synical33

Hell fellow 4Runner afisionados, this is my first attempt at doing something with my truck and man do I have plans for this baby. I have had it for 3 some odd years and I finally decide to do something with it.
Well I have been researching (tons of googling) on this truck and the speakers that are stock. Now my question is what are the exact sizes for my truck (99 Limited Edition). This is what i have so far:

Front: 6 1/2" (6 3/4" somewhere else??)
Back: 4" (5" somewhere else??)
Tweeters: im not quite sure on this any feedback would help

Note: I also need to know what the Depth would be in order for me to pick the right speakers.

Ok thats what I found so far. Now I am having trouble as to what to purchase for my baby. I was looking at this setup from RockFord Fosgate but I just got word from a friend that RF does not do well on the Mids and what not (im sorry im such a newbie to this stuff). But he mentioned I should go with either Alpine or Infinity for my Mids. Im thinking Mids woul dbe my speakers and what not correct? But yeah this is my current thoughts. Im just upgrading speakers right now so that would mean that im using my stock head unit. That brings me to my final question, will the head unit be enough to support the speakers I will install?

Im glad I ran into this forum recently and I would greatly appreciate any help I can get seeing to it that everyone is helping everyone else out in these forums. Thanx lots. peaZe

green91runner

im not a huge audiophile... but i do know that the headunit is the single most important piece in any setup, could have the best amps and speakers in the world but if the source is crap.. your only going to get amplified crap. so invest in a great head unit that has all the features you want (at least with a built in cross-over, separate sub controls and high & low pass filters)

infinity makes deadly tweeters (highs), as for mid's id probably go with infinity again, their high end has unbelievable clarity.

im sure someone that has alot more first hand knowledge will chime in soon though.

synical33

thanx for the information green91runner I will take that into consideration but that now makes another question surface, how hard is it to install a head unit on my own? Should I have someone else install it for me? I dont think I want to do that I mean it all seems simple from the experiences from others and I am a quick learner. I dont see why I shouldnt do it myself. Well I will now go with Infinity speakers becuse that is what my friend also mentioned I should use. Thanks for the information. Any other information will be greatly appreciated.

paranoidandroid

look below, sorry!

nieuwendyk-25

Hey you are in luck on the speakers! I just recently went through what you are going through and I have some answers, some pictures and can help with most of your speaker install questions. To start off your vehicle has the following:

Front: 7" You will need to make or buy and adapter to install 5.25 or 6.5"

Rear: 4" I would suggest an upgrade here. Again an adapter will be needed.

Tweeters: Depending on what you buy they may or may not fit and some customization may be required.

What you install will of course depend on your budget and how much customization you can and are willing to do. I will tell you about my recent installation. You will find people of all levels on this forum. Some will buy $3000 amps and others will buy their stuff at Wal-mart. You will find people who will bad mouth every brand mentioned and say theirs is the best....it all depends on your budget and taste. Once you have had a your car broken into you will want hidden stuff that does not cost an arm and a leg. Save your $3000 for a bigscreen TV! My advice is stay away from Walmart, find a couple of things you like and look for a good price. Be careful who you buy from online!

I decided to go with higher end stuff, but not the top of the line. A lot will depend on what you like. I have M&K in my home theatre so I know a little about high quality speakers. I wanted to add more bass (not exaggerated bass), crisp highs, clean power, and keep it all hidden so it looked stock. I kept the stock headunit (it is adequate), bought a mid level amp on sale, and put my money into the speakers. Any thing will sound better than stock, but I definitely suggest component speakers. I listened to alot of brands and decided on Focal. They make some real high end stuff and some higher them most stuff. The best thimg was they sound great and fit my space. I have used Alpine, Polk Audio, Boston Acoustics, and Focal. They all have their good points, and there are more pricy brands...but I have had good luck with these. (Alpine has very large crossovers)

My wife bought me a set of 6.5" Focal Access speakers for Christmas (per my list) and paid way too much at Car Toys because they took advantage of her and did not give her the sale price (which was not great either). I installed them in the front. Removed the old speaker, cut an adapter out of MDF and installed the woofer. The tweeter installed just like the stock one with a screw in the back. Throw the stock ones as far as you can and RUN! After my install I had great bass response but wanted to add something to boost the rear. I bought a set of Focal 5.25" coaxes and installed them. They made my front speakers sound terrible. I removed them, sold them on E-bay for a profit and bought a set just like my front ones from Woofersetc.com for half the price my wife paid. I had planned on adding a Subwoofer (which I have laying in my garage) but after installing these I do not need it.

