Kicker speaker replacement - any good?

Anyone tried these?

Looks pretty good and comes with the required hardware. Just curious how the sound quality improved.
The seller says overall very positive feedback.

https://trailgridpro.com/products/kicker-8-speaker-4runner/

 

I don’t have that system. But I do have kicker 6x9’s in the front doors and had all kicker on my last Tacoma. I have been pretty happy with it. Not a huge difference I don’t think till you add an amp with a Digital Sound Processor. Like the kicker key 200.4. This will tune the sound for the 4runner cabin space with an included mic. Cheers.

 

Well that's an interesting amp. Would you know if I could splice it in between the OEM JBL amp and speakers? Would I be able to get 2 of them to work together? I could do front tweeters and front doors on one, and back doors and liftgate on the 2nd one.

 

not sure about the JBL system as I don’t have it. My plan is to just worry about the front sound stage, as that is where you will be sitting. I think putting in a second kicker key might be a waste. But someone can correct me if I’m wrong.

 

I'm happy with my infinity reference upgrades. The component woofers on the front doors give plenty of bass

 

which infinity speakers and are they running off the of the OEM amp?

 

I started with the popular dash upgrade

Infinity Reference 3032cf 3.5-Inch, 75-watt High Performance Two-Way Loudspeaker (Pair) https://a.co/d/6NUQWf4

Then, added these 6x9 components for the front doors (I just used the woofers with the crossover and sold the tweeters)

Infinity Reference 9630C- 6 x 9 Two-way component system w/crossover (Renewed) https://a.co/d/hxZLxDx

Lastly I added the Alpine power pack behind the stock head unit ktp-445u or ktp-600 from the Japanese market. I'm happy with the sound and done with the audio upgrades (no subwoofer needed for my needs).

 

Could you tell me some more about the crossover and power pack? How are they wired? Have to run new wiring from the battery? Did you need brackets for the 6x9's?

 

Front speakers will provide the best sound upgrade in the 4R. I would delve a little deeper and find a better speaker for the fronts like Alpine R/X series. But stereo quality is only as good as the weakest component so just a speaker upgrade will only do so much.

The problem with these 4R's is the head unit and amp just don't cut it. So I went with a 600 watt 6 channel Alpine amp and 8 Alpine X/R series speakers with a Kenwood DMX head unit. Sounds fantastic and I don't even need a Sub.

 

Crossover came with the infinity 6x9's. I ran the power from the original speaker cable in the door through the low frequency port of the crossover and to the infinity speakers. I didn't use the high frequency part of the crossover and I sold the tweeters from the kit. Bass is great on the 6x9. The brackets are linked below along with other useful info on my project.

For the power pack, it fits behind the headunit so everything looks OEM. I ended up tapping power from the fusebox under the steering wheel using an add a fuse from Amazon. The power is more than enough for this setup even with all the windows down going fast it blasts clean.

https://www.reddit.com/r/4Runner/comments/ugrkzd/weekend_audio_upgrade_project

 

From an audio enthusiast standpoint, and Ill keep it simple and general...
Speakers alone will improve the sound quality of any vehicle. With that being said, you are limited by the quality of the audio input to those speakers (your audio source) and the power it provides.
Usually, a speaker upgrade will make a factory radio sound fairly good, call it a 4 out of 10 with a speaker replacement bumping it up to say a 5-6.
Adding a better head unit (radio unit) can yield another improvement as you can have more adjustability of the audio and power output. 6-7 out of 10.
This is where a majority of people are happy and leave it. At this point, you are probably at a total price of anywhere between $300 and $1000, maybe more depending on what you buy.
When you start to add more power from amplifiers and better/ finer signal processing, you get to increase the sound/ audio quality even more. 8 out of 10 possibly even 9.
To reach that 10 out of 10, will cost a whole lot more time and money. Now you are working with repositioning speakers to get better dynamics, sound deadening to enhance or cancel noises, multiple amps/ processors and adding more speakers like subs in custom enclosures. Think competition/ demo vehicles purposely built to show off a companies equipment. We are talkin big bucks!

