Subwoofer upgrade information - easy install (1 Viewer)

[Shawn Wilkins]

So with the help of this forum one of the first things I did was to upgrade all of the speakers with what a few members had recommended. It obviously sounds much better but even more obvious was how undersized and overpowered the subwoofer was....if you can call a speaker that small a subwoofer. I think my phone has a bigger speaker.

Anyway, I had a sub box with 2 10" MTX subs sitting around from a car that is being restored and thought I would give it a try. On the OEM subwoofer there are two pairs of wires run to it already so I just disconnected them, reinstalled the panel and then extended the wires so they would reach each side of the sub box.

Once I connected them I was actually surprised at how good they sound. The OEM amp is plenty big to power them and you instantly get much more bass than ever before and no distortion. Granted, you won't win any stereo contest but it was a free upgrade and sounds great. My teenage boys think it is super cool so that was a win...right?

I am going to purchase a sub tube to transfer the speakers into so that they will sit behind the 3rd row when needed. The sub box now does not allow me to use my 3rd row but I hardly ever use it since we travel in the wife's Highlander.

Hope this helps everyone who would like to give it a try and I will take some pics to post if needed.

Shawn

 

[shoboat90]

So with the help of this forum one of the first things I did was to upgrade all of the speakers with what a few members had recommended. It obviously sounds much better but even more obvious was how undersized and overpowered the subwoofer was....if you can call a speaker that small a subwoofer. I think my phone has a bigger speaker.

Anyway, I had a sub box with 2 10" MTX subs sitting around from a car that is being restored and thought I would give it a try. On the OEM subwoofer there are two pairs of wires run to it already so I just disconnected them, reinstalled the panel and then extended the wires so they would reach each side of the sub box.

Once I connected them I was actually surprised at how good they sound. The OEM amp is plenty big to power them and you instantly get much more bass than ever before and no distortion. Granted, you won't win any stereo contest but it was a free upgrade and sounds great. My teenage boys think it is super cool so that was a win...right?

I am going to purchase a sub tube to transfer the speakers into so that they will sit behind the 3rd row when needed. The sub box now does not allow me to use my 3rd row but I hardly ever use it since we travel in the wife's Highlander.

Hope this helps everyone who would like to give it a try and I will take some pics to post if needed.

Shawn

i'd be interested in seeing what you've done

 

[Shawn Wilkins]

I'll snap some pics.

 

[Snowrydr01]

It doesnt say in the post but i am guessing you have a LC with the dual 4" set up? There seems to be a couple sub variations based upon LC/LX and stereo type. When i did my 00 LX with Mark L, i had the single sub set up and replaced the amp under the seat (after doing the HU) which then threw off the ohm of my single sub and put a tiny kicker in its place.

 

[JDWCruiserMS]

It doesnt say in the post but i am guessing you have a LC with the dual 4" set up? There seems to be a couple sub variations based upon LC/LX and stereo type. When i did my 00 LX with Mark L, i had the single sub set up and replaced the amp under the seat (after doing the HU) which then threw off the ohm of my single sub and put a tiny kicker in its place.

Iv got an 02 LX with ML touchscreen. Everything sounds muffled and dated in my opinion... I’d be interested in knowing what speakers you replaced and what with... Is the sound bad due to headunit or stock speakers? Thanks!

 

[dr335i]

Iv got an 02 LX with ML touchscreen. Everything sounds muffled and dated in my opinion... I’d be interested in knowing what speakers you replaced and what with... Is the sound bad due to headunit or stock speakers? Thanks!

I have an 01 LX With ML. I replaced the radio with a Sony AVH-100 and everything immediately sounded better, but thats not to say it sounded bad to begin with. If you've never had your speaker reconed or replaced I would definitely look into it. I bet the foam surrounds on your speakers and especially sub are probably shot. You can buy the recone kit from simplyspeakers.com and it will make a world of difference.

That being said I am definetly interested in replacing the sub (the oem ML one is horrible). I'd be interested in hearing what kind of system OP has in their car. The ML system is 8 ohm which makes it damn near impossible to go replacing speakers, but when I pulled my sub out it measured 13 ohm. (I want to say I found a thread here where someone mentioned the sub is 13 ohm as well). I'd be scared to plug any other kind of subs directly into the amp as that amp is crazy expensive.

 

[JDWCruiserMS]

Mind blown... so ML system is basically like Bose... are there speakers that are compatible to ml?

