Stereo upgrade is finally done

[The_Sko]

Great post on your truck audio build. I currently have a 2022 trx in my shop and running into a traffic jam. I notice your vtwelve amp has an optical cable plugged into the bottom. Any idea what interface was used to provide that optical out from the factory audio system to go into that amp? Thanks

Hi Dave, that's a good question and one I don't specifically know the answer to. My installer has the link to this thread and I let him know you all have a question for him, I'll get his email for you and PM it to you for a faster response.

 

[FlameTRXboss22]

Knob On. View attachment 41910

Now that it's all installed here are some obligatory pics of the tuning process, though I won't say these were the final tunes just used to illustrate its capabilities is all.
View attachment 41911
View attachment 41912


That's about it. I would show you finished pics but you would be looking at just what appears to be another stock TRX.

I will say the sound is amazing. We were playing around in there and at higher volumes where I was literally yelling at Mike in the passenger seat, with him totally unable to hear me, it NEVER got loud to the ear with any screeching, piercing, or any unpleasantries. With room to go higher. The bass matched very well to the rest of the system with plenty of bottom end to bounce my phone all over the place sitting on the center console at half knob on the bass control.

My musical preferences are all over the map, Tool, 2Pac, Price, country (the wife's choice but growing on it), you name it. Mike not only did the tuning of the system to balance the speaker roll from one to another but the timing of the sound to hit the driver perfectly. Where you move your head around and it sounds "different" because it was designed that way. I had him create two profiles, a driver and a passenger seat tune. While damn good with a driver tune, the passenger can really appreciate it with a quick change and really see how good it can be with timing tuned for their positioning. They go "oh wow, that's way better" and can fully appreciate what this setup can do.

Long and short I figured a truck of this cost should have something as matching inside of it. And yes I will be mashing this beast all over the hills in Montana on all my hunts scaring the piss out of all the local critters who aren't on the menu that day.

Hope you all enjoyed it, I'm off to a deserved beer after all that typing.

Sweet setup!! I’m assuming that bass knob came included with the helix amp? Looks pretty cool and I’ve had my share of bass knobs

 

[ronnie]

Great write up. Displayed so we know exactly what happened. Thank you for taking the time.

 

[RedEyeTRX]

WOW! You can tell the caliber of the install shop by them washing, drying and protecto wrapping your truck before working on it.
That is a first class installation and I bet money they also work on Ferraris, Bentleys, Lambos, etc!
Now that you have a rolling concert hall, WHAT will you do next!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[The_Sko]

Sweet setup!! I’m assuming that bass knob came included with the helix amp? Looks pretty cool and I’ve had my share of bass knobs

It's a multipurpose knob, but I use it mainly for the bass control (the red dial you saw) and if you push it in that changes the profile I spoke about from driver to passenger timing on the speakers. Think where all the music converges on a single spot in the cab to produce perfect timing, vs. a "normal radio" that just slams music off of the interior with no regard. This sensation is noticed by one side of the vehicle being louder than the other side. In mine, both sides are even, then you add in the true center channel and it's a work of art.

 

[The_Sko]

Great write up. Displayed so we know exactly what happened. Thank you for taking the time.

My pleasure

 

[The_Sko]

WOW! You can tell the caliber of the install shop by them washing, drying and protecto wrapping your truck before working on it.
That is a first class installation and I bet money they also work on Ferraris, Bentleys, Lambos, etc!
Now that you have a rolling concert hall, WHAT will you do next!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well we are in Montana still and frankly, I haven't seen a lot of those vehicles rolling around but if they are going anywhere, they are coming to my man Mike @ Rudy's!

Funny side note, I was thinking about getting a custom license plate and my good friend told me to get "MTLAMBO" which made me chuckle a bit, still debating it.

You asked what's next, here's what is next. The pursuit of the highest quality of music to play in the theater I had built. Sure you can plug in your iPhone, listen to satellite radio or pop on your favorite radio station, but all pretty limited and compressed. Cutting off a large amount of the true audio frequencies available and capped by bandwidth constraints that lossless audio contains.

