I’ve been wanting to do my quarterly update a bit earlier than usual–apparently there is quite a bit on my mind. I may or may not spread this out into multiple posts, which is something I have not done in a while. We’ll see. First things first…
So I finished my goals for last winter, namely the car audio upgrade in Fate, the name of my 2024 GR Corolla. Out went the factory JBLs and in went my Focal 165AS3 kit. It was quite a journey. Let’s get into that.
I ordered parts from two vendors–Crutchfield (of course) and Amazon. In my opinion, you can’t really perform a car audio project without somehow including Crutchfield. Surprisingly, I used Amazon more than Crutchfield–they had both better pricing and inventory, believe it or not. Amazon of course is a storefront, so I did indeed use lesser known vendors–I just purchased through Amazon.
I knew I had my long vacation lined up so I ended up ordering some stuff simply to receive it faster, which affected my bottom line. I could have gotten my Focal 165AS3 internationally, but then I would have missed my window. As a result, I ordered stateside for more money, but got the item faster.
Once I received all my parts I got to work. I used a service manual I acquired online as well as Youtube videos to begin disassembling the car. During install, I discovered I ordered the wrong harness for my Rockford Fosgate DSR1 to integrate with my factory JBL system in the Toyota. As a result, I had to fast track a refund and replacement, which I was able to do. I continued by establishing a design and beginning to run speaker wiring to my factory speaker locations. My intent was to maintain the factory speaker locations and replace with the higher quality Focal speakers.
I forgot to mention–the Rockford Fosgate DSR1 requires a flash/firmware update to function with Toyota head unit and ECU signalling. I don’t own a personal laptop, so I had to do that on my desktop. I found that the USB on my desktop was not playing nice with the DSR1. I was worried that I purchased all this hardware and designed this solution to hit a roadblock before I even started. The dread I felt was pretty intense. Fortunately, with Copilot’s help, I discovered it was a driver conflict–I just had to close a bunch of agents (background processes) on the desktop for it to see the device via USB, at which point I was able to successfully flash. Onward I go! Note–this design had a couple of spots I would refer to as “big bang” spots. I probably explained this concept in the past, but “big bang” refers to when you perform significant research/design and implementation of a solution without the ability to test until the very end–you invest all this time and energy and there is potential that it simply doesn’t work, or even never could work. Obviously, with any project, there is potential for complication. That’s part of the charm of projects like these–the ability to navigate these roadblocks and continue forward.
So back to running speaker wire in the car. Everything is relatively easy with the tweeters and dash midrange because they run up the side of the car behind the dash to the windshield. I’m able to navigate that relatively easily. The problem came to the door speakers, where I planned to put my midbass. Initially I planned on running new 16 awg wire from the amp to these speakers, however, I realized that car manufacturers no longer run wires directly from the cabin to the door–they instead use these connector blocks that reach from near the footwell to into the door. In other words, it’s pretty much impossible to run your own cable to the door speaker–you would have to use these blocks to keep everything sorted. This also means that unfortunately that wiring between those connector blocks would be a potential/probable bottleneck.
This brought my next complication I had to work through–these junction blocks included many wires of varying colors, and the colors were not consistent on both sides of the block. This forced me to review service manuals to see what wires went where. My background in computer engineering helped immensely with this effort. After some research, I was able to map the proper wires for the door leads and reroute them to my amp.
I also found out that the ring terminals I ordered for power to my equipment was the wrong size–too small. This lead me to Autozone to see about getting the proper size to finish the project. I got everything set up and tested the speakers to success. I mounted the amp using an old wooden cutting board that I had left over as a backing plate and used some reasonably strong velcro for the sub (as it was set up previously). I got everything buttoned back up and then attempted to tune by ear, but it just was not working out for me.
The tuning process was just about as involved as the process to do the physical install–it took maybe a month to work out and involved purchasing some apps and hardware–a usb-c microphone for my iPad. When attempting to tune by ear, I kept finding that the sound was too bassy and that the tweeters were too sharp. By ear, I kept setting the tweeters too low and the midbass too high. Every song I listened too was abnormally bassy, which is saying something since I normally like bass. Ironically, what I’m used to, is treble for the vocals and rhythm, and then setting sub bass frequencies high, usually crossing over at 80 or 120 hz. Long story short, I had to tune using pink noise and an RTA (real time analyzer) app on my iPad, which did work out. I also had to set gain using a multimeter. Copilot helped with all of these tasks and I was actually enjoying the sound again.
Now that I’m essentially done, I love the sound from the DSP, amp, and 3 stage kit, even if I did lose rear speakers in the process. I do not even miss them. Now my next goal is to get a system this good in the house! I’m looking at either setting up a listening station with some hi-fi headphones and a headphone amp or setting up multistage audio in my office. Before I do either of these things, I need to create some room by cleaning out some old unused items. This lead me to learn how to use eBay. So far I have sold around 4 items on eBay with Copilot’s help. I may also have to use OfferUp, Craigslist, or Facebook Marketplace as well. At the age of 42, I’ve been around long enough to accumulate what I would refer to as “stuff,” much of which I have no intent to use. If I can clear space out, I can look into setting up my listening situation. Currently leaning towards finding multi stage speakers for in the house.