Have you tried to play the head unit well out of the dash to see if the noise changed?
Have you tried running an RCA cable over the seats to see if the noise changed?
If you have passive crossovers, you should try moving them (even temporarily) to see if they're picking up noise.
Have you tried running an RCA cable over the seats to see if the noise changed?
If you have passive crossovers, you should try moving them (even temporarily) to see if they're picking up noise.
The system is pretty much all active except in the rear doors I'm running a pair of coaxial and they have passive x-overs but they are completely isolated on the door. Yea the head unit doesn't sound any different out of the dash. This dash kit is all plastic so the head unit chassis isn't directly grounded to the frame of the truck so the first thing I'll try is grounding that.
All of my RCA's are custom made by me so they fit exactly. The cable is a high quality shielded wire with 2 conductors (signal and ground reference) with the shield connected only on the supply side. The RCA plugs are a good quality and the solider job is good too. So I really don't see them as the problem.
The thing is that the noise is loudest right after I start the truck and right when I shut it off. That is exactly when the secondary Air Injection Pumps are operating. These are two electrical motor driven air pumps that inject air into the exhaust at start up to bring the catalytic converters up to operational temp quickly. They shut off after the truck has warmed up and only stay running for a couple of minutes. They also turn on right at engine shutoff and run for two to three seconds after the engine has stopped running. It sounds like a turbine spinning up. During this time the noise is really loud. Once they shut off it is primarily alternator wine.
So if grounding the Sony to the trucks frame doesn't work I will try and run some ground loop filters on the head units power supply cables and see how that helps.
Reading your posts and I know exactly what you're facing. . . . . Somehow it seems to be an issue with alternator noise entering the system. You could never hear it with the stock head unit, but when you upgrade to very high quality head units with very sensitive electronics inside, in order to get the SQ you want in your vehicle, the Toyota Tundra, you will hear it and once you do you cannot ever not hear it. Driving down the highway with the stereo off, I could still hear it, Which was my first clue to killing it. I can't say for sure you're having the same problem but I've seen it in two out of three Tundras that I've owned and also in a friends Tundra as well.
If you're having the same issue, this will kill it. The ground loop in the wiring harness to the radio is subpar. Somehow it isn't a good enough ground for the high end units. My solution was to ground the head unit straight to the dash support behind the radio. I used a self tapping sheet metal screw and sunk it into the round tubing of the dash support. It's easier if you punch a small hole first with a drill bit. Use a good size PURE OXYGEN FREE COPPER wire to do this. I also used a spade male and female quick connect terminals and placed them in the middle of the connection. That way if and when you ever need to pull the head unit, you wont keep yanking on it wondering why you can't pull it out. You will forget about it, and with the quick connect when you pull the unit out, the wire will just break in two without bending anything inside or the cage of the head unit. I used a piece of left over ground wire from the amps install, doesn't have to be super long, maybe 10-12 inches, and good quality ground cable.
The problem arises when the amps are grounded better than the head unit, which allows the alternator whine to creep in. It's usually worse at first start, getting better as the engine and alternator warm up. With a seperate and good ground strap directly to the head unit cage, it should go away.
Hope this is able to help you out. It took me weeks to figure it out for me, where I was ready to get rid of the truck.
If you're having the same issue, this will kill it. The ground loop in the wiring harness to the radio is subpar. Somehow it isn't a good enough ground for the high end units. My solution was to ground the head unit straight to the dash support behind the radio. I used a self tapping sheet metal screw and sunk it into the round tubing of the dash support. It's easier if you punch a small hole first with a drill bit. Use a good size PURE OXYGEN FREE COPPER wire to do this. I also used a spade male and female quick connect terminals and placed them in the middle of the connection. That way if and when you ever need to pull the head unit, you wont keep yanking on it wondering why you can't pull it out. You will forget about it, and with the quick connect when you pull the unit out, the wire will just break in two without bending anything inside or the cage of the head unit. I used a piece of left over ground wire from the amps install, doesn't have to be super long, maybe 10-12 inches, and good quality ground cable.