We have a few ways to insert audio into our head units, Bluetooth, 3.5' audio port, or USB/lightning. Bluetooth being the lowest bandwidth of them all and USB providing the highest.

Now being a person who likes convenient things I wanted the best quality in the simplest form. This left two routes, copy my data to a USB stick and leave it plugged in or find something on the iPhone and plug it in via the lightning->USB cable. I chose the latter and enter Tidal Master audio. This provides some pretty high-quality audio and a massive library to choose from that I can rent, download on my phone and enjoy deep in the woods out of cell range.

For those curious about what I mean by quality please read this article, it does a great job of breaking down the details and those differences. And for those who REALLY want to go down the rabbit hole read this. And lastly, if you want some tech specs this is another great read.

The long and short of this is you need something externally to get full fidelity. The iPhone, though convenient, is very delimiting in the quality if used in its native form. More details here.

Tidal + MQA + iPhone = 24/96? No, sir.
Tidal + MQA + iPhone + external DAC = 24/96 (and beyond). Yessir.

With all that now read, and I'm sure I have put a few of you to sleep now, I went ahead and order this external DAC. $110 in what should give me the BEST quality available, short of coping music to a USB drive, and still give me a library of millions of songs to choose from. Now I can make a playlist, download it to the phone and enjoy it without lag at maximum quality.

 

[marksouth]

Great write-up and pics!

 

[The_Sko]

Why our phones cheat us of our audio quality. https://www.zorloo.com/kb

 

[Billet P]

Everything looks SO clean! I’ve been thinking about sound deadening- but I’m super nervous about ripping the truck apart like that! I hate breaking plastic clips and stuff. Nothing ever seems to go back the same, but it looks like they knew what they were doing. Looks very nice. Jelly.

Same!

 

[Billet P]

Definitely have to subscribe to this thread. Definitely a goal of mines to get something like this done later down the road.

 

[The_Sko]

Not for nothing the sound deadening alone was worth it even without the stereo upgrades.

 

[ekim33]

Not for nothing the sound deadening alone was worth it even without the stereo upgrades.

I agree with you 100% on this point. The sound deadening I installed was a stereo upgrade by itself. I didn't go as far as you did with equipment and quality, but am very happy with results. I would guess I added about 50 lbs. to mine after all was said and done with audio and sound deadening. It felt like a tank before, now it feels like a tank with a better stereo and armor plating 1/4" thicker than before.

 

[naamanf]

Well we are in Montana still and frankly, I haven't seen a lot of those vehicles rolling around but if they are going anywhere, they are coming to my man Mike @ Rudy's!

Funny side note, I was thinking about getting a custom license plate and my good friend told me to get "MTLAMBO" which made me chuckle a bit, still debating it.

You asked what's next, here's what is next. The pursuit of the highest quality of music to play in the theater I had built. Sure you can plug in your iPhone, listen to satellite radio or pop on your favorite radio station, but all pretty limited and compressed. Cutting off a large amount of the true audio frequencies available and capped by bandwidth constraints that lossless audio contains.

We have a few ways to insert audio into our head units, Bluetooth, 3.5' audio port, or USB/lightning. Bluetooth being the lowest bandwidth of them all and USB providing the highest.

Now being a person who likes convenient things I wanted the best quality in the simplest form. This left two routes, copy my data to a USB stick and leave it plugged in or find something on the iPhone and plug it in via the lightning->USB cable. I chose the latter and enter Tidal Master audio. This provides some pretty high-quality audio and a massive library to choose from that I can rent, download on my phone and enjoy deep in the woods out of cell range.

For those curious about what I mean by quality please read this article, it does a great job of breaking down the details and those differences. And for those who REALLY want to go down the rabbit hole read this. And lastly, if you want some tech specs this is another great read.

The long and short of this is you need something externally to get full fidelity. The iPhone, though convenient, is very delimiting in the quality if used in its native form. More details here.

Tidal + MQA + iPhone = 24/96? No, sir.
Tidal + MQA + iPhone + external DAC = 24/96 (and beyond). Yessir.