The 5.25" were fairly easy to install (see message I am forwarding you). The 6.5" takes a little more fitting, a little more cutting, and a lot of patience. It can be done and is wall worth it if you want to save your cargo space. I made custom brackets as seen in the pictures and carefully fitted them...the tolerance is little, but they are clear on all sides and the window goes all the way down. I cut a hole for the tweeter and installed it in my choice of location. I also put dynmat in the rear doors..I will eventually do it in the front, but I ran out.

As I stated on my forward on how to install these...I am a dentist so I have no problem cutting holes and shaping things to fit like I want them to. You may not want to go to this trouble, may not have the tools, or may just be smart enough to let someone else do it.

Anyway I have lots of pictures of all of my installs, so just let me know if you need more info. Have fun with it! and

I am sending you a private message I had sent to another who inquired about this install.

David

paranoidandroid

look below. sorry@!

green91runner

i had no clue what i was doing either, but its not that hard.. either find a quick guide to taking your dash apart, OR just start pulling out screws, working your way to the center, the dash is a huge pain...have to pull out the side under the gauges and the glove box, then the center part.. then the stereo is located in a lil 'cage' (least on 2nd gens)

you will only need to purchase one thing, a wiring harness.. any auto store should have them for $5.. plug it into your old plugs (trucks wiring), and then you get a 'harness' with your new unit, you just basically match up the colours, strip, twist, soldier and tape. the new manual tells you what each wire is for. as for attaching your new unit into your 4runner, i would just screw it into the 'cage' you could go buy a universal DIN kit, but they just make your stereo easier to steal, and if your not going to be changing head units every month, then dont bother. im sure there are alot of instructions for this on yt. its really easy, just takes a bit of time. (do all your soldering between the 2 harnesses in the house, away from your new head unit, as to not drop any metal particles or solder into the unit.

but, if you decide to get it 'professionally' installed, it only costs about $35 in most places and then if anything goes wrong they will usually replace it on the spot, vs having to deal with manufacturer for warranty. your call, personally i felt like keeping the $35..

paranoidandroid

ok, since you are a newbie to the audiophile world, lemme help you out. btw, speaker and woofer are used interchangeably in this post. for your understanding, they are the same. Now, lets start:

average humans can hear sound in the frequency range 30Hz to 15KHz (this is a rough estimate. some people hear less, some people can hear a greater range. I hear less now b/c of college and wearing loud headphones for the past 6 years)

For speakers, the ranges are broken up into 3 bands: LOW, MID, and HIGH (sometimes people say low-mid, mid-high, etc)

LOW- roughly 30-150Hz. this audio range is best reproduced by a large speaker, at least 8" in diameter. When audiophiles say they have 2 10's or 2 12's, they are referring to the number of woofers and their diameter. Now, 2 10" woofers may or may not reproduce better quality sound than 1 10" or even 1 12" woofer. It depends on the mechanical and electrical attributes of the speaker.

MID- reproduces sound in the freq band of roughly 100Hz-1Khz. This is the range where most sound is reproduced. not alot of bass, not alot of treble. speaker size is usally 4" -6" give or take a little.

HIGH - freq band is 1kHz- 15Khz. Tweeters make this sound. because the sound is reproduced at such a high frequency, it makes a tweet. Interesting fact. Did u know your teapot is a speaker? that little hole makes a tweet when air (or steam) passes through it. speaker size is, well really small. between 1-2 inches.

I wont tell you how speakers exactly work, but think about the teapot example again. If you vary the amount (mass) of air going through the hole or the speed of the air, wouldnt you get a different sound?


