Scold me...

[johnny4ever]

What I meant to say is if you spend 200 bucks for a head unit dont expect for it to perform any better than the OEM you have in the car. In fact it wont last but maybe 5 yrs tops until you need a new one thats all!

My .02
Kunal

I have to roll my eyes at that. I do agree that low end after market stereos are not known for longevity but I would say that even a $100.00 present day head unit will likely sound alot better than a 1997 OEM vintage. All this talk about high end speakers and superflous verbage about bright highs and glorious frill footed midrange juxtaposed against thunderous sperm killing low end is a little snooty. YES if you spend 2k and up you can indeed enjoy killer sounds in your vehicle. In the end though, you're asking for concert hall acoustics in a passenger cabin and that aint possible at any price. The best you can do at moderate price levels is closely match the head unit output capability with the speakers handling capacity. The closer the match the better the sound. Some will say you need this amp and this tweeter and this midrange located as near your scrotum as possible but I say ROCK what you have to the best of your ability.

J

 

[landtank]

I surfed EBay and bought Kenwwod excelon speakers and a head unit as cheap as I could find. I couldn't be happier listening to my compressed MP3 files with the constant drown and howl of my XTerrain 315s in the back ground.

Just keeping it real with what I have to work with.

 

[Sully]

Pigbuggy-
What happens now is that you need to get a wiring harness. Best Buy, Circuit City, most car audio stores, Crutchfield.com, even a some car parts places should have the vehicle appropriate one. DO NOT cut and solder, ask me how I know. Rather, get the harness and some butt connectors and link up the appropriate wires with ones coming from the stereo's plug (there should be a diagram with the harness). Then it's a simple matter of plug and play. There might be an issue with bypassing the factory amp, search for threads on this. I think there are two different adaptors available, maybe?
Good luck,
-Sully

 

[96landcruiser]

I have to roll my eyes at that. I do agree that low end after market stereos are not known for longevity but I would say that even a $100.00 present day head unit will likely sound alot better than a 1997 OEM vintage. All this talk about high end speakers and superflous verbage about bright highs and glorious frill footed midrange juxtaposed against thunderous sperm killing low end is a little snooty. YES if you spend 2k and up you can indeed enjoy killer sounds in your vehicle. In the end though, you're asking for concert hall acoustics in a passenger cabin and that aint possible at any price. The best you can do at moderate price levels is closely match the head unit output capability with the speakers handling capacity. The closer the match the better the sound. Some will say you need this amp and this tweeter and this midrange located as near your scrotum as possible but I say ROCK what you have to the best of your ability.

J

Agree but by the time you end spending 400 to 600 bucks on the head unit, mind you that does not include speakers. You will have to spend in the neighbourhood of 1k to 1500 including all materials to surpass OEM. I maybe wrong not a car stereo guru by anymeans.;p

 

[johnny4ever]

Not So

Agree but by the time you end spending 400 to 600 bucks on the head unit, mind you that does not include speakers. You will have to spend in the neighbourhood of 1k to 1500 including all materials to surpass OEM. I maybe wrong not a car stereo guru by anymeans.;p

For about $100.00 one can purchase a fairly serviceable HU to use with existing speakers provided they are not hammered. I still contend that this would slightly improve the sound quality. If, as you propose, you spent $400.00 say on an HU and then spent just $200.00 on speakers you could vastly improve sound for less than a grand.

It totaly depends on how freakish you are about sound. It would not be hard at all to spend over $30,000.00 on sound equipment for the cruiser but it would be in a vehicle and thusly not sound like a $30,000.00 home system.

What about those dudes you see in little primered hondas or old volkswagen bugs with earphones on? They most likely have fairly good sound too.

Do lots of research, read reviews of aftermarket units, and go with what you heart and budget can agree on.

J

 

[Sully]

Didja miss this- "so i now have the new head unit"? I think the time for hypothetical is over, at least in this thread. Now the kid needs help getting the stereo that he has chsen and feels will best meet his needs functional. And for what it's worth, I'm sure it will sound fine (though you'll probably want to/have to replace the speakers soon)

 

[johnny4ever]

Didja miss this- "so i now have the new head unit"? I think the time for hypothetical is over, at least in this thread. Now the kid needs help getting the stereo that he has chsen and feels will best meet his needs functional. And for what it's worth, I'm sure it will sound fine (though you'll probably want to/have to replace the speakers soon)

Did miss that. Point taken.
Shutting up.

