ManOnFire

@Skell6009 I would advise you to start with the subwoofer, then see what else your ears think is missing. IMO, do the Kicker 46HS10 and have a professional run the wires to the right location, including the battery under the hood. TIme is money.....

tbartman67

I will say, IMO, I didn't like your placement for the sub because what if you want to put a suitcase there that is a little long, and losing the 3-4" means you can't close the back door? Or if you want to lay both seats flat to load a piece of plywood, or stack a ton of boxes? My placement, it's completely out of the way. Here's my install:




I didn't have to tear anything apart, and can return things to the way they were in seconds.

First, I undid the connector that ran the speaker wires to the old sub. I figured the old sub was useless once I got the new one in. The Metra connector then attaches to the speaker wires coming from the front of the car. Here you see the wires from the amp and the Metra adapter in the middle of the photo and the old connector to the old sub dangling just to the left of that:




I cut off the ends of the Metra adapter and stripped a little bare wire, and Kicker told me to connect the (+) to the (+) of both the left and right input, and same for the (-) wires. So here you have the white wire from the Metra going to both the white and grey wires of the Kicker harness, and you have the black wire from the Metra going to both the white/black and grey/black wires on the Kicker harness.




By setting the Kicker HS10 to DC switching (instead of 12V), the signal from the amplifier is enough to turn the sub on and off, and there's no need to use the cigarette lighter or hook anything else up there.

Then for the power - the car battery is right there. The Kicker comes with a short red wire with a fuse that needs to be near the battery, so put the ring terminal on that and connect it to the screw terminal Lexus put on top of the battery already (you'll need an M8-1.25 nut), then connect the other end of the short red wire to the red wire on the Kicker harness (I cut that shorter, but you don't need to):




Then the same for the Kicker harness black power wire to the negative terminal of the battery:



All done! If I need to reverse things, I take two nuts off the battery; I unclip the Metra connector and hook the connector from the amp back up to the old sub, and I'm done. Again, I didn't use any other power source for the switching on/off of the sub, and I didn't use the additional bass control **** that came with the sub. It's all under the floor deck and invisible.

tbartman67

Oh, and for those doing it my way, if you look at the photo with his switch settings - I have the Auto Turn On set to DC not 12V so the signal on the speaker wires switches the sub on and off, and the Input Level to Hi since I'm using the speaker wires that were running back there. Like him, the Gain can be set fairly low (I think I have mine exactly where his is, at about 1/3rd).

tbartman67

As to your other question, the corner dash upgrade was very simple and made a big difference in the "presence" of the music. Unfortunately, the hole placement is off - the distance on the car is about 3/4" wider than on most replacement speakers, so you'll have to jury rig something. What I did (I know, I know, I'm going to hear it from y'all) is once I attached one side of the new speaker and tightened that screw down, the speaker was pretty firmly in place even though the other end was 3/4" from where you could screw it in, so I just used a zip tie pulled real taught to stop the other end of the speaker from bouncing up and down. That's how I bridged the gap. I guess if you wanted to be better, you'd find a piece of metal with holes the right distance apart and use that to bridge the distance. But it's such a short distance, and it was barely moving with nothing there at all, I figured the zip tie was enough to support the free end.

You'll need another pair of the proper Metra harness to make it plug-and-play - no cutting or stripping of wires needed once you have those.

I think I still have the surround option on! Actually never thought to play with that!

Skell6009

I bought the Infinity Reference REF-3032CFX speakers for now since it looks easy enough for me to install.

My issue with the Kicker 46HS10 is that I don't want it visible like how you installed yours. I also have a spare tire in my storage compartment so I have no where to conceal it really. I'm not really an audiophile so I'd also prefer the cheaper bang for the buck option if a simple amp would be enough for the stock subwoofer.

ManOnFire

@Skell6009 Yeah, it's all personal preference. You could always use the factory flimsy rear trunk privacy cover (whatever you call it) if you are worried about visibility from the outside of vehicle. I've had an external amp and 12-inch box in a previous car, if the Kicker 46HS10 or even 8-inch model could fit under a passenger seat, that would have been ideal. Neither fit.

ManOnFire

@tbartman67, if those use cases are something you are worried about, I think your install location was a great choice. Certainly made the installation more DIY. My household will never use the NX450h+ in that way.

A couple of reasons for my location choice -
1: I wanted to stay as far away from the hybrid battery pack as possible due to a message as I read on some forum site about the battery system being sensitive to magnetic interference. Just being overly cautious since modern vehicles + PHEVs are expensive and potentially very sensitive. You're going to laugh, but based on my DD before doing the install, I ordered Shielding Fabric-Block , but ended up not using it as I felt my location was fine.
2: I wanted to minimize any restriction on the woofer being able to move. With the factory sub being under the floor, I wanted to install the Kicker in a polar opposite way. (The factory sub being sealed probably didn't help its performance either.)

None of the above is scientific, was just trying to mitigate any potential problems.