First off, most audiophiles tell you to get a head unit first, then build your sound system around your head unit. This is true. Why? Because the head unit is the most expensive piece of your sound system. It's the 'head' - it tells your speakers what to do. If you get a great head unit, (im partial to alpine, but kenwood is great too. BOSE car audio SUCKS!) but keep your speakers stock, it'll sound better, but still like crap. conversely, if you get great speakers, but a stock head unit, same result - CRAP.

Head units have usually have 3 parts to it: source, filters, and amplifier. The source is the cd player, or radio receiver, MiniDisc, whatever media you obtain the 'source' of the sound you want to reproduce. The head unit will convert the media into an audio signal, which then goes through filters to filter out bad noise from scratches on cd's, distortion, etc. Then, the audio signal is amplified and sent out to your speaker, which produces the sound you can hear.

Anyway, most head units have built in amplifiers, or amps. this is to provide power to your speakers, similar to how a home theater receiver works. they provide power in channels (ie. 40Watts X 4 channels or whatever u get) Any car audiophile purist will never get a head unit with a built-in amp. They always get a separate amp. This is because they can get a better external amp to power the speakers and not distort the audio signal. Head units that have no built in amp usually cost more (weird huh?) but this is because they have less distortion, made of better parts, etc. Also, audiophiles will get separate amps for the different speakers. Some will get 1 amp to power all the speakers. Some might get 1 amp to power the subs, then another to power everything else. Keep in mind, this will have a significant drain on your battery. If you've ever seen cars driving around at night with the lights flickering, that is when the speakers (usually subwoofers) are 'kicking' and requiring more juice. To solve this problem, you get a capacitor (usually around 1Farad, and it looks like a large cylinder) to create a buffer and provide constant juice to the subs so your lights wont flicker.

My recommendations:

Set a budget. Audio products cost alot. do not spend $$$$ and get everything top of the line, because new products come out all the time and then your stuff isnt top of the line anymore.

also, having the best head unit and best speakers doesnt mean they will match up well. Once, I had a awesome Kenwood head unit and the best Rockford Fosgate (FanaticQ's) money could buy. And it sounded like trash. (RF is a good brand, but in my opinion they focus on making sound really loud, and not on sound quality). The companies usually dont do its research to see if their products work well with their competitors'.

Ask yourself what type of music you listen to? Rap? Metal? Country? Classical? Only Bob Dylan? Then pick your components. however, this might be too much work to research what type of music sounds great on which components, so to give you a general idea on which brands give you pretty decent quality:

Head units - Alpine, Kenwood, Blaupunkt. Good stuff. They have all different head units in all different price ranges which usually sound great.

Speakers (Mids and Highs)- Infinity. I wont recommend anything else. I also do not recommend getting tweeters either. Listening to low and mid range sound will not harm your hearing as much as listening to high frequency sound. My hearing has been harmed significantly by tweeters (reduced by 25%) and there is a noticable difference between my left and right ears.

Subwoofers: JL audio is great. Sounds great. RF. LOUD AS HELL! but still decent at a cheap price.

Also, I recommend going online to ebay or to car audio stores to find what you want. they have demos there (of course, it sounds different in your car than in the store because your car has a smaller area for sound to move around in) DO NOT go to CRUTCHFIELD unless you are only doing research. Lookup reviews and whatnot, just dont buy. They are overpriced.

Finally, welcome to the wonderful world of car audio. It's a dangerous place for your wallet AND your ears. Look at nieuwendyk-25's post for stuff specifically on the 4runner install. Good luck and ENJOY!

green91runner

I believe the common estimate is 20hz to 20,000hz... we did a test in highschool physics, and personally i can hear 14hz to 24,000hz (for comparison, dog whistles kick in around 22,000-24,000hz)

paranoidandroid

yes! you are right. I left out a K. and I meant to say 15KHz. also, a really healthy person can hear from 20Hz to 20KHz. Average person hears even less, and it actually hurts them to hear sound thats too high a freqency. I'm guessing (and jealous!) you can hear such a wide range!