J

 

[photogod]

so i now have the new head unit, the kenwood dpx-301 that i talked about earlier. what now? it came with a wiring harness adapter thing that on one end has the plastic plug you hook into the back of the new head unit, and on the other end has a bunch of color coded wires that dont attach to anything. (that i assume attach to the factory system.)

can i just connect the wires from the new unit to the wires of the factory system, by crimping and soddering? or does that not work? do i bypass the factory amp? how do i do that? do i need a wiring harness?

i really have no idea what i'm doing. i mean, i know i could probably do this, but i really dont feel like screwing something up and redoing it. i kinda just want to get it right the first time. yea? sounds good.

You are almost there with the wiring harness problem. Go to a Best Buy or Circut City and get the Toyota wire harness for the LC. Go behind the right dash speaker and remove the factory amp (crap). Three screws and its gone. Take the wire harness that you got from BB or CC and plug it into the two Grey plugs that were connected to the factory amp. Those are the "out " plugs that go to the speakers. You will now have to go from the wires that come out of the head unit harness to the harness that you just pluged into the grey factory harness. This is simple and you can go to your local hardware store and get a wire crimpimg plyers and extra wire and join the color coded wires from the head unit to the harness you got from BB or CC. It's that simple. It wil take you a couple hours and you will want to remove your entire lower dash and glove box to get at all the stuff but it will be easier if you do. The head unit will screw right into the existing mounting bracket from the OEM double din unit.

Get rid of the original OEM amp and wire around it and you are good to go.

Speakers for the front and rear need to be less than 1 7/8" deep and you can fit almost anything in there with some trimming of the sheet metal.

I just did all of the above and it took some time but it sounds frickin fantastic. I put in a Pioneer 6800 head unit, iPod adapter, Rockford Fosgate 5 1/4" rear door speakers, Kenwood 6" front door speakers and a Kenwood 8" 150 watt amp sub and couldn't be more happy. Yeah, it's not a 80 watt unit but it is 1000 times better than the OEM unit! It gets me to the pain threshold with no distortion and great sound.

PM me if you need more info on the install.

 

[trevdawg]

the head unit your looking at is 22 watts rms x4 ch. devide that by four speakers thats only 5.5watts per speaker, i doubt you'll be happy with that.

I havent scrolled down to check if this has been corrected yet but, that 22 watts rms x 4 channels means that you will have 22 watts for EACH speaker hooked up, up to 4,

22 watts through each channel.


Trevdawg

 

[pigbuggy]

started last night on taking everything out. I was going to go on a suggestion to take the entire dash out, to make it easier, but holy crap, i figured out that would be darn near impossible. so, i got the control panel face off, and then the head unit came out with no problem. i have the wiring harness, and plugged that into the gray cables, but now, i'm stuck. do i have to snip off that big plastic piece and then crimp the two ends together with the corresponding colors? or am i missing a part?

so on the the factory amp. what one is it? how do i take it out/unhook it? obviously its not the one in the middle.

I've been taking pictures as I go for a write up when I'm done. hope it will help.
thanks!

 

[jamisobe]

the head unit your looking at is 22 watts rms x4 ch. devide that by four speakers thats only 5.5watts per speaker, i doubt you'll be happy with that. id go with a alpine cda-9856, great looking unit,18 watts per channel rms. play mp3's and has a high speed usb support for direct interfacing with your ipod so you can navigate our playlist from the deck, and at less than 200 dollars is a heck of a bargain. as for the speakers, first and most important, is ask a prefessional what will fit, look to spend 200 on good quality front speakers, 100 on rear "filler sound" speakers. that deck will more than power 4 speakers. amps come in to play if you want start forkin out the dough for components, but once you go with amps youll want a eq you clean the signal befor it heads off to the preamp. for speakers i recomend mb quart, or alpine, but many brands are good enough for what you want. i had a pair of eclipse, they were ok, sounded a little "tin cannish". but 500 bucks will be sounded pretty good in the lc, for a 1000 go with components in the front 2 ways in the back, zapco spl-4 or arc audio eq and a 4 channel amp with a thd <.02 and rms wattage arround 60 or 70 x4.... alittle dynomat in the doors will help the sound too, will also reduce road noise

I havent scrolled down to check if this has been corrected yet but, that 22 watts rms x 4 channels means that you will have 22 watts for EACH speaker hooked up, up to 4,

22 watts through each channel.


