Rate my radio system

I have a ‘21 Tacoma with the stock base head unit. I did not want to change the head unit because of all the crap it controls and displays. Rate what I have done and any suggestions welcome.

I used an LC7i converter to change the speaker wire to rca’s which feeds an Alpine X-A70f amp 4channel. The dash has a pair of Kicker 2 3/4 mids (Want to swap but cannot find right ones in this size) The front doors have a set of Hertz Mille pro 165.3 component with a 6.5 woofer/tweeter/crossover. Rear doors have Mille 165.3 pro coax.

It sounds great, I want to put in 1 10 or 12” woofer. *********.com sells a sealed enclosure that goes behind driver side rear seat. I was thinking Alpine a-s60m with Alpine sw10d2.

Ideas, comments? Thanks.

 

1 question, 1 suggestion.

Q - Why the Kicker 2.75”? Wouldn’t a matched tweeter, to both the crossover and mid, sound better? Or did you not use the crossover?

S - Just a note, if you go with the A-60 amp, get the D4 sub. That amp isn’t capable of 1ohm loads.

 

The kicker is a leftover from the original kicker speaker upgrade I did before I got serious. I am looking for a decent mid now, but hard to find in that size for the dash.


The front doors have a woofer and a tweeter. That is the Hertz Mille pro component set with the 6.5 woofer and tweeter that came with a crossover. I put the tweeter on the inside mirror cover.

I like the D4 and the 2, thanks for the heads up. I was going to run it at 2ohm. Is the amp enough power if I bridge the D4 to 2ohm or should I get bigger?

 

Understood. What about the Hertz Mille 70.3 mid? 1/4” shouldn’t be too much harder to fit, using the Metra dash adapters. Maybe a little trimming? Or have something 3D printed?

The A-60F is good for 600w @ 2ohm, so wired for 2ohm, should be a perfect match.

*edit*. Just had an idea. What about a www.cdtaudio.com wideband? That should fit almost like the Kicker.

 

Thanks, I pulled the trigger on the Apline woofer and tunes box, I think I am going with the alpine amp. I will check out the CDT. Not familiar with them. That kicker mid is definitely the weak link now.

 

Like what you got going on my guy. For what your running I would say one 12 on 500-800 watts would balance out nicely if you are into bass. I would stay away from the unmentionable website though. Lots of people have has shipping and customer service problems. But others say they have been ok just do your research.

 

Exactly what I was going to suggest

 

I have my box and woofer, waiting for my Alpine s-a60 to come Monday. Then all done, I hope.

I am now a believer in using the hush mat on the doors during install. I did both panels on each door as recommended. The Hertz Mille woofers hit hard, and the Tacoma is quieter than my ‘21 Lexus ES F. It is freaky, I don’t hear cars go by.

 

Put the box in, amp Monday then BOOM?

 

for as much as those boxes cost, you'd think they could include a trim piece for the top!

 

To be honest I thought the price was good for a custom box considering how much contour they have in the back. It’s quite heavy. I highly recommend it for anyone looking to put in a sub. AND it is on driver side so I had all the space on passenger side for the amps.

They could not do a trim piece or the seat would not close.

 

The amps are in, everything sounds great. The sub is sick. I am breaking in the sub at 50% and it is shaking the truck.

To sum it up..

6 Rolls of 12sq Ft mat sound insulation $200. All 4 doors, both panels on each door.
Alpine s-a60 mono block amp $238
Hertz Mille Pro 165.3 component (6.5 woofer/tweeter) $599.99
Hertz Mille Pro 165.3 coax $379.
LC7I line converter $199.
Sub box $183.
12” Alpine sw12D4 $139
Amp install kit $89.
16 gauge spool speaker wire $49.
Distribution block $20
Miscellaneous hardware $50

Around $2150 total. A lot more than I intended but totally worth it when you hear the bass 50 yards away at 50% gain and radio at 37 of the 60 max.

 

How are you tuning the amp? DD-1, multimeter, O-scope? Always curious how others do it.

 

Man I want a DD but for now by ear and then going to head over to local stereo shop to have them take a look. I don’t want to drop $200 right now on the DD and can’t find anyone with one.

 

I’m like you. I start with with a DMM, then tune by ear after.

 

One thing I will say, you got a lot o’ “psgetti” happening here.

 

It is not spaghetti, it is autistic genius!

I have actually been starting to thinking heavily about theft prevention now. I only drive 1-2 times a week (6400 miles in close to 2 years now) and only park for a short period of time, but the system can be stolen in no time at all. I am thinking of pulling the plastic bin and building some form of cabinet with metal cage to house everything. Just starting to get ideas. That is why I am leaving everything temp for now

Edit, I do reef tanks and we do controller boards, maybe adapt something like this with locks and computer fans for cooling

 

It's always interesting to see what others choose for their audio builds. I had a similar idea of keeping the factory head unit and not wanting to spend more than a grand. I was looking at that same sub box with a JL Audio 10W1v3-2 (10" 2ohm 75-300w), but went with the JL Stealthbox for a cleaner look. Plus, I don't have to find a place to store the plastic bin. 1 or 2 8" JL's in a ported box would have been choice, but oh well.

All said and done I was about $2k give or take, but I'm content with the end result for now except the lack of apple car play. Sound quality is phenomenal though.

Head unit is probably in the cards for the future, but I'm not ready to give up nav as my cell has terrible 5g coverage. Also, I like the factory appearance of the stock head unit for theft security.

I still need to clean up my wiring some, but it's 110 so it's going to wait till end of summer.

Isn't it amazing how fast this audio stuff adds up?

 

Dayum!! That’s some work for security. I have a 2-way alarm, and I don’t crank it until I’m some distance from home. You have more time and patience than I do for sure.

 

i'd go for the more simple security. a big box covering everything just means it's gotta be more worthwhile to steal. and at that point, they're already in the truck through a few different, likely violent, damaging ways, so damaging/smashing a big box isn't likely to be much of a deterrent.

i'd look into 'functionally disabling' the seat pull tab at the back. now that there's all that powered electric gear back there with semi-exposed metal connections, it's not like you're going to store your leaky water bottles, or coin collection back there anymore.

by functionaly disabling, i mean you-only will know the process/location, but it'd no longer be a convenient pull tab at the top of the seat. the oem tab opening, and the access to anything to release it at that spot should be removed/relocated/covered, so even a coathanger jabbing down the old access hole won't accidently grab the release and tilt the seatback forward. maybe you can relocate it to a dangly string out the bottom, or off the side, or consider stitching to part of the fabric of the seat itself so you only need to pinch and pull the fabric somewhere to release the seatback. it just shouldn't be immediately obvious to anyone else.

sure, they could cut through the seat, but without immediate access to prove there's something there, there's no guarantee that there's any reward back there for them to justify the effort. it'd be a higher chance they'll assume that it's one of those trucks with a fixed back rest.

when my car gear got stolen, they couldn't/didn't take my amp because of $6 worth of material. they found it under the passenger seat, as there were scratch marks on the top. but i put a piece of plexiglass under the vehicle carpet, and ran some 6-32 screws through the amp to some t-nuts on the other side of the plexiglass-- essentially sandwiching the amp to the carpet and plexiglass(it's really just there to hold the t-nuts upright, and proper spacing to align with the amp). it's not rigidly mounted, but for all intents, the cars carpet is enough to keep the amp in place. it also helped that only 2 of the 4 screws are accessible without removing the seat, which uses e-torx sockets to remove, though i imagine normal bolts holding the seat down would've been enough to prevent the effort as well.

sometimes security isn't about adding more things, but just making it difficult or unrewarding enough to justify the effort of violent equipment removal.