jared_IRL

First, the questions:

Stock headunit - 4 or 6 channels? If 4, then they must split the front between the door and dash, correct? Is this done via a passive eq, like component sets? Where is this located? Or, is it just split, with full range going to the dash and doors?

Has anyone amped these speakers? Did you cut the bass to the dash? How? How did that work for you?

If we're working with 6 channels, and you wanted to amp all speakers, did you LOC all of em? To retain control from the headunit? Or did you throw all that out the window?

Here's my plan, which is why i'm asking:

I have an eq with front, rear and sub inputs and outputs. I have two amps, one which will be bridged to the subs, and one which will be used for the front speakers. I am considering amping the rears too, but not worrying about em too much, as I intend to use them for fill.

The subs will be two 10's, with custom built 'under the seat' boxes. they will be stuffed to help with lack of cubic feet. How hard they hit is yet to be seen.

The amps and x-over will be housed in the rear deck where the spare and foam storage are currently housed. They will fit under the stock locking panels, and will be out of sight. I will be building a custom housing to allow everything to function like stock, and to make sure any weight I put back there doesn't crush the panels onto the amps.

Not having ever worked with this car before, nor having any experience using LOC's, any advice you can give me in regards to this would be fantastic!

thanks! And don't worry, after I get the wiring sorted out and start doing this, there will be tons of pics to follow!

onionescion

The answer to your question are it is a four channel system front 2 channels and rear two channels the dash speakers have caps on them and are working off of the front door speakers.
I just came up with a harness with loc for my 3.0 that uses my factory radio with all control functioning on the factory radio after install I have not made any of these for anyone else but will for the right price this harness will plug and play no cutting of any wires. right know im trying to figure out how many I would have to make to make it worth my wild the more people that want it the more ill want to make it for everyone.

jared_IRL

thanks! I was wondering how many views it would take before getting a reply!!

I actually did some research and found the answer to most of my questions anyway. Mostly looking for reviews now..

What I plan on doing is this:

seperate the harness at right after the radio. Run all of the wires straight to my LOC, which is a 4 channel - 2 front, 2 rear. Run the front converted RCA's to my EQ, then to the amp, then rin the speaker wires all the way back up the car, and connect them to the other side of the harness, which runs to the front speakers.

Do the same for the rear speakers, expect split the RCA's coming off of the rear channels of the LOC, and run one set to the 'rear' of the EQ, and one set to the 'low pass' going to the sub's.

I have one prototype sub box built. The outisde dimensions are 14x14x7.5, and it fits perfectly under the pax seat. This gives it a .54 cubes interior space, which is what most 10's look for. If I need too, I can always poly fill it.

To be honest, i'm not even sure if I want to amp the front speakers yet. I am considering just using the LOC to hook the subs up, and be done with it. Depends on how hard the subs hit, I suppose...

Although having the EQ controls would be nice...

We'll see how that goes..

Jhhnn

I'm in the process of gathering the parts for my own audio retro. Per the wiring diagrams, the front and door speakers are simply wired in parallel. I plan on using crossovers to put tweeters in the dash and 6.5" speakers in the doors, using the templates graciously provided by Tanakasan. That's 2 channels of a 5 channel amp, so I'll use 1 channel for a baby woofer under the seat, and 2 remaining channels for aftermarket 5.25" rear speakers... amp under the other seat... it's important that amps get enough air to breathe, otherwise they get roasted...

The stock HU has 4 channels. There are a variety of ways to do it- let the HU drive the rear speakers, use a LOC to split off as many channels as you want at the same time... bridge a 4 channel amp to get more power to the front speakers, have a separate amp for the subs- lots of choices. Youu can buy pre-configured LOC's from norcalscion.com, or use a pac oem-2 and the appropriate adapters, which I have on order from gadgetpro.com. I think the toyota adapters may need to be slightly modified to fit our scions, at least that's the info from norcalscion...

This method gives total flexibility within a 4 channel scenario...

