Head unit upgrade

WOO hot dog that looks good! Glad to see the amp fit on their nicely. If/when you start looking at speakers, I was on another thread and learned something new about how the wiring runs in a non-JBL thanks to @1lowlife posting the actual wiring diagrams. I revised a diagram I'd posted over there that simplifies the overall picture:



Like I've mentioned before, replacing the stock speakers with co-axials would be the easiest, however doing component speakers is not terribly more difficult, but it presents a couple things to consider.

1) Where to mount crossovers. If you're doing components, they'll likely have passive crossovers. If you use the factory wiring, your crossovers would need to go between the "factory", in your case aftermarket now, amp on the diagram above. You'd then need to run new speaker wire from the crossover to the new tweeters, which leads me to my next things to consider.

2) The rear doors have tweeter mounts built in and they'll accommodate an average size tweeter. The front doors do not. For the front tweeters, you have three options. 1) Cut holes in your existing sail panels to mount tweeters. 2) Buy the JBL equipped truck sail panels that have tweeter mounts/grilles (~$20 per side, ~$40 total). 3) Buy brackets to mount the new tweeters in the factory dash corner locations after removing the factory dash corner speakers. In any of these three options, again, you have to run new speaker wire to the new tweeter location.

Some people recommend/avoid mounting crossovers in doors. I personally don't like to do it, but I've done it before without any problems. If you mount the crossovers in the doors, you have the easiest option for running wire to the tweeters, as it's easy to run a 2 foot section of speaker wire in the door from your crossover up to the sail panel area. If you mount the crossovers on your amp rack, that would make it the easiest to run speaker wire to the dash corners in front, but a PITA to to the rear doors as you'd have to run new wire through the door grommets. Same thing would go for if you mounted the all the crossovers on you ramp rack, but wanted to do new tweeters in the sail panels.

Considering these things, unless you want to run new wire (not terribly difficult, just time consuming), the easiest routes to go are either coaxial speakers in both doors, or component speakers with crossovers mounted in the doors. That one website that everyone hates is the only place I've seen that makes crossover mounts for in the doors, and they're $20 a pair for front and rear. Sounds Good Stereo could probably make you them if you contacted them too.

As for speakers, my previous recs all still stand. If you went component, some speakers will utilize smaller in-line crossovers rather than a crossover box, negating the need for a crossover mount etc. The JL Audio C1's are an example of this kind of design and would make a great set of speakers, both front and rear.

 

i ordered a set of kenwood components today from crutchfield. what will the tweeter wire tie into? the door speaker? https://www.crutchfield.com/p_113XP184C/Kenwood-Excelon-KFC-XP184C.html

the door speaker has an integrated crossover. i’m really looking forward to an improved sound now that my amp is installed…

 

That's good timing on this post. I'm actually on CF now looking at speakers since mine have developed a static. Unfortunately I cannot answer your question. I actually have same question, how does the new rear door Tweeter connect. I may just get
Coaxial and call it a day. Not looking to spend much, I'm cheap like that.

 

i read online you don’t really need to connect tweeters to power so, i’ll run with it and see. i would like to know how to get power to them if i need to though just to have in my back pocket.

 

Well, after further review, looks like when I had my amp and LOC out checking the connections, I inadvertently turned up channels 1 and 2 a little to much.

 

Some component speakers will have a little box that’s the crossover. The crossover will have physical components that filter frequencies etc. With passive crossovers like that, you can have one set of speaker wire going in, and then a set of speaker wire goes out to the woofer and tweeter individually. Some passive crossovers are also “bi-ampable”, which means they have a separate input for the woofer and tweeter, and an output for each.

Your Kenwood speakers will have two connection posts on the positive and negative of the woofer. Rather than having a crossover box, your factory door wire will attach to one is the positive/negative posts on the woofer, and then your tweeter will come pre-wired with an inline crossover, basically a capacitor that will block low frequencies so that the tweeter doesn’t get damaged or blow. In the non-jbl tundras, the front dash corner “tweeters” as well as the rear door tweeters are powered/wired straight to the head unit. For your front doors, you have three options. You can either cut holes in your sail panels and mount the tweeters there and run wire from your woofer to your tweeter (easy) buy JBL equipped Tundra sail panels and do the same (easy) or you can add enough wire length to route from the door woofer, through the door grommet, up to the dash corner location and buy brackets that will fit your new tweeters (medium-hard).
For the back doors you’ll mount the tweeters in the factory locations in the door panels and wire like the JBL options above.

In both cases, your factory wiring at your door woofer location will connect to your new speakers, and then the prewired tweeter will also connect to the woofer to carry the signal onto the tweeters.

 

This is what it looks like:


As far as powering goes, component speaker sets with a woofer and a tweeter typically have one input and two outputs, unless they have biampabale crossovers like i mentioned above in which case they have 2 inputs and 2 outputs. In your case the woofer and tweeter will share the power coming from your amp as they’re designed to.