hpcacura

Just bought my 06 TL with 82k miles and love the car, but I want a little more oomph to the stereo. Crutchfield recommends a Rockford Fosgate Punch 300 (10" sub with built in amp). Price is $230.00, which sounds good to me. First question - is this a good sub for the car? The rest of the stereo will remain stock. I listen to all music except rap, and like to hear some thump, but don't need to rattle the windows of the cars next to me.
Next question - does the stock subwoofer have power to it? Can I just run the aftermarket sub off the speaker wires and power wire that are already in the car, or do I need to run a separate power wire?
Last question - besides dismantling all the plastic in the trunk to get to the subwires, are there any issues to expect to run into? Is is possible to get access to the stock subwoofer wires without dismantling the plastic in the trunk?
Last last question - if I have to remove all the trunk plastic to get to the subwoofer wires, should I just change out the rear speakers while I'm at it? Any recommendations on replacement speakers? This is my commute car - I'll put about 30k miles per year on it, so I want decent sound, but dont want to spend alot of money on the stereo, since i'll be getting another car in about 3 years.

Thanks!
Thanks!

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

subwoofers are universal.
you choose a subwoofer, depending on the type of music you listen to, via the subwoofers specs

if you are choosing an aftermarket subwoofer, you need to run an amp and power, unless you choose a freeair drop in 8 inch subwoofer to directly replace the one in the car

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

the rear speakers are just FILL.
you would get better sound by upgrading the front door speakers first, then if you need more bass, add a subwoofer

SocomM4

iTrader: (2)

https://www.google.com/search?q=kick...VK-A_AQgTYIqwY

SocomM4

iTrader: (2)

You'll need
A line converter to plug into the factory sub wires.
An rca wire.
Amp
Sub
Power wire from battery
Remote wire using an AddAFuse
Ground

Hambizzle1

If you go through all of the trouble to upgrade the stock sub, I would HIGHLY recommend reinforcing the rear deck with some matting. Rattle on these cars is horrendous. I went single 15 IB, and wish I had done two. Sealed the trunk, and used two layers of matting. Good luck with the audio build. Running the power and signal is a breeze in these cars, also.

NoTLoud

Others have already given you good answers, but I figure I can offer some advice from my end having just installed a 4-way active system in the car.

I would tend to stay away from "powered" enclosures. They aren't inherently bad, but they aren't great either. A 300W RMS subwoofer will give you plenty a bump, that's what I am running to mine and it will get loud enough to rattle the rear view mirrors.

One of the biggest factors in the "loudness" or SPL of a sub is the enclosure. A box that is designed around the specs of the sub is going to give you the best sound. There's a lot of talk around sealed vs ported enclosures. You can do some research on what you believe would fit your liking, but generally people concerned with SQ will say go sealed or IB (Infinite Baffle). I use a ported box, but I listen to a lot of hip-hop/rap, so it tends to sound alright to me.

There are videos out there of how to hook-up a sub with a LOC (Line Out Converter) to a stock system. It's fairly straight forward.

In order to install the sub you will have to remove the rear seat and bottom of the rear deck to run wiring properly. You can run the power wire through a factory grommet on the drivers side firewall. I cut it a little bit with a razor blade to slide the wire though. I found a video of where to run the wire on YouTube. In order to get the amp to turn on, you will need to run a remote wire from a fuse tap. Not sure what exact fuse #, but you definitely want to find a fuse that is tied to ignition, that way when you turn the car on, the amp will turn on and vice versa.

As far as replacing the rear speakers, I'd skip them. Like someone else said, you're better off replacing the front speakers as the rear speakers are more for fill. I just removed them from my car and run 6 speakers in the front only plus my sub.

You will absolutely want to sound deaden the car while you're taking it apart. Rear deck is key along with the front door panels. I did a preliminary deaden on my front door panels and still have terrible resonance and rattle through them.

Another thing to consider is sealing your front doors to increase midbass. I had the stock 6.5's sounding pretty good by just deadening and sealing the front doors. In order to seal the doors, I used Mass Loaded Vinyl (MLV) and made a cutout from the factory moisture barrier. I just used automotive velcro to mount it to the door behind the panel. I used CLD tiling (think DynaMat) on the outer door metal and various other locations on the door and panel to reduce resonance. Again, I still need to do a second pass to kill the remaining rattles, but that's the goal of deadening. If the inside of the car is quieter, that equates to less power required for the speakers to play louder. With my aftermarket speakers I have a ton of midbass now.

