use a single din. Too 1992. Thanks anyways.

 

@Mr Marv Marv doesn't have a website but if you google him you should see plenty including his photobucket page. The best way to get in touch with him is to just do the old fashioned thing and give him a call, if he doesn't answer just leave him a message and he'll call you back. His number is 831-383-0308

 

This guy is an anomaly! He appears to be like the Wizard Of Oz.

 

You can get rocking HARD, with room to upgrade for $700, easy peezy! It’s so easy to get carried away with stereo stuff though.

I’ll make a few suggestions here to frame your decision making:
1. Your system will only be as good as the weakest component.
2. The head unit will be what you interact with and makes everything else fall into place when designing a system, so pick out one you will be happy with. Some things to consider are; do you want Bluetooth?, if you are amping get one with pre-outs preferably high voltage (3-5v), if you don’t need touchscreen and all that it’s cheaper but double din size makes for an easier install with the kit, if you want to have a subwoofer you will want dedicated subwoofer preout as it gives control and flexibility as well. If you attend these items you will have that DSP like control at the deck! Pioneer has minor DSP control built in btw. For about $150 you can get all that with a kit and wiring harness adapter from crutchfield.
3. Polk Audio and Infinity will give you access to sound good enough you could delay the subwoofer, @75 Watts/channel amped you will be nothing short of impressed. Infinity are made 2 ohm which will coax the most from your amp. $250 ish front and rear
4. Get a high quality amplifier also, it’s better to get your system in chunks or be more modest with better equipment. There’s a lot of good stuff out there but I like Rockford Fosgate personally, also a 75x4 will put out twice that in 2 ohm! About $200
5. Dampening the doors (at a minimum) with dynamat or the like will make a huge difference, it appears louder and cleaner with out the rattles and buzzing not to mention less road noise. Noico brand at 80 mil is reasonably priced for a great product! $50

Amp kit $50
Total $700 estimate
Shop around a bit, but crutchfield can be competitive for price just watch for sales, promotions, open box items etc.

DSP is for adjusting the time envelope when breaking down speakers into components because they tend to have phase issues particularly when going three way components, eg the door speaker as separate woofer, midrange, and tweeter. Most you will likely do is component mid/woofer and tweet which is two way and not generally an issue. Also this configuration can be balanced and tuned by phase if you know what you’re doing although it’s not likely you would even need that in my experience, not with this type of system anyway.

Personally I deleted the center console storage and put a kicker cube for a sub. Like a glove!

 

I'm curious as to why you are dead set on keeping the factory head unit. The system is only going to sound as good as the source...

 

The single DIN's look like shit, the DDIN's catch glare big time, I don't want all the extra wiring/connectors, I don't want to spend the $450+ on the DDIN I like, I don't want another attractant to thieves, and I'm sure I could come up with some more reasons as to not get one compared to the one reason of getting one. The single 'pro' doesn't outway the many 'cons'.

 

And the ********* mid grade set up that uses stock head unit isn’t ok? It’s pretty clean with a simple install right about $700 all in.

I feel you on many of those points!

I will say this, for the glare that is picked up on the double din it can be mitigated if the deck has color change of display, or an anti glare screen cover is applied. I see mine fine 99.99% of the time. And it’s not fancy looking enough to want to steal.

That being said good luck with it all, your the one who has to live with it so to should be satisfying to you! No matter what that looks like to any one else!!

Namaste esse!

 

From the reading I've done, single DIN units have better audio specs than double din units generally speaking. Instead of all the bells and whistles of a double DIN unit, they put it into the audio processing. And other features of course this Kenwood has Bluetooth, my phone is connected to it, It has two USBs and an auxiliary input. And it's HD radio. It has given some life to these crappy speakers.
Extra wiring for a head unit..? That makes no sense as you're doing extra wiring for the line converter. Whereas butt splices to a mating factory harness connector and the head units connector. The only extra wiring, and i won't even call or that because they are needed with the line converter, is rca cables and a remote turn on wire.

As for the thief attractant factor, I can't disagree. That's the only con i see.

To each their own... Good luck

 

I am always amazed at how touchy bluetooth audio can be when it comes to interfacing with smartphones. I have a SONY XPERIA and it worked well, and now it doesn’t. Prolly an Android update messed things up?

 

Lol, function > form.

You're gonna spend $799 on audio upgrade, but not $79 on arguably the most important piece of the system??

 

Yeah I mean, a DDIN style radio is factory in the majority of the Tacos. SHit, my base 2013 had the touchscreen. Worrying about theft of a radio nowadays when everything is touchscreen is stupid.
But to each his own. I'm done with this thread.

If OP wants to have a half-assed system that's cobbled together, then so be it.

 

Bye.

 

Single din is 80s... Had an Alpine single din in an 86 escort feeding Nakamichi and A/D/S amps driving A/D/S 300Cs and a10" sub in an enclosure i built into a new rear deck.
The good old days.. when most manufacturers used their own proprietary connectors for the amps. Lol

 

i like my single din. simple, clean and easy to use. if navigation is needed, teh phone seems to work pretty well..tho it does get a bit warm.

 

Sub a dub dubbed

Upgrading my truck with entune and nav in the future and keeping the facotry stereo is a must for me. Plus, it keeps the overall OEM look which is clean. I've done multiple headunit swaps in older vehicles, and even as much as I despise the OEM nav unit, I paid for it and will stick with it.

The audio thread on here is full of 3rd gen guys and it's hard to get a good list of mid level speakers and components (tweeters being one).

 

Ayup. Same here.