The problem arises when the amps are grounded better than the head unit, which allows the alternator whine to creep in. It's usually worse at first start, getting better as the engine and alternator warm up. With a seperate and good ground strap directly to the head unit cage, it should go away.
Hope this is able to help you out. It took me weeks to figure it out for me, where I was ready to get rid of the truck.
That's exactly what I'm dealing with. My first line of action is going to be grounding the head unit to the frame, maybe with a capacitor as well. I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I was busy at work today. I've got like three jobs starting up over the next two weeks so my time is going to be limited.
The reason that the noise is worse at start up and calms down a bit once the truck warms up is because the noise is coming from the secondary air injection pumps. (AIP) They run at start up to help aid the catalytic converters until they warm up then they shut off. So you have two noisy electric motors that Toyota hasn't bothered to midigate dumping their dirty noise into the electrical system. The AIP also turns on for a couple seconds right at shut down. Sounds like a turbine coming in over the radio. I guess it is just easier to put extra filtering into the radio then on the AIP. Then you also have a motor that runs inside the transmission as well, that I don't know what it does, and then there is the fuel pump and of course the alternator. These are what you here once the AIP shuts off. There is also something going on when I open the drivers side door. It's a buzzing sound that lasts for a couple seconds. It is an issue with the can bus I'm pretty sure.
So I just hope grounding the unit is going to take care of all of these sources of noise. Probably going to need to put a cap inline with the ground strap as well. We will see. I'll keep updating things as I go. But all n all I am very happy with the Sony.
Have you gone to a forum for your truck specifically to see what problems they've had and their solutions?
Yea I've been perusing a couple different forums but there really isn't to much said about it. I think that grounding the head unit directly to the frame will help but I just haven't had the time to do it and today it won't stop raining. It sucks but what can you do about it. So I will just have to be patient. There might even be a chance that the Dayton Audio DSP unit is letting a bit of this noise get into my system on top of the head unit. Did you happen to read my earlier post about what was rolling around inside the unit when I got it? I provided a pic in an earlier posting. I've never seen so much random broken off cold solder just rattling around inside a brand new piece of electronic gear before. The new Audio Control unit should be a welcome improvement. Usually the stuff from Dayton Audio is fairly well built especially considering that most of it is relatively inexpensive. So finding five or six balls of solder just rattling around inside of the case didn't inspire much confidence in it. I couldn't help but laugh at the QC sticker they stuck on the case. It must just be there for decoration.
I can't remember the last time I had problems with noise and grounding issues installing a stereo in a vehicle. It was pretty common back in the 80's and 90's to some degree but most modern cars have rock solid electronics in them. Just about every component has it's own grounding wire that traces back to a strategic common grounding point and not just grounded willy nilly to the nearest piece of bear metal. The engineers treat modern cars as if they where giant circuit boards and by carful choice of grounding locations they can isolate the noisy stuff and keep it out of the rest of the system like you would in a class D amplifier. So this is kind of a bummer. I've got the rest of the system with my amps and everything all grounded back to a common ground point like they should be. The one thing I didn't do is run the ground for the amps all the way back to the negative terminal on the battery which I usually do. A lot of people say not to do that and this time I didn't mostly because I just didn't have the wire to do so at the time but I've always disagreed with people that say that knowing that having supply and return paths of equal length and resistance is always best practice.
I remember some time ago I had this 1980's Toyota mini van that I called the Godzilla van. It was one of those death traps that you would see the Japanese civil authorities driving around with their hard hats on in the original Godzilla movies. If you have ever seen any of the classic Japanese monster movies you would know exactly what I'm talking about. These master pieces of Japanese electronic engineering used the vehicle chassis not only for power ground as is normal but also used it for speaker ground for the radio. You just simply attached the negative lead for your speakers directly to the body of the van. This was not very well thought out. Nothing about that van was very well thought out including the drivers safety. In a head on collision both front occupants would be crushed to death. Got to love it.
