Trail Grid Pro - Plug and Play Bundles

Curious if anyone has taken this path and used the Trail Grid Pro Plug and Play Bundles. If so, any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

I'm currently running the Alpine ILX-F511 head unit and the rest of my stereo is the factory amplified JBL system. I did a little research and see that I could buy the individual components cheaper elsewhere, but I like the fact that the Trail Grid Pro systems are designed to be plug and play and include all of the additional items such as the speaker adapters and plugs. They also have great customer service. I've used them previously for a few items.

I'm really tempted to purchase the below Alpine 10 speaker plug and play bundle.
Alpine 10 Speaker Plug & Play Bundle | '14 - '21 Tundra – Trail Grid Pro

As well as the Kicker JBL Bypass Plug and Play 5 Channel amplifier kit.
Kicker JBL Bypass Plug & Play 5-Channel Amplifier Kit | '14 - '21 Tund – Trail Grid Pro

They also have an Alpine Bypass Plug and Play 5 Channel amplifier kit
Alpine JBL Bypass Plug & Play 5-Channel Amplifier Kit | '14 - '21 Tund – Trail Grid Pro

Any thoughts between the two amplifier options would also be welcomed. Just wondering if this would be a good upgrade where I'd be satisfied with the results at the end of the day or if I should be looking at other options. I know there are much better speaker/amplifier options out there, but if this would satisfy my needs I think the price point is decent and I'm not looking to have a full blown competition style stereo, just something that is much better than I have today. I would still be using the factory JBL sub for the time being, but would ultimately be replacing that down the road also, so hoping either amplifier above would still be sufficient at that time.

If I take this route I'll likely purchase it before the end of the month and will definitely share my impressions once everything has been installed for others.

 

Local Phoenix Mobile Electronics Installer James of "Hardwired Toys" is a great dude, very knowledgeable, does great work and is a member of the local Tundra community.


https://hardwiredtoys.com/
https://www.instagram.com/hardwiredtoys

602-684-5391

 

Not for speakers but in a similar vein, I went with the Sony XAV-9000ES bundle from Trail Grid Pro and it actually ended up being ~$165 cheaper than Crutchfield and came pre-wired, Maestro flashed etc. I would recommend Trail Grid Pro 7 days a week for customer support and supporting a small business. That said, looking at the breakdowns, here's what you're getting if you pieced them together yourself:

Alpine 10 Speaker System:
Alpine S2-S69C Next-Generation S-Series 6"x9" component speaker system at Crutchfield - $200 (includes pair of 6 x 9's for front doors and 3.5" midrange with integrated 3/4" tweeter that would go into front dash corners)
Alpine S2-S65C Next-Generation S-Series 6-1/2" component speaker system at Crutchfield - $150 (includes pair of 6.5's for rear doors and 1" tweeters for rear doors)
Alpine S-S10TW S-Series 1" silk dome tweeters at Crutchfield - $90 (extra pair of tweeters for sail panels)

That puts total cost at $440 and Crutchfield includes speaker wire adapters for free. If replacing your speakers, one important thing to note is that the stock JBL amp isn't super powerful. The way things are wired, especially with these Alpines since they have inline vs external passive crossovers, makes them a really nice choice. With an aftermarket amp, you'd want an amp channel for each door, as well as the dash corners, and then a subwoofer channel. Honestly since the 6x9 component set comes with 3.5" midranges with an integrated tweeter, I might forgo the extra set of tweeters as it might end up being high range overkill, in which case you'd only need a 5 channel aftermarket amp to power everything. You could also still get the extra tweeters and power them straight off your head unit. The only catch is that if you get an aftermarket 5 channel amp, you'd have to run a new length of wire from each dash corner to the door woofer if you went that route, not too difficult but a slight pain speaking from experience.

Kicker 5 Channel Amp setup:
Kicker 46CXA660.5T CX Series 5-channel car amplifier — 65 watts RMS x 4 at 4 ohms + 300 watts RMS x 1 at 2 ohms at Crutchfield- $404 on sale, plus wiring kit ~$50, plus factory integration harness from AutoHarnessHouse say another ~$50 for a grand total of ~$500.

Alpine 5 channel amp setup:
Alpine S2-A55V S-Series 5-channel car amplifier — 40 watts RMS x 4 at 4 ohms + 300 watts RMS x 1 at 2 ohms at Crutchfield - $400, plus wiring kit ~$50, plus factory integration harness from AutoHarnessHouse say another ~$50 for a grand total of ~$500.

