Complete 2007 4.0 Limited Audio Overhaul

[Rocket61]

Recently completed an audio system swap on my 07 4.0 Limited!

1 x Pioneer AVIC-8100NEX double din
1 x Metra 40-UV43 antenna cable
1 x Scosche MDA-B antenna adapter
1 x Metra Axxess ASWC-1 steering wheel module
1 x Scosche TA2079B dash kit
1 x Sirius XM SXV300v1 radio kit

4 x Focal 165V30 component speakers
2 x Mosconi 200.2 amps
1 x JL Audio 1000/1 amp
1 x JL Audio12W7AE subwoofer
1 x JL Audio HO box

1 x Kinetik HC2000 battery, 1500 cranking amps
2 x JL Audio Battery Terminals
2 x power distribution blocks
3 runs of Stinger 6000 RCAs
2 runs (+&-) of 1/0 Stinger cable to the battery
Monster speaker cable all around

3 layers of sound deadening applied to all doors, hatch, and floor.
System tuned with a SMD DD-1

I don't think I can go back to listening to stock stereos ever again! Wow, what a difference.

I'm surprised how well the stock alternator is handling the current draw. I can crank it to about 28/40 volume without any dimming. Max undistorted volume is 38, at which point I do get minor dimming. I'm in the market for a high output alternator but haven't settled on one yet. Hoping to find a slightly used Mechman.

 

[ghostman7401]

I'm liking this. I have an 07' that I want to overhaul but not take up any new space.

 

[Rocket61]

I'm liking this. I have an 07' that I want to overhaul but not take up any new space.

I don't think you could get this much power in a tighter setup than this. The sub box and amps are below the top of the rear seats and there's plenty of room in the trunk for gear. Highly recommend the JL HO box. I've had it for a few years and it's the perfect fit. Also have space on each side of it between the box and wheel wells for jumper cables, ropes, etc.

If you're ok with sacrificing bass, you could go without the sub and box just mount the door speaker amps to the back of the rear seats

 

[m85476585]

Did you start with the JBL system? I'm thinking about upgrading, but I want to make sure it's enough of an improvement to be worth it. I know if I go all out like you did I can get great sound, but I'm not sure I want to spend that much.

Also, do the Focal 165V30 fit without any problems? I noticed on Crutchfield that some speakers won't fit the front door because the magnet is too big, but the information they have for these doesn't make sense.

 

[Rocket61]

Did you start with the JBL system? I'm thinking about upgrading, but I want to make sure it's enough of an improvement to be worth it. I know if I go all out like you did I can get great sound, but I'm not sure I want to spend that much.

Also, do the Focal 165V30 fit without any problems? I noticed on Crutchfield that some speakers won't fit the front door because the magnet is too big, but the information they have for these doesn't make sense.

I started with the JBL system. Going with a complete aftermarket setup like this made a hugeeee difference.

I gave up on crutchfield and their numbers. These speakers are very deep and fit just fine. Of course I made my own brackets, which were about 1/2" thick. The limiting factor is how much room you have between a moving speaker and the speaker grille on the door. The motorized glass windows weren't a problem either, since they don't really go behind the speaker on the 4Runner, so you would have glass hitting your magnet.

 

[riceandpho]

good job on the parts, have you thought about popping out the center speaker and hide the external antenna there? also did you do the big 3 upgrade? time for a mechman high output alternator and a extra battery in the future, i do use the 240a and dual battery in my setup.. do the mosconi amp fit under the front seat? also how well is the metra aswc? i had to scrap that and use idatalink maestro sw, it seems to be better, no more no response when i push some buttons.

 

[Rocket61]

good job on the parts, have you thought about popping out the center speaker and hide the external antenna there? also did you do the big 3 upgrade? time for a mechman high output alternator and a extra battery in the future, i do use the 240a and dual battery in my setup.. do the mosconi amp fit under the front seat? also how well is the metra aswc? i had to scrap that and use idatalink maestro sw, it seems to be better, no more no response when i push some buttons.

Yea the centre speaker has already been pulled out. I don't mind having the antennas there on top. They're magnet and stick to the metal speaker grille well.

Big 3 upgrade was done a long time ago. I don't think I'll need an extra battery. The numbers even at peak output are ok for the battery size that I have in there.

I imagine a Mosconi 200.2 would fit under the seat, they're compact amps. I didn't want to start introducing power dist blocks half way into my two 1/0 runs that are under the drivers side floor moulding. I prefer to have everything in one place for cleaner wiring.

The ASWC is hit and miss actually. You had better results with the idatalink? I thought that one was for vehicles with temp settings etc built into the stock radio.

 

[m85476585]

Do you know if there is a current equivalent of the Focal 165V30? It looks like they are discontinued. They are still available, but I don't know for how long, and I might not do any upgrades for a while.

How do you pick good speakers besides picking expensive ones and hoping they are good? I can't find any good info or trustworthy professional reviews, and a lot of the high end stuff has very few reviews because it's expensive. Cheaper speakers (in the ~$100 range) get great reviews, too, since they are still better than most stock systems. But if I'm going to spend a bunch on electronics, I would want to make sure I'm getting great speakers.