I can't remember the last time I had problems with noise and grounding issues installing a stereo in a vehicle. It was pretty common back in the 80's and 90's to some degree but most modern cars have rock solid electronics in them. Just about every component has it's own grounding wire that traces back to a strategic common grounding point and not just grounded willy nilly to the nearest piece of bear metal. The engineers treat modern cars as if they where giant circuit boards and by carful choice of grounding locations they can isolate the noisy stuff and keep it out of the rest of the system like you would in a class D amplifier. So this is kind of a bummer. I've got the rest of the system with my amps and everything all grounded back to a common ground point like they should be. The one thing I didn't do is run the ground for the amps all the way back to the negative terminal on the battery which I usually do. A lot of people say not to do that and this time I didn't mostly because I just didn't have the wire to do so at the time but I've always disagreed with people that say that knowing that having supply and return paths of equal length and resistance is always best practice.
I remember some time ago I had this 1980's Toyota mini van that I called the Godzilla van. It was one of those death traps that you would see the Japanese civil authorities driving around with their hard hats on in the original Godzilla movies. If you have ever seen any of the classic Japanese monster movies you would know exactly what I'm talking about. These master pieces of Japanese electronic engineering used the vehicle chassis not only for power ground as is normal but also used it for speaker ground for the radio. You just simply attached the negative lead for your speakers directly to the body of the van. This was not very well thought out. Nothing about that van was very well thought out including the drivers safety. In a head on collision both front occupants would be crushed to death. Got to love it.
Why not connect a simple, basic amp (not the ones you intend to use, different make/model/circuitry) to the head unit, at the head unit (within a couple of feet) to see if there is noise. Connect only those two pieces and a loose test speaker, within a couple of feet of the amp. Whether there is noise or not, divide and conquer to find the fault.
Did anyone else on the other forums have problems with the air pumps making noise?
Did anyone else on the other forums have problems with the air pumps making noise?
im new here but congrats for you detailed post, i will follow this, i have a Tundra 2019 DC, sadly i dont have to much space for sub back to the rear seats. Anyways i started to create my shopping list, i want to install sub, amp, speakers, center dash, corner dash, DSP. I changed last gear my HU for a kenwood.
again, congrats and i will follow your updates 🙂
Got it figured out!
So I grounded the head unit chassis to the truck and that helped a little bit but didn't fix the problem. So my next step was to yank the Dayton Audio DSP out and install the Audio Control DM-608 DSP. Due to differences in size and layout this required that I make all new RCA cables because the old ones weren't long enough. I like to make all of my own interconnects. This way I don't have to roll up and store a bunch of unneeded extra cable you get when you buy ready made cables that are always longer then you need. I want the cables to be exactly long enough and no longer. So anyways, all new RCA cables.
So after making the new cables and installing the new DSP I was so happy when I turned it on and no more NOIZE. YAY! So that problem is solved. No more noise coming from the secondary AIP into the system through the Dayton Audio DSP. Now I just need to move a few of the cables around to different channels because I have a couple of them in the wrong place. Easy fix, not a problem. After that I need to set up the DSP. I've got to set the X-overs and then it is time to break out the old testing mic and RTA and do some final tuning and after that if I'm happy with it, call it done. But judging by the way things sound already I'm thinking that there will likely need to be some rear fill. I might end up putting some 4" midranges in enclosures up at the rear corners at the head liner.
Up front I still have those two tweeters in the sail panels that need to be hooked up. I've been procrastinating because I am not looking forward to having to run speaker wire for them down and through the doors into the cab. Getting wire through the rubber boot between the door and the cab is a real pain in the *** but I should probably do it before I get to carried away with tuning everything.
So hopefully today sometime I will be able to get around to setting up the DSP and start tuning it. I've only got about half a days work today and no work tomorrow with no rain in the forecast until Tuesday so it's looking good. Maybe once I get it all worked out I'll put a video up on youtube.
So Chow 4 Now.