This is the info I have for the pinouts and wire colors, which can change, particularly considering that what I have is for an 04-

Hold both connectors from the radio with the lock tabs up, facing you- the upper left is #1 on each, and they number horizontally across, like this-

1 2 - - 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10

and

1 - - 2

3 4 5 6

In the 10 pin plug-

1- front right +, light green
5- " " -, blue
2- " left +, pink
6- " " -, violet
7- ground, white/black
8- antenna amp, blue/red
3- accessory, grey
4- Battery +, blue/yellow
9 & 10 - ???

Six pin connector-

1 Right rear +, red?
3 " " -, white
2 Left rear +, black
6 Left rear -, yellow
4 & 5 - ???

While the colors change from year to year, the pinouts usually don't. I'll meter the whole thing before I turn on the power, however...

jared_IRL

thanks for that!!

So, now knowing that the front speakers are just in parallel, and there's no crossover going to the smaller speakers in the dash, I think I'll continue with my plan of amping them through the crossover, and use a the high pass feature on the crossover to limit the bass going to those. Then i'll leave the back un amped, and run the subwoofer off of the LOC coming from the rear speakers.

One last question. Can I just tap into the rear speakers for the LOC, and still use those speakers? Or does using the LOC involve cutting power to those speakers?

Jhhnn

I'd put the loc for the sub on the front channel, otherwise it'll fade with the rear channel... not what you want. You can set the output level for the sub channel on the amp to get the right balance with the front door speakers.

No, the loc won't divert enough power to the amp inputs to matter...

mfenske

First if you're LOCing the factory radio start with this-
http://mobile.jlaudio.com/products_c...hp?prod_id=369
That will take care of all the processing/DSP stuff that Scion used to make the factory audio sound decent. Plus, it's got an auxillary input and it will put out an adequate signal voltage for your amp(s). To answer your question about amping the factory speakers (fronts only, rears are unhooked via harness) I purchased a Metra forward and reverse harness so that I could plug in to the harnesses without ever having to splice in to the factory wiring. Mark

jared_IRL

Wow, that JL unit is awesome! I wish I would've seen that earlier...

I searched the forums, and ended up going with the Scosche unit (http://www.crutchfield.com/S-ETseljb...=721&I=142SLC4

We'll see how that goes... Do I really need to worry about all of the processing stuff the HU does? How should I expect it to impact my sound?

The Metra forward and reverse harness sound exactly like what i'm looking for... Have a link?

Thanks!

Oh, and your work looks great! I'm only in the 'prototype' stage, so my equipment isn't that great yet, but I'll be sure to post the pics once I get things going.

The box is complete, and was drying overnight, so those pics should be up today or tomorrow, depending on weather...

mfenske

Thanks for the compliments regarding my install. I should be posting some progress in the days/weeks to come. I had a water-related setback in the install so I am sorta re-vamping some of it. The wiring harnesses you're looking for are the Metra 70-1761 (plugs in to the factory harness) and the 71-1761(plugs in to Scion radio). These should set you back $15-20 each. In regards to the factory processing I'm a sound nerd so I would do all I can to eliminate it since it's designed for the factory speakers and would probably sound less than optimum with better drivers. Though, in Scion's defense, the factory speakers are better than many OEM speakers. If you have the means to get the Cleansweep do it, try eBay. Mark

EDIT- I'll look tomorrow morning but I might have the reverse harness which I would sell to you for like $7 shipped. MF

jared_IRL

Lemme know about the harness! If you have it, consider it sold!

NastysXB

ok heres my ? if i replace the front door speakers and put comp. in the doors will the dash speaker still work off my head unit? im goin to be using a amp for my comp set. so the top dash speakers will still be hooked to the headunit. ive gota aftermarket headunit if that makes any diff.

mfenske

Yup. They'll still work but if you're using aftermarket tweeters I might disconnect the factory ones or put the new ones in their place. Mark

mfenske

It appears that I only have half of the harness sitting here, which on closer inspection looks to be from a different make of car anyhow. I think I must have gotten rid of it already. Sorry. Mark.

jared_IRL

That's cool. Don't worry about it.

I got my stuff from crutchfield today, so i'll be completing the 'prototype' box tomorrow, and be starting the wiring this weekend.

I'll prolly have pics of at least the pax side box tomorrow.