With all that now read, and I'm sure I have put a few of you to sleep now, I went ahead and order this external DAC. $110 in what should give me the BEST quality available, short of coping music to a USB drive, and still give me a library of millions of songs to choose from. Now I can make a playlist, download it to the phone and enjoy it without lag at maximum quality.

Why use lossy MQA when Apple Music and Qobuz offer lossless ALAC/FLAC? Toslink direct into the DSP would also be the better route IMHO eliminating two conversions, the D/A in the dongle and the A/D in the DSP. If you will hear difference is debatable but if the goal is to get the best signal to the DSP it should provide some food for thought.

 

[Nitro]

Wow, that's quite the setup! Excellent write up and thank you for taking the time to post the photos along with it.

I just featured it on the front page as well

 

[BeeFlan]

Great post on your truck audio build. I currently have a 2022 trx in my shop and running into a traffic jam. I notice your vtwelve amp has an optical cable plugged into the bottom. Any idea what interface was used to provide that optical out from the factory audio system to go into that amp? Thanks

I don’t know specifically what he used but I have the Pac Audio unit in my 22’. On the 22’ all they changed was the plugs on the headunit, so I got the wiring diagram from PAC and just hardwired (soldered) the unit behind the factory headunit. Running a toslink to my amp.

 

[BeeFlan]

The_Sko, very nice install my friend. I am loving my Helix amp/dsp as well. They sound so good!

Enjoy the new tunes!

 

[wheresthebees]

Knob On. View attachment 41910

Now that it's all installed here are some obligatory pics of the tuning process, though I won't say these were the final tunes just used to illustrate its capabilities is all.
View attachment 41911
View attachment 41912


That's about it. I would show you finished pics but you would be looking at just what appears to be another stock TRX.

I will say the sound is amazing. We were playing around in there and at higher volumes where I was literally yelling at Mike in the passenger seat, with him totally unable to hear me, it NEVER got loud to the ear with any screeching, piercing, or any unpleasantries. With room to go higher. The bass matched very well to the rest of the system with plenty of bottom end to bounce my phone all over the place sitting on the center console at half knob on the bass control.

My musical preferences are all over the map, Tool, 2Pac, Price, country (the wife's choice but growing on it), you name it. Mike not only did the tuning of the system to balance the speaker roll from one to another but the timing of the sound to hit the driver perfectly. Where you move your head around and it sounds "different" because it was designed that way. I had him create two profiles, a driver and a passenger seat tune. While damn good with a driver tune, the passenger can really appreciate it with a quick change and really see how good it can be with timing tuned for their positioning. They go "oh wow, that's way better" and can fully appreciate what this setup can do.

Long and short I figured a truck of this cost should have something as matching inside of it. And yes I will be mashing this beast all over the hills in Montana on all my hunts scaring the piss out of all the local critters who aren't on the menu that day.

Hope you all enjoyed it, I'm off to a deserved beer after all that typing.

Nicely detailed and great to see it come together

 

[04Ram2500Hemi]

I really appreciate the pictures and write up. I’ve been thinking about some sound deadening to help with the exhaust drone when cruising around 80mph. While I don’t have any intent on a full audio upgrade, the sound deadening you have shown gives me some thoughts. I live in Missoula so it’s not like getting to Kalispell would be a challenge.

 

[The_Sko]

Why use lossy MQA when Apple Music and Qobuz offer lossless ALAC/FLAC? Toslink direct into the DSP would also be the better route IMHO eliminating two conversions, the D/A in the dongle and the A/D in the DSP. If you will hear difference is debatable but if the goal is to get the best signal to the DSP it should provide some food for thought.

Interesting idea, not sure how I would get that to be controlled by the head unit at that point without adding an external device of some sorts? Could you elaborate on how that would be fully set up.

My thought in going this route, if you recall, was to keep it simple aka. powered by my phone, and provide the best audio from that device. I always have the option of pulling in a USB drive but goes against point #1.

Thanks Naamanf, look forward to hearing more about this.