So I grounded the head unit chassis to the truck and that helped a little bit but didn't fix the problem. So my next step was to yank the Dayton Audio DSP out and install the Audio Control DM-608 DSP. Due to differences in size and layout this required that I make all new RCA cables because the old ones weren't long enough. I like to make all of my own interconnects. This way I don't have to roll up and store a bunch of unneeded extra cable you get when you buy ready made cables that are always longer then you need. I want the cables to be exactly long enough and no longer. So anyways, all new RCA cables.
So after making the new cables and installing the new DSP I was so happy when I turned it on and no more NOIZE. YAY! So that problem is solved. No more noise coming from the secondary AIP into the system through the Dayton Audio DSP. Now I just need to move a few of the cables around to different channels because I have a couple of them in the wrong place. Easy fix, not a problem. After that I need to set up the DSP. I've got to set the X-overs and then it is time to break out the old testing mic and RTA and do some final tuning and after that if I'm happy with it, call it done. But judging by the way things sound already I'm thinking that there will likely need to be some rear fill. I might end up putting some 4" midranges in enclosures up at the rear corners at the head liner.
Up front I still have those two tweeters in the sail panels that need to be hooked up. I've been procrastinating because I am not looking forward to having to run speaker wire for them down and through the doors into the cab. Getting wire through the rubber boot between the door and the cab is a real pain in the *** but I should probably do it before I get to carried away with tuning everything.
So hopefully today sometime I will be able to get around to setting up the DSP and start tuning it. I've only got about half a days work today and no work tomorrow with no rain in the forecast until Tuesday so it's looking good. Maybe once I get it all worked out I'll put a video up on youtube.
So Chow 4 Now.
Okay now that I finally have everything up and running like it is supposed to I have come to the conclusion that I don't think I need to add anything else. It is actually sounding really awesome right now. So no on the rear fills and I don't think hooking the tweeters in the sail panels up will make anything sound better and actually might make it worse. Right now all of the x-overs are set and working well and I have done a bare minimum of tweaking with the EQ. Basically I have boosted the the 40HZ to 125HZ region by about 3db and rolled off the top end a bit just because I don't like it super bright. I am digging the way it sounds right now. I will probably stick the mic in the cab and run REW so I can see what it looks like but to my ear I don't think it will change anything but it will give me something to post here. So maybe sometime this week if I have the time I will do that. If not it will just have to wait. I've got a lot of work that I will need to focus my attention on in the coming days so for now that is my priority.
Anyways this install has been a blast and in the end I have a great sounding system that should last me for a few years at least. I guess maybe I will start thinking about putting a system in my 2016 Mustang GT next. But I should probably make some more money first before I go spending any more. This system was pretty expensive and it's only because I love listening to music so much that I can justify spending so much money and time building something that in the end makes the music come alive. I'm sure everyone here knows what I'm talking about. I couldn't imagine how much a system like this would cost if I had to have somebody else do the installation for me. I don't think I could even turn my truck over to someone else to do this kind of install. Somethings I just have to myself. In the end it is quite satisfying though.
Anyways this install has been a blast and in the end I have a great sounding system that should last me for a few years at least. I guess maybe I will start thinking about putting a system in my 2016 Mustang GT next. But I should probably make some more money first before I go spending any more. This system was pretty expensive and it's only because I love listening to music so much that I can justify spending so much money and time building something that in the end makes the music come alive. I'm sure everyone here knows what I'm talking about. I couldn't imagine how much a system like this would cost if I had to have somebody else do the installation for me. I don't think I could even turn my truck over to someone else to do this kind of install. Somethings I just have to myself. In the end it is quite satisfying though.
So how is your proposed build proceeding? Have you finished putting together your shopping list yet? I don't know how confined the double cab is compared to the Crewmax but if they are similar then you will have to pay special attention to the clearance's when you go to put your subs in. If you are designing your own box like I did you will want to make a mock up out of cardboard first. That way you can be assured that the finished box will fit with out having to modify it after it's done. If you aren't sure about your carpenter skills and/or you don't have the proper tools then you might want to consider buying a premade box specifically designed to fit the truck. There are a few different sources that make them.