Trevdawg

Yeah, that would be 22 watts per channel RMS which means you can peak even higher.

The Kenwood 301 jams. I have yet to couple it with my 150HD Fosgate and a sub, but it sounds very good on its own with my front Excelon shallow depth speakers and the rear Infinities.

 

[pigbuggy]

I still dont know what to do....

 

[Lka1988]

I still dont know what to do....

Hope you don't mind advice from another 19 y.o.?


There are three plugs behind the stereo. The OEM stereo only used one. That's the one that goes to the factory amp. It is now useless. The other two plugs run straight to the speakers.

Your Kenwood stereo should have come with a wiring harness. You also need to get an aftermarket harness that plugs into the car, you can get one from Best Buy or Circuit City. Just make sure it's for 91-97.

Both the aftermarket harness and the stereo harness have identical color codes, i.e. Red = power, Yellow = memory, Black = ground, White/White with black = Front Left, etc. It's been said before, just go get a bunch of butt connectors and crimp away.

One wire to stay away from though is the blue antenna wire on both harnesses....I cut them off on mine. This wire just causes problems.

After you connect the harnesses together, plug the aftermarket ends into the remaining two plugs behind the stereo, and the stereo end into the stereo.


I'm not the best at explaining things, so if all this sounds confusing, please let me know.


I actually had the same problem that you had w/ the headunit, except the constant raping of the CD slot didn't help at all.

 

[trevdawg]

The factory amp is the FAT black box sticking out under the glove compartment. Well atleast its sticking out for me.

Things to do would be either to bypass the amp completely, because it would lower the wattage to your speakers or take the amp out (if you can) and run speaker wire to the head unit directly.

I looked at crutchfield too, and It was between that deck you got and the Pioneer DEH-4900-blah

I decided to get the Pioneer and the useless cubby hole thing, saving me a couple extra bucks.

 

[Lka1988]

The factory amp is the FAT black box sticking out under the glove compartment. Well atleast its sticking out for me.

Not really. The factory amp is to the side of the glovebox, behind the passenger-side dash tweet.

Things to do would be either to bypass the amp completely, because it would lower the wattage to your speakers or take the amp out (if you can) and run speaker wire to the head unit directly.

No need. The two extra (unused) plugs behind the stereo already do that for you. You should still take out the amp though, it's kind of a waste of space.

 

[pigbuggy]

i'm already part way done, i have EVERYTHING i need to finish this project, but Im just stuck. It would have been pretty straight forward, but theres and added piece i wasn't expecting.

the color coded wires coming out of the head unit wont attach to the new wiring harness (because the wiring harness has a plug on it.) do i have to cut the plug off the wiring harness so i can crimp the head unit and the wiring harness together?

 

[Lka1988]

Where did you get the aftermarket harness?

 

[Lka1988]

Wait... Did you get a Land Cruiser --> Kenwood harness? If so, all you have to do is plug that harness into the stereo.

 

[pigbuggy]

nooooo, otherwise i wouldn't be having this problem.

i looked, and i couldn't find one that went from Toyota to kenwood. i think all i need to do is cut and twist the two together. maybe?

 

[Sully]

You should not have to cut anything (except maybe that blue wire), that's the whole reason for getting the wiring harness. That being said, there have been reports of people having harness problems. Having not done this yet on my rig, I'm not sure exactly what's going on; however, it looks as though you could snip that white plug off and crimp the wires. I wonder if that white plug fits the back of the factory radio and is designed to allow the factory radio to bypass the factory amp. Where did you get the plug from? I seem to recall reading somewhere that there are two different harnesses floating around out there. As to the amp, in the picture you posted, from L to R, you're looking at some kind of A/C relay (black box), ECM (has #s on the side), and amp. If you haven't figured it out by monday and have the chance during normal business hours (CST), you could try calling Steve (Long Duck Dong) at (256) 878-4727.