 

[dr335i]

Mind blown... so ML system is basically like Bose... are there speakers that are compatible to ml?

To be honest with you I'm not 100% sure on the LX ML System but I'm pretty familiar with the system on LS430s/SC430s. I highly doubt they're too different though.

In essence, replacing anything ML sucks. The ohm load is weird, the speakers aren't that deep so even if you get one with the right ohm load good luck finding one that fits in there. Honestly, the only way I'd go about putting aftermarket speakers is if I were going to bypass the amp and run an aftermarket amp on my door speakers. Which I could do if I wanted to invest the money in it pretty easily.

You on the other hand, since you have NAV have a whole journey in front of you just to change the radio. You have to find the non nav trim piece and essentially rewire the connectors for your AC and radio. There might be some way to replace the amp without replacing the radio by using some kind of line level converters but I feel like that would just be a crappy jerry rig.

If I were you, I'd pull the door panels and the sub out to make sure the surrounds were in decent shape. From everything I know about old ML speakers they probably won't be. You can refoam all of them for less than $100 yourself in an afternoon. In my truck at least, they sound pretty good.

 

[JDWCruiserMS]

Stupid question... where is sub located?

 

[JDWCruiserMS]

Stupid question... where is sub located?

 

[dr335i]

Stupid question... where is sub located?

Next to where the left third row seat is and where the jack is located. There's a thread somewhere here on removal. Basically you have to undo both rear seat belts on that side and slowly pop the panel off. Some trim around the left rear door has to come off too.

 

[LonghornLX]

Thanks to @Shawn Wilkins I tried this sub replacement experiment.

TLDR:

• Aftermarket sub w/ enclosures on the STOCK AMP are better than stock sub (obvious)
• Stock ML amp has plenty of power for better sub & enclosure
• Replacing the bad stock sub with aftermarket sub in the stock enclosure is a waste of time and money

Long version:

I ended up scoring a deal on a sealed box w/ a JL 12W6-V3 ($80 bucks the PO didn't know what he had) that has Dual Voice Coils (4 ohms each coil). The DVC allows you to alter the impedance (OHMS) the amp sees from 2 to 8 ohms based on how the speaker is wired.

This is important because the stock SUB for the ML system has a resistance of ~12 OHMs give or take.

SIDE NOTE: While there are 4 cables going into the sub enclosure only 2 wires are being used by the stock subwoofer in my case(2003 LX)

While the stock ML amp, as stated by Shawn, does have decent amount of power it does NOT want to run hot. Using 1 ohm, 2 and 4 ohm speaker configurations will make it run hot and shut off quickly if not damage the amp permanently.

I went with the 8 ohm configuration on the JL subwoofer. While not the factory ~12ohm it allowed me to play at high volume for longer lengths of time than 90% of my car trips. Longer road trips in June will tell me what I need

To wire it after testing I extended the plug (single read and black wire) within the stock SUB enclosure out with speaker wire and routed it out through the bottle jack opening to the JL sub box.

It sounds great, much much better than I thought the stock amp has any business sounding. It fills in the lower range perfectly without overpowering the front speakers and shames the 6" Pyle driver that I had placed in the stock enclosure. My trunk bumps now without a new amp needed.

If I had to do it all over again or I just wanted to replace the original ML SUB without rebuilding the entire system I would have :

• NOT purchased the replacement woofer to fit in the original location.
• Thrown away the original enclosure
• Purchased a smaller DVC sub and enclosure that was removable ( the bazooka BT8024DVC (8ohm) or BT8028DVC (16 OHM) Both $129 or so and fits the bill perfectly) and wired that to the ML stock amp.

Hit me up if you have any questions.

 

[ZREM]

Has anyone with the dual 4" subs bridged the factory amp to run a single aftermarket sub? After bypassing the amp for my door speakers (went with Alpines), sound is much improved, but the sub is still sad.

Thinking about trying this out ...

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00JQTU...olid=3G84KTD08PARN&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

UPDATE: Bought the sub above, tapped into wires in the rear, works like a champ. TLC FAQ site was a big help in identifying which wires are L/R and +/-. It's not gonna hit super hard, but sounds MUCH better than the stock 4" subs and is matched pretty well to the door speakers powered by the aftermarket head unit. Definite success and well worth $91 and 30 mins of install time.

 

[bozncsurf]

Thanks to @Shawn Wilkins I tried this sub replacement experiment.