Hopefully my ramblings help.

hpcacura

Thanks for all the great input. After driving the car for awhile and playing with the settings, the sound is actually better than I expected. Is it possible to just upgrade the rear subwoofer speaker, accessing it from the top, without pulling out the seat and taking apart the rear deck? I've got a ton of projects right now and don't have the time to spend on a big project. When I do, I'll replace the door speakers and install some sound deadening and seal the front doors like Notloud suggests.

sockr1

iTrader: (5)

no, you need to remove the seats and the rear deck. doing it alone for the first time will take 45-60 minutes, after that you can knock out the rear seats in about 15 minutes. i've taken mine out about 10 times haha

stevemk07

I had an aftermarket sub in a box powered with 500 watts in my previous TL ('07 base non nav). It sounded great when I took the signal pre-amp. In my new car ('08 base nav) all I have done is deaden/seal doors and the same with the rear deck. It made a big improvement to bass quality of the factory system. I still have my old audio gear but do not feel compelled to install it when I am mostly satisfied with the improved stock system.

SocomM4

iTrader: (2)

Seal the vents in the rear deck, most , if not all rear deck rattle come front the air transfer from trunk to cabin through those vents.


pull down the upper trunk liner and on each side of the trunk light us a bunch of holes. put duct tape over them and reinstall the liner.

I'd recommend a Kicker CVX or a Alpine Type R 12in sub, 2.5ish cuft of airspace, slot ported to 32-40hz. Alpine 500w amp should push it pretty good.

I run that set up, big tuned port box, CVX and giving the sub 800 clean watts at 4ohm. no distortion, no clipping, amp stays cool even when I slap "Do you mind" with volume at 30-32

​​​SLLLLLLAPS, DEEEP clean bass, and never gets warm.

C1Forged

Upgrading the factory sub using the stock integrated amplifier will do almost nothing. Reason being is that the stock amp is design to power the stock sub, which more than likely has a low power rating. At that point, putting in a more powerful sub that requires more power, but giving it half the juice will only result in similar results to what your stock sub puts out.

Based on your musical preference, I would personally recommend a sealed enclosure. Ported is made to be loud, and since you don't listen to rap [I assume no dubstep?] there is no reason to sacrifice quality for pure power. All you need is a decent 10", or even a 12" sub.

If you want a smaller enclosure that doesn't take up as much room, I would recommend one of the following:

Dayton Audio Ultimax 10" [The Ultimax series subs are fantastic, and pack a lot of power for their size for cheap. I'm currently running two of the 18" Ultimax's in an IB in my Cruze.]:
https://www.parts-express.com/dayton...-coil--295-510

Image Dynamics IDQ10 [If you want more SQ oriented and can splurge. Amazing sub, I ran two of these in my first setup in my Cruze]:
Image Dynamics IDQ10 D4 V.4 10" IDQ V.4 Series Car Subwoofer

As for a 12" sub, both of the ones listed above have 12" versions for an extra $10 and $30 respectively.

Keep in mind, you will also need an Enclosure, Amplifier, Line Converter, and Wiring. If this is your first time doing a sub install, unless you have a step by step or video tutorial, I would recommend having a local shop do the install for you.

TL_Boy_96

Ok here goes: I actually got the Rockford fosgate loaded powered enclosure 10". Me being the audiophile I was, did not like it. For me, I love low bass notes and love feeling vibration. Also keep in mind that the TL's trunk is sealed. Meaning, whatever you put in the trunk should have somewhat decent power to it. So I went back to the shop that I got it done at and swapped it out for a 12" L7 solo baric paired with a 1200W hi fonics amp. And boy. It is DIFFERENT. It hits lows so smoooth and can take abuse no problem whatsoever. But since the trunk is sealed, I ride with the cup holders and door down on the rear seats (exposing the trunk to the inside). If you're looking for thump, the Rockford may disappoint you. It's there, but is disappointing on most songs. As for the solo baric that I have, it hits hard on almost every song in every genre. Punk/rock doesn't hit as hard as EDM or hip hop but still hits. My enclosure for it is a ported box.

As as for your second question, the stock sub is ok. It's just ok. Low are mediocre to me at least. And you're definitely better off running newer better gauge wiring to a seperate sub. Just keep the stock sub hooked up. Worse case just turn the sub off using the audio settings.

For your our last question, I honestly don't know. I had my system done at an audio shop. However I did note that they did not remove any rear deck parts. They ran the wiring from the battery under the door sills, under the rear seats, through to behind the rear seats. They did a very professional job on it.

Lie-Low

I would recommend having a dedicated audio shop do your work for you..... It will come out much cleaner. I have a 10" JL Audio Subwoofer & Amp in my trunk and it's a perfect complement for my ride ($300 total including install). I keep my internal central sub set to 0 in the sound settings and control my JL sub with a knob installed in my center dash bin. Most shops will run the wiring under the seats like TL_Boy_96 mentioned above, it's a very clean install. I've also upgraded all of my internal speakers to JL's as well but in all honesty I don't think this is necessary. If you're listening to CD's in the car (which offer a higher quality of sound than radio, phones, or sirius xm) then you would notice a difference between stock vs upgraded internal speakers. But if you're just listening to the radio or to your phone through bluetooth/aux then you really won't notice much of a difference in sound quality with upgraded speakers. If you are set on upgrading the internal speakers, I would recommend just doing the fronts and tweeters, and maybe the mids..... but replacing the back speakers won't make as much of a difference to be honest.