ManOnFire

By both, you can return the one that doesn't work. Sometimes Crutchfield will refund you without return for smaller cost items.

jri

[QUOTE=AtomicLexus;11553741

"The hard part is if you want it non-destructive to the factory wire harnesses, the connector going into the factory subwoofer is nearly unavailable. I got mine from Alliexpress. You need special crimp tool to assemble it."

Atomic Lexus, any search tips to find the male connector on Ali Express? I've been trying to find it but it is like a needle in a haystack.

I am going to mimic your approach and amplify the factory sub.

Thanks again,

JR

ManOnFire

[QUOTE=jri;11562498][QUOTE=AtomicLexus;11553741

"The hard part is if you want it non-destructive to the factory wire harnesses, the connector going into the factory subwoofer is nearly unavailable. I got mine from Alliexpress. You need special crimp tool to assemble it."

Atomic Lexus, any search tips to find the male connector on Ali Express? I've been trying to find it but it is like a needle in a haystack.

I am going to mimic your approach and amplify the factory sub.

Thanks again,

JR[/QUOTE]

It was either this https://www.crutchfield.com/p_120728...-Adapters.html or https://www.crutchfield.com/p_120727...-Adapters.html that connected directly to the factory sub harness. I'm pretty sure it was the black one.

AtomicLexus

The side dash grills do not pry up easily for the A pillar cover goes over them. To change just the dash speakers, I wouldn't bother with the battery, but it never hurts to get into good habits and disconnect the + wire from the battery. It won't hurt, but remember you will not be working with anything that has power for the dash speakers. Note that Crutchfield is absolutely wrong on the connectors for the dash speakers. Good thing you ordered the correct ones. The rest of the installation is very easy. Do one side, and listen to the difference. It is absolutely amazing how bad the Lexus "Premium" sound is. The sub is an easy fix once you get the correct connectors. Others just buy a new underseat style sub (that will sound good too), but that is not necessary. Especially if you have a 250 or 350 that has the battery under the hood and need to run the power wire all the way upfront. With the 350h and 450h it is easy with the battery already there. But you do lose storage space.

As for the door speakers, don't expect too much improvement. When I tested them, they performed quite well, and paper cones tend to have smoother mid bass too. Personally, unless you are adding a higher power amp, the advantage is minimal. Rear door speakers can hardly be heard, again not worth the effort. The sub, however will render amazing benefit.

If you do change the door speakers, complete one side and compare with your balance control, I would be curious as to the improvement. In prior installs, with the low power factory amp, replacing the door speakers tends to reduce the low bass and improve on everything else. When a stronger amp is added, it helps everything. The factory speakers are generally paper cones and higher efficiency. If the sub fix (or a new one added) is in the plan, the door speakers will likely provide a more noticeable benefit since any lows lost are regained. In general, if I'm not adding power to the doors, I leave the factory units there. Also the install for door speakers is not simple and often requires modifications for the factory goes to great length to never use standard sizes or bolt patterns or clearance. On a past Mercedes where the factory speaker blew out, it was quite the challenge to fabricate a support system for a Hertz brand low profile speaker to fit where the inverted ~8" Mercedes one was. It did have a better quality sound, but like every other installation of door speakers, the bass response declines. Food for thought.

The dash speaker connectors are plug and play. Very simple. Colors don't matter for the connectors only go one way.

AtomicLexus

This is the impossible to find connector WITH the pigtail wires, no crimp tool required! This should save everyone many hours.
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/22558...yAdapt=glo2usa
Search for "2 Pin male female 12808 Auto alto horn plug,2P JBL Mid-range speaker plug connector with wire for Toyota"

AtomicLexus

And since I am at it, if you use the $50 sub amp from Fosi that I noted, it needs an impossible to find 5.5 x 2.5 cable. This is the ONLY one I was able to find. I kept ordering others and they lied, all were the 5.5 x 2.1 that will not fit.

Amazon GINTOOYUN 2 Pack DC Power Pigtails Cable, DC 5.5mm x 2.5mm Male Plug Jack to Bare Wire Open End Power Supply Replacement Repair Cord, for Security Camera,LED Strip Light,DVR 3FT (black-1m)

AtomicLexus

Box design (sealed, ported, transmission lines, 3rd order networks...) for subs are engineered to their mechanical and electrical properties to achieve a specific frequency curve and f3 (lowest note at 3db down), and one is not necessarily better than another. In general, sealed boxes reproduce the best sound, but usually require large boxes. They also tend to produce less output, hence the addition of tuned ports to reinforce the lower frequencies. There are excellent box plot programs to design them, but you need the specs of the driver.

With the Lexus sub, it is clearly a lack of power in the correct frequency range that it is purposely underperforming. Adding the amp make it be all it can be, yet a separate properly designed sub may be better, the lexus sub is already there for your enjoyment and takes up no extra space. It really has nothing to do with sealed or not.

tundotcom

Thanks for these links. So female, 2 pcs. Does the wire length matter, or is 10cm sufficient? There's options for 10, 15 and 20cm.


Can you also provide links for the line level convertor?