green91runner

yea, higher pitched sounds sound louder at lower levels... if you feel pain in your ears, turn it down. actually, the most damaging frequencies would be 2000-4000hz (some say up to 6000hz) because our ears are 'tuned' to that frequency, making them sound about 10db louder then they actually are. the reason for this is... because thats the frequencies a baby cries at. maternal instincts at their finest.

although, if the lows are strong enough (120db+, lol), they can be just as damaging, if not more so.

synical33

It sounds like a better idea i believe. lol but I have been telling my good friend who is going to help me that we will install this Saturday. lol it would be funny if I tell him that it will happen until next week because that will be the 2nd time he's going to hear it. Until then I guess I will wait on more feedback to make my decision.

green91runner

hey, we all gotta start somewhere...

if you only have the coin for one major compnent, go with the head unit first.. it will drastically improve your current setup, specially with the filters, can take all the bass out of your little stock speakers, therefore allowing you to crank it up that much louder without them crapping out on you.

i don't know if your going to go all out and get high powered rears and subs or not? if you are, then would run the rca cables from the back of the deck at the same time (as many as you are sure your going to need) then just bundle them up in the glove box until your ready to run the power wire from the battery. saves you having to rip apart your dash again just to plug in a couple sets of rca cables.

if you do it this weekend, good luck.


**edit**
yes, mdf is a very dense particle board.. although there is another material out thats better, its actually paper glued together, much sturdier. can't remember the name or where to get it, hopefully someone else on here will have a clue as to what im talking about?

synical33

hmm aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgh lol im sorry had to vent some i get confused when i have to make decisions like these. Ok so this is my plan im going to buy the Head Unit ugh see im lost again Head Unit or speakers. The install for the speakers is far more easier but then I have the Head Unit. If i take the Head Unit route that would mean i have to buy a seperate adapter for the Head Unit to adapt my iPod. Like i said I might go with the speaker route. I dont know yet.

green91runner

up to you, but remember.. if the sound going to your newly acquired speakers isnt clean and is distorted it can actually damage them, causing them not to sound as good when you finally upgrade to the better head unit.

synical33

ok so now with that statement there im so going to wait now. its best i do so that way I get everything all at once and I wont harm anything. Well I guess its time to kill my ex-gf's phone then. heh heh looks like this all worked out for the better . No we will see what time holds for me and what is up. Thanks all keep the info coming i really appreciate all this.

Now I was thinking of going with an Alpine Head Unit is that good enough or should I invest a pretty penny on something else? Also I am now starting to sound like I want what you guys have but I am just setting up everything in my mind and trying to single out peoples experiences on things and trying to see what is best for me! Just to let you all know

paranoidandroid

Alpine's are generally pretty good. i think that is the weapon of choice for alot of people. you wont be disappointed. you should definitely get the head unit first and see how the stock speakers sound with that -then go with getting components afterwards. you do not want that old stock head unit to power anymore speakers at all. sell them on ebay or something, there should be plenty of people out there who might want them.

yes, i am a radiohead fan -but more recently, nothing but Bob Dylan. He's the man!

green91runner

yea, alpine's are good.. although when i bought, i steered away, just couldn't justify the extra $100 for the exact same features i got with my premier deck. personally, go for features/cost and the deck that you like the looks of...
don't let a brand name make the decision for you

synical33

ok kool this is all starting to come down to a decision for me. So far this is what im looking at:

Focal Speakers (Front & Rear)
Pioneer Head Unit (Maybe Alpine not quite sure on this yet)
Amp (not quite sure on this either still in the air)

So this is what im looking at right now price is sort of a factor but I can always splurge if I wanted to its just certain things holding me back. Thanks a lot guys I'll be waiting on more feedback.

green91runner

if you do go pioneer, make sure to pay the extra $20 for their premier line, usually gives an increase in preouts (2v to 4v), and gives you 2 year warranty instead 1.. definetly worth the extra cash. but yea, let your own likes be your deciding factor. and take your friend with you to look at the different features if you aren't 100% what your doing. keeps the salesguy from pushing overpriced garbage on you.