Another thing that you will need to take special care of is the sound treatment. These trucks use a lot of plastic in the interior and for the most part Toyota did a pretty good job making sure that the interior panels and dash don't rattle but they aren't designed to go up against sub woofers. So you will need to make sure you pay special attention to damping down anything that has the potential to rattle. I used Killmat that I bought from Amazon. It was relatively inexpensive and it worked quite well. I can recommend it. Take your time and apply it to the outer and inner skins of the doors as well as to the door card or panel. I am very happy with the way my truck sounds and the reason for part of that is because nothing inside my truck is rattling, well except for one thing that I will be taking care of here in the next day or two and that is the rear view mirror. Rear view mirrors are always hard to silence in cars with subwoofers and sometimes you just have to live with it or remove them but that isn't really an option for most people due to all of the features that the mirrors incorporate these days plus it is a safety feature and in some places removing them may be against the law.
If you have any questions that I can help you with don't be afraid to ask. I will help if I can.
thanks for your suggestions jack, I'm gathering and collecting info and building my shopping list. I will put the sub under the rear seat and made the DC back fold mod for make space to first aid kit and other stuff. I don't have to much space there but it will work.
I want to start with that mod, and also i want to take my time to isolate in a proper way the whole truck. Many people said apply dynamat in all the truck is overkill. Doors are by far the most important place to focus on this matter.
I will do it with time, not rush. Many thanks for share your experience, for me is so much helpful.
I want to start with that mod, and also i want to take my time to isolate in a proper way the whole truck. Many people said apply dynamat in all the truck is overkill. Doors are by far the most important place to focus on this matter.
I will do it with time, not rush. Many thanks for share your experience, for me is so much helpful.
When you start putting it together take lots of pics and post a build log. That way anything you might not be sure about you can ask and we can help steer you in the right direction. I've had some time over the past few days to listen to my sound system and I think it turned out pretty nice. I am definitely quite pleased with it. So if you find yourself unsure about what components to buy for yours just know that everything I ultimately ended up with at the end works flawlessly and would recommend everything. Some of it is pricy (Sony head unit, Audio Control DSP) but most of it is not. The Down4Sound amps where very reasonable as where the CDT Audio speakers. Killmat, the damping mat is available from Amazon and is cheaper then most other brands and works great. I think I used two and a half boxes to damp my whole truck.
Good luck with it.
Good luck with it.
I have found that poly cutting boards can make for very effective door reinforcement material. Many small wafer-head screws are used to attach to thin sheet metal doors. The 3/8” thick boards conform to slight surface variations.
Was going to mention that in dash tweeters can provide a great soundstage, but it looks like you’re taking advantage of that.
Nice installation!
Was going to mention that in dash tweeters can provide a great soundstage, but it looks like you’re taking advantage of that.
Nice installation!
Thanks man.
Another thing that works well is 3/16" sheet lead. It will conform to any surface geometry and it can also be used to fiberglass over to make air tight custom fit panels.
The CDT Unity 8.0 2" wideband drivers that I have in there now sound great. I highly recommend them for use in the Tundra's
Did you watch the video I posted demonstrating the issue I was having and what it sounded like once I got them resolved? Check it out if not.
I remember when I did a box for 1 12" sub in a 08 behind the back seat it was 2.2cu.ft at 33hz I think it did 133 or 135db in the upper 38ish hz range . I love those trucks but I hate the wiring nightmare JBL does to them lol. If your still getting road noise try putting a cap on your HU power supply as well as some supper caps between your front bat and your back bat/amps that should clean up that death humm
I got all of that straightened out. Check out the video I made. It's just a couple posts above this one. You can see or hear for yourself.
Jack, I was wondering if you can explain how you wired your front corner dash and center channel speakers. I saw that the center channel is wired to the radio but I wasn't sure about the corner dash speakers. Also what crossovers did you use for this application.