I would say that if you're looking at doing one, i.e. amp or speakers, consider doing the other as well. If you're going to do one first due to cost, I'd do the speakers first. An aftermarket amp will likely be too powerful for the stock JBL speakers and risk blowing them, whereas the stock JBL amp might be too weak for aftermarket speakers, but you won't risk blowing anything. The Alpine 6x9 component set calls for 100w RMS @ 4 ohms. The 6.5" component set calls for 80w RMS at 4 ohms. Of those two 5 channel amps, the Kicker would be a better suited (which is odd since the Alpine are Type S speakers and the Alpine amp is their Type S too so you'd think the power matching would be better).

As for those deals, I personally would pass on the speaker deal as you can piece it together for cheaper and they're not really giving you anything extra. As far as the amps go, I see some value there in having everything pre-wired etc. and having everything be more or less plug and play. How much value is the million dollar question. All totaled they're charging a couple hundred dollars to do that work for you which could potentially be a great deal depending on your desire/experience with car audio. It's not rocket science by any means, but like they say time is money.

If you have a budget in mind, I'd be happy to give some other recommendations for amps/speaker combos as well as helping with the wiring/layout of things. In a JBL truck, it's kind of nice because everything is powered off the stock JBL amp.

 

Thanks for all the info! Quite a bit to digest.

My thought was to purchase both the Alpine 10 speaker bundle and the Kicker amp bundle together at the same time and do one install. I get they might be a bit overpriced on the speaker bundle, but agree with you that their customer support is top notch and I really like to support smaller companies whenever I can.

I would say that I'm pretty well versed with the install and do not have any hesitation to tackle something like this. Plug and Play always peaks my interest since I have to work in the driveway and it's still over 100 degrees outside. I planned to use the 4 channels on the doors and have the dash speakers run off the head unit. The 5th channel would go to the factory sub.

Would you say combining both of those bundles would give a pretty decent upgrade over the factory system for around $1,200? I think I came out to $1,220 with the discount code applied. Also, would the factory JBL sub be okay with the aftermarket amp? I imagine it cannot handle too much. I do plan to replace the sub/box a bit later as well. Like I said, just looking for a decent bump in sound quality w/o breaking the bank.

 

That combo would definitely be a solid upgrade over stock. One thing I didn't notice when I was originally looking, but just saw after watching the first couple minutes of their video is that they include their own heavy duty speaker rings. The ones Crutchfield would give for free are the cheapy Metra "hollow" ones, definitely something to consider. Buying those kind of CNC'd ABS speaker rings from door woofers from other places would add $100+ dollars to the cost having done that myself. That makes that package a lot more desirable as you're only paying ~$100 for them to put everything together. The other really nice thing about the Alpine sets is they have in line crossovers, makes the wiring/install a good bit easier.

Originally I saw more value in the amp setup since having the wire harnesses all setup to be plug and play is a huge benefit. After seeing they include the heavy duty speaker rings I'd say both kits are equally valuable. The Kicker amp does 150w @ 4 ohms. I'm not sure how much power the stock sub handles, but I'd guess it's not even that much. Keeping your gain and bass boost low on the sub channel until you replace the sub would be a good idea. When it's time to replace, you could get a shallow sub that handles 300w @ 2 ohms to fully take advantage of your amps power.

The only thing I noticed in their install that I would definitely recommend in addition is an amp rack. The cheapest one I've seen (and also a really really solid company, well revered in the car audio world) is from Sounds Good Stereo. Custom Made Amplifier Rack/Plate/Board Compatible with 2014-2019 Toyot – Sounds Good Stereo. Looks like Trail Grid Pro uses velcro to secure the amp. I'd spend the extra $60 to get an amp rack to bolt everything to.

 

Thanks again for all the detailed info. Very much appreciated. That’s a good call on the amp rack as I did watch the Trail Grid Pro install video and wasn’t to keen on using the heavy duty Velcro to secure the amplifier into place.

I think I’m definitely going to take this route and do the Alpine 10 speaker bundle along with the kicker amp bundle and also add the amp rack that you linked above.

I’ll be sure to take some pictures and update this thread with the install process and initial impressions for others.

 

Nice best of luck with the install! Other nice thing about going with Trail Grid Pro is their install videos are super detailed. If/when you decide to upgrade the sub you'll have plenty of options for a single shallow sub.

 

This was my recent experience as well, and the company was a pleasure to deal with. Before I ordered from Trail Grid, I called Crutchfield to compare, and piece together what I needed and the Crutchfield Rep on the phone was not nearly as knowledgeable as Trail Grid, so I went with them. Price aside.

Trail Grid also had a little adapter to put the Sony Microphone in the OEM location for a cleaner install for a few bucks, that nobody else had and I’ll happily pay a few bucks to the Team who spent so much time to do the install videos that let me do it myself instead of paying $500 in So-Cal to some installer. Support those who support us

Agreed. One of the major reasons I supported them, is their effort to enable folks like me to wire up the stereo. If I went to an installer in San Diego it would have added $500+ dollars.