For example, in my last car, the only upgrade I did was put in a pair of Polk DB651 in the front doors, and turn the fade most of the way to the front. It was a huge improvement for less than $100. But the JBL system is almost as good as those, and they were definitely not perfect. There was some silibance in the highs, and some of the reviews mention that for the DB6501 too, despite great user reviews overall. I wouldn't want to spend thousands on sound deadening, amps, and a head unit just to end up with average speakers being the limiting factor, but I don't want to spend many hundreds of dollars on speakers if I don't need to since at some point there are diminishing returns as the price increases.

 

[riceandpho]

Yea the centre speaker has already been pulled out. I don't mind having the antennas there on top. They're magnet and stick to the metal speaker grille well.

Big 3 upgrade was done a long time ago. I don't think I'll need an extra battery. The numbers even at peak output are ok for the battery size that I have in there.

I imagine a Mosconi 200.2 would fit under the seat, they're compact amps. I didn't want to start introducing power dist blocks half way into my two 1/0 runs that are under the drivers side floor moulding. I prefer to have everything in one place for cleaner wiring.

The ASWC is hit and miss actually. You had better results with the idatalink? I thought that one was for vehicles with temp settings etc built into the stock radio.

having the antenna under the grill can really clean up the dash. i love using the dd1 to set my amps up, ever thought about going active and ditching the passive crossover? i thought about doing this, using my rf t600 for the mids and t400 for the tweeters. there is 2 different idatalink, the rr and sw. the rr is the better ones, but i see kenwood can use that, the sw is for the regular, if u can return the metra and get the meastro sw on ebay for 55 bucks.

 

[riceandpho]

Do you know if there is a current equivalent of the Focal 165V30? It looks like they are discontinued. They are still available, but I don't know for how long, and I might not do any upgrades for a while.

How do you pick good speakers besides picking expensive ones and hoping they are good? I can't find any good info or trustworthy professional reviews, and a lot of the high end stuff has very few reviews because it's expensive. Cheaper speakers (in the ~$100 range) get great reviews, too, since they are still better than most stock systems. But if I'm going to spend a bunch on electronics, I would want to make sure I'm getting great speakers.

For example, in my last car, the only upgrade I did was put in a pair of Polk DB651 in the front doors, and turn the fade most of the way to the front. It was a huge improvement for less than $100. But the JBL system is almost as good as those, and they were definitely not perfect. There was some silibance in the highs, and some of the reviews mention that for the DB6501 too, despite great user reviews overall. I wouldn't want to spend thousands on sound deadening, amps, and a head unit just to end up with average speakers being the limiting factor, but I don't want to spend many hundreds of dollars on speakers if I don't need to since at some point there are diminishing returns as the price increases.

if you can get some hertz hsk, they are some good speakers, of course speakers wont sound great until you have the right power for it.

 

[Rocket61]

having the antenna under the grill can really clean up the dash. i love using the dd1 to set my amps up, ever thought about going active and ditching the passive crossover? i thought about doing this, using my rf t600 for the mids and t400 for the tweeters. there is 2 different idatalink, the rr and sw. the rr is the better ones, but i see kenwood can use that, the sw is for the regular, if u can return the metra and get the meastro sw on ebay for 55 bucks.

Going from passive to active crossovers would mean a total system redesign and new amps. I'm past the point of running active lol the system sounds great. FLAC acoustic files sound amazing but I can also rattle my windshield wipers if I want, I'm happy. I'm running a pioneer, I'll check out the meastro, thanks man!

 

[Rocket61]

Do you know if there is a current equivalent of the Focal 165V30? It looks like they are discontinued. They are still available, but I don't know for how long, and I might not do any upgrades for a while.

How do you pick good speakers besides picking expensive ones and hoping they are good? I can't find any good info or trustworthy professional reviews, and a lot of the high end stuff has very few reviews because it's expensive. Cheaper speakers (in the ~$100 range) get great reviews, too, since they are still better than most stock systems. But if I'm going to spend a bunch on electronics, I would want to make sure I'm getting great speakers.

For example, in my last car, the only upgrade I did was put in a pair of Polk DB651 in the front doors, and turn the fade most of the way to the front. It was a huge improvement for less than $100. But the JBL system is almost as good as those, and they were definitely not perfect. There was some silibance in the highs, and some of the reviews mention that for the DB6501 too, despite great user reviews overall. I wouldn't want to spend thousands on sound deadening, amps, and a head unit just to end up with average speakers being the limiting factor, but I don't want to spend many hundreds of dollars on speakers if I don't need to since at some point there are diminishing returns as the price increases.

I think the current model would be the PS 165 but they're also showing as discontinued on Crutchfield. They have the same power rating as mine. I didn't have any trouble finding 2 new pairs of the 165V30's. They stock a ton of Focal stuff in Europe, it's a bit harder to find at home.