You can go buy a $50 pair of Sony Xplode 6x9's put them in your doors and be perfectly happy. Or you can do a $400 pair of Focal 6x9 components, put the tweeter in the dash location, 6x9 in the door and be equally as happy.
But ask yourself, what is your end goal and what is your budget???

 

Thanks!

 

They're definitely an upgrade from the super muddy, depth-lacking sound of the stock speakers. The weight and construction difference is significant between the two. I'll fall in alignment with DIRTRCR13 by adding an upgraded head unit at some point and should be happy. It's better with just the kicker replacements (and easy install), but I need a little more depth and I need more control of the EQ than what the stock '23 head unit provides.

 

I think the Kicker's are probably excellent speakers. The issue I had with the TrailGridPro package was this: you can buy all of these speakers on Crutchfield (not the cheapest source, but they have excellent customer service and provide you with all of the necessary Metra plates and wire harness adapters free of charge plus lifetime support). You can basically buy this whole package yourself and save $100 to $130. So, you are paying $130 for them to solder the tweeter capacitors inline and the Metra harness adapters. You can do this with crimp connectors if necessary (not the best option, but it will work if you don't want to solder). I see nothing in the package that is a "value add" aside from the soldering. You could bring these to a audio shop and they could do this for far less.

From what I can see, they are just packaging it up for you. Further belaboring the point, Kicker provides adapter plates with both the 6"x9" and the 6.5" kits which should be fine, but Crutchfield will provide others anyway.

 

I actually bought this kit from Trail Grid Pro back in September, 2022. It makes a night and day difference! I didn't want to change out the head unit but with upgrading all 8 speakers, it brought the music to life. I highly recommend it, especially seeing how cheap the factory speakers are. I bought the kit from them because it already came ready to install. At the time I bought them, I really didn't have too much time to mess with putting it all together, and I'm all for supporting small business!

Cheers,

Sean

 

Glad they sound good. The point was that most consumers that are cable of soldering a 16 gauge speaker wire to a capacitor and sliding heat shrink over it and hitting it with a heat gun, can save ~$100 buying from Crutchfield (one 48KSS269 6"x9" and a 2-3/4" for $230 and two 47KSC6504 6.5" coaxials at $130 ea.). For $490 you get all the speakers, with adapter plates. For $10-$15 more, you get all of the wire harness adapters. You can shop around and save even more buying from discount audio retailers on eBay and the like vs Crutchfeld.

I for one was highly disappointed that TrailGridPro was basically trying to package up a bundle and offer no discount or anything of value after they allegedly "partnered" with Kicker. Really seemed sleezy. I'd much rather buy the components from Crutchfield, which has amazing customer service (lifetime service, I might add), save money than from TrailGridPro which offers essentially no value add for an additional $100 price.

 

I did the Kicker upgrade and like it, but I want to add the Alpine power pack but my 2012 radio fuse is 10 amp. Sounds like it should be 15, per Crutchfield. Did you install it on the 10 amp line? No problem?
Thanks

 

I happened to buy the same renewed REF-9630CX 6x9 component set, and installed them "normally". The cheapest 4r tweeter adapters fit the eyeball mounts perfectly, so with a little dremeling of the grilles I was able to aim them away from the windshield somewhat. Took apart the (also cheapest) dash speaker wiring harness adapters to route the signal through the infinity xover then back to the mids, which I stuffed under the tweeters. Used the -3db setting, these guys are really bright!

6x9s went in the factory spot perfectly with the usual ring and harness adapters. Added silicone weather baffles and killmat for good measure.

For under $200 all in this was a drastic improvement in overall sound quality, and by preserving the cone area there was a good amount of bass.

I'll have to listen to a 4r with good coaxials in the dash someday for comparison, but I like the simplicity of my setup. Of course I've added an amp and the efficiency of these components with low power is now sort of pointless.