AUDIO
What the Truck?
By Brett Solomon
Posted on Aug 1, 2004

Trucks are the bread and butter of American society. Eighties cheese band Starship was wrong — we built this city on trucks, not rock and roll! On a basis of sales figures, forget about sport compacts — trucks and SUVs count for well over half of the vehicles sold today. And, lets face it, it can be argued that the Minitruck scene started the notion of personalizing import vehicles — little guys like the Isuzu Pup and the Subaru BRAT were some of the first heavily-modified imports with respect to ride height and audio systems. Lower and louder truckin’ — it’s the American way!

One truck has always been famous as a solid first ride — Chevy’s good ol’ S10. We’ve seen them rolling out of GM’s factory as the S10, the Sonoma, and we’ve watched it evolve into SUVs such as the Blazer and the Jimmy. Yeah, the Chevy Colorado has finally arrived as a replacement, but we’ll be modifying iterations of the S10 for years to come. The question is — how do we make them sound good? I have a Blazer, so let me fill you guys in on some of the tips I’ve discovered.
The head unit is typically a standard DIN-and-a-half; look for dash kits that have flush-mounted radio surrounds so the head unit sits recessed in the dash for a clean install. I took it a step further and created a custom dash kit make out of smoked Plexiglas. It’s not terribly difficult — it just takes a good set of precision files and patience.

Getting back to sound, the standard S10 has accommodations for 6-inch woofers in the doors and 4-inc speakers in the dashboard. I experimented with a TON of different speaker and mounting configurations, but I settled on a 6-inch midbass woofer in each door with 4-inch coaxial speakers in the dash locations with the speakers mounted inboard, almost aiming toward the rear view mirror. With careful attention to tweeter-midrange position in the dash, you can get AWESOME imaging and KILLER sound. I’m using MB Quart RSC 110 4-inch coaxials in the dash with MB Quart RWC 160 6-inch midbass drivers in the doors (not that I’m endorsing any speaker over another). This set-up provides great sound quality without having to heavily modify the factory locations or to fabricate kick panel enclosures.

In the Blazer, the SUV configuration left me with many options for subbass. For fun, I used 6 JL Audio 8W6 subwoofers for the cool look of six individual drivers in the trunk. However, in a pickup truck environment, it can be very difficult to get great bass without being able to localize it. In other words, if you mount the subwoofer right behind your ass you’ll probably be able to hear the mechanical noises of the subwoofer or feel the vibrations of the subwoofer, pulling the sonic image to the rear of the cab. The best thing to do is to make sure you’re using a low-distortion subwoofer set-up with a steep and low crossover point to minimize the effect of localizing the bass. If you’re after volume, then the sky is the limit in a pickup truck. Some of the craziest systems that I’ve ever experienced in a pickup involved bandpass boxes mounted in the bed that vented into the cab. Although it takes a lot of balls to take a Sawzall to the sheetmetal of your truck, it certainly can result in badass bass results!

Even though the S10 Blazer had dashboard locations that can work with proper aiming of the speakers, other trucks may not have good speaker locations. For example, in the Dodge Dakota/Durango, the OEM Infinity system features tweeters located right in front of the stock door handle. In any experimenting with the Dakota system, the tweeter location just sounded too ‘hot’ and pulled the image to your side of the vehicle instead of the center. I got much better results going with a coaxial in the stock location in the lower door. Just because the factory gave you a place to mount a speaker doesn’t mean that you have to stick one there...

OK Ford fans, we all know the Ranger is one of the most popular pickups, and the dash layout is very similar to early Explorers. We asked Matt Turner, one of the top installers at HiFi Buys and the installer for Josh Nixon’s Acura highlighted in last month’s Car Sound & Performance, about his pickup system preferences — living in Georgia, Turner has seen his share of Rangers.

“I’m personally really into sound quality over sound quantity, so this is what I would actually use if I had a Ranger,” he explains. “First off, the factory head unit is easily replaceable with an aftermarket DIN unit using a standard Metra or American International kit and harness, so no big deal on installation there. I would choose an Eclipse CD8454 for its