I didn't believe people when they said the right speakers are the ones you like until I experimented with a few different kinds. Now I agree with them haha I've heard everything from Focal Utopias to JL C2-650, to Hertz Mille, all the top end stuff. It legit comes down to which you prefer. Some have more bass, others have higher headroom, and then others have better mid-bass. Your ears will tell you more about them than any review out there.

Keep in mind that the quality of sound also depends a lot on what stereo you're using to play music and the amps you're using to power the speakers with. An example, I ran my 4 Focal's off of one Alpine PDX F6 for a week. 150w x 4 channel @ 1-4ohms. Plenty of power for a 100w 4 ohm speaker...they sounded horrible. That's a $700 amp with $800 worth of speakers and it sounded like shit. Then I hooked up a Mosconi and it sounded exactly like I wanted.

Hertz, Focal, Boston, etc are all good co's and make affordable speakers.

 

[m85476585]

Keep in mind that the quality of sound also depends a lot on what stereo you're using to play music and the amps you're using to power the speakers with. An example, I ran my 4 Focal's off of one Alpine PDX F6 for a week. 150w x 4 channel @ 1-4ohms. Plenty of power for a 100w 4 ohm speaker...they sounded horrible. That's a $700 amp with $800 worth of speakers and it sounded like shit. Then I hooked up a Mosconi and it sounded exactly like I wanted.

That must be frustrating. The Alpine looks like a good amp, and the only bad thing I can see in the specs is bandwidth is way too high, 5Hz-100kHz, but the Mosconi amp (AS200.2) has similarly stupidly wide bandwidth, 5 Hz-150 KHz. As an engineer I expect to be able to rely on the specs to pick a good amp, but it's disappointing to hear that approach might not work. In theory simple measurements should tell you all you need to know about an amp. Frequency response, THD, and noise (SNR), and maybe power are about all that matters.

The Focal 165V30 have good sensitivity, 92dB (per watt at 1KHz. Lower frequencies take more power), so they shouldn't take a lot of power to drive even if they are rated for 100W.

 

[riceandpho]

I think the current model would be the PS 165 but they're also showing as discontinued on Crutchfield. They have the same power rating as mine. I didn't have any trouble finding 2 new pairs of the 165V30's. They stock a ton of Focal stuff in Europe, it's a bit harder to find at home.

I didn't believe people when they said the right speakers are the ones you like until I experimented with a few different kinds. Now I agree with them haha I've heard everything from Focal Utopias to JL C2-650, to Hertz Mille, all the top end stuff. It legit comes down to which you prefer. Some have more bass, others have higher headroom, and then others have better mid-bass. Your ears will tell you more about them than any review out there.

Keep in mind that the quality of sound also depends a lot on what stereo you're using to play music and the amps you're using to power the speakers with. An example, I ran my 4 Focal's off of one Alpine PDX F6 for a week. 150w x 4 channel @ 1-4ohms. Plenty of power for a 100w 4 ohm speaker...they sounded horrible. That's a $700 amp with $800 worth of speakers and it sounded like shit. Then I hooked up a Mosconi and it sounded exactly like I wanted.

Hertz, Focal, Boston, etc are all good co's and make affordable speakers.

class d to class ab , no doubt you hear a difference in sound. i have never try class d amps on mids and highs, just sub only.

 

[m85476585]

class d to class ab , no doubt you hear a difference in sound. i have never try class d amps on mids and highs, just sub only.

That makes sense. I couldn't tell if the Mosconi was class D or not, but it looks like it's A or AB. That Alpine amp has good THD specs for class D (most are around 1%, which is high enough to be audible to me), so it's good to know that there's more to it than THD. I was considering the JL Audio HD900/5 which is another high quality class D amp, but maybe I'll look at class AB stuff some more.

 

[Rocket61]

That must be frustrating. The Alpine looks like a good amp, and the only bad thing I can see in the specs is bandwidth is way too high, 5Hz-100kHz, but the Mosconi amp (AS200.2) has similarly stupidly wide bandwidth, 5 Hz-150 KHz. As an engineer I expect to be able to rely on the specs to pick a good amp, but it's disappointing to hear that approach might not work. In theory simple measurements should tell you all you need to know about an amp. Frequency response, THD, and noise (SNR), and maybe power are about all that matters.

The Focal 165V30 have good sensitivity, 92dB (per watt at 1KHz. Lower frequencies take more power), so they shouldn't take a lot of power to drive even if they are rated for 100W.

The Mosconi's can put 200w to each channel, I don't have them working very hard.

I'm no engineer, hence all I really looked at were the impedance and watts lol. Again, so much of the system depends on your ears, where the speakers are placed, size of the cabin, etc. that it comes down to trial and error. You may hit it out of the park on the first go, or have to swap a few pieces to get it just right. Keep in mind that we don't know which environment these companies are testing the speakers in and each one is different. That Alpine PDX F6 amp that I didn't like had benched 181w per channel on its birth sheet despite being advertised as 150. I'm sure the other specs you mentioned are just as variable and unique to each piece.