TLDR:

• Aftermarket sub w/ enclosures on the STOCK AMP are better than stock sub (obvious)
• Stock ML amp has plenty of power for better sub & enclosure
• Replacing the bad stock sub with aftermarket sub in the stock enclosure is a waste of time and money

Long version:

I ended up scoring a deal on a sealed box w/ a JL 12W6-V3 ($80 bucks the PO didn't know what he had) that has Dual Voice Coils (4 ohms each coil). The DVC allows you to alter the impedance (OHMS) the amp sees from 2 to 8 ohms based on how the speaker is wired.

This is important because the stock SUB for the ML system has a resistance of ~12 OHMs give or take.

SIDE NOTE: While there are 4 cables going into the sub enclosure only 2 wires are being used by the stock subwoofer in my case(2003 LX)

While the stock ML amp, as stated by Shawn, does have decent amount of power it does NOT want to run hot. Using 1 ohm, 2 and 4 ohm speaker configurations will make it run hot and shut off quickly if not damage the amp permanently.

I went with the 8 ohm configuration on the JL subwoofer. While not the factory ~12ohm it allowed me to play at high volume for longer lengths of time than 90% of my car trips. Longer road trips in June will tell me what I need

To wire it after testing I extended the plug (single read and black wire) within the stock SUB enclosure out with speaker wire and routed it out through the bottle jack opening to the JL sub box.

It sounds great, much much better than I thought the stock amp has any business sounding. It fills in the lower range perfectly without overpowering the front speakers and shames the 6" Pyle driver that I had placed in the stock enclosure. My trunk bumps now without a new amp needed.

If I had to do it all over again or I just wanted to replace the original ML SUB without rebuilding the entire system I would have :

• NOT purchased the replacement woofer to fit in the original location.
• Thrown away the original enclosure
• Purchased a smaller DVC sub and enclosure that was removable ( the bazooka BT8024DVC (8ohm) or BT8028DVC (16 OHM) Both $129 or so and fits the bill perfectly) and wired that to the ML stock amp.

Hit me up if you have any questions.

How has this setup been doing in the hotter months - specifically has the amp turned off from overheating??

Thanks for your time.

 

[KillerBox]

This is my stereo system and after getting it tuned right, it still amazes me every time I listen to it. I am just posting it up, if it will help you with building a subwoofer box.

I like my music loud and to sound like a live concert. So I like bass but, only if the song has bass. Btw if I had to do it all over again, one ported 10" would probably have done everything I wanted.

Pic heavy stereo build & wanted to share it in case it helps someone in the future

 

[LonghornLX]

How has this setup been doing in the hotter months - specifically has the amp turned off from overheating??

Thanks for your time.

No problems to report as of now. I just returned from HIH8 with 30+ hours or driving and music playing and still had no issues or turn offs.

No clipping or audio artifacts that give me the impression the amp is on the verge of shutdown or failure. I'll update the thread if this changes in the future. Considering the JL was replacing the PYLE with the same resistance I don't anticipate any issues.

 

[Joseph H]

Here's a link to some details of my setup, which took countless hours of design, install, troubleshooting, tweaking, etc. It may help provide some additional assistance.

2007 Toyota Landcruiser Overland and Minimalist Stereo Design

 

[bozncsurf]

No problems to report as of now. I just returned from HIH8 with 30+ hours or driving and music playing and still had no issues or turn offs.

No clipping or audio artifacts that give me the impression the amp is on the verge of shutdown or failure. I'll update the thread if this changes in the future. Considering the JL was replacing the PYLE with the same resistance I don't anticipate any issues.

I read somewhere that the LC JBL amp was rated at 4x40 watts and the 100 watts for the sub. Any idea what the ML amp wattage is?

Did you literally oil the wire from the stock sub to the JL and call it good?

 

[LonghornLX]

I do not know that ML output.

Yeah just extended the speaker wire straight into the JL .

It has enough power to rattle panels and mirrors at high volume.

 

[LonghornLX]

Per another member on the forum after buying the bazooka I recommended.

"I pulled out Mark Levinson sub and it was indeed blown - no foam left really. I wired in an 8" 8 ohm bazooka tube and it sounds pretty good - almost too much bass unless you turn it down"


Again I am not claiming you will win SQ competitions but you will out perform any replacment option you can place in the OEM sub pod.

The reason I like the bazooka is because the dvc and the ability to easily strap it to the wheel arch or over the stock sub panel out of the way. Making use of space that isn't flat.