Upgrade head unit and speakers or just the speakers?

My experience and opinion :
Was budget limited at the time, so:
I have ALL speakers replaced (JL audio) + Kenwood powered subwoofer under drivers seat. Head unit (same with yours) untouched.
Result are feels great for me, can recommend!

 

i went with alpine ilx-507. i wanted bluetooth connection instead of having to wire connect for every trip.

 

I did the tweeter upgrade and I'm very content with the sound system now.

 

What HU would you recommend for sound quality? Would like Bluetooth connectivity for iPhone CarPlay. thanks

 

Did the same last week. It’s better, but I think I’ll also do the the driver and passenger with plug and play DS18 replacements.

 

As far as head units go I would look at Pioneer and Kenwood or a really cool option
Trail Grid pro has some plug and play bundles from Sony and it even has plug and play for the factory mic . The other cool thing about the Sony is if you don’t want to do any amps the Sony units are high power ( and true high power) so in reality you could do a powered sub for some bump , by a set of the Kenwood separates that has all the hardware ready for the Tacoma ( 6x9 and tweeter/ mid for door and dash ) then add a set of rounds for the rear doors and your good to go
It should sound very nice and clean.

 

Thanks guys

 

I did this conversion from the 2.0 head unit to the 3.0 factory head unit with apple car play and andriod auto.

Check out this video on how to do it.

 

I plan in upgrading the factory jbl syste. In my 2023 when it gets here. I like the Kenwood Excelon line for headunits.
I also know Kenwood makes a 2 way component set for the front that's designed to be plug and play with the factory system jbl or otherwise.
For those who want to keep the factory head unit but worry about the sound quality output from it there are modules out there that you can get that take the factory head unit and take out all the pre sound processes in and let you run aftermarket amps clean.
Also when looking to run new.speakers off the factory head unit the speaker sensitivity rating can make a huge difference.
In my 2010 tacoma trd sport I ran a pioneer head unit with Polk front components.
Since it was an access cab the rear speakers were up in the headliner instead of the rear doors why toyota did that who knows.
I never hooked them back up and ran a kicker 8" self powered 150 watt sub under the driver search and it worked great.

Has anyone used focal, hertz or Kenwood speakers in a 3rd gen and if so what models and pros /cons?
Looking at since it's the full 4.door upgrading to a Kenwood head unit 2 or.3 way components in the front 2 way components in the rear doors and swapping out the oem sub with a better 8" and will run a 5 channel amp with dsp.
I'm really picky with my car audio.
Also definitely sound dealing the doors and fast rings on the speakers.

Also if you still like to use cds like I do there are a ton of aftermarket head units out there that still use them. Crutchfield.com helps dig through the weeds and help you find what you want in one also if you like to listen to FM radio they also show the dbf sensitivity for the different head units which can be a huge difference in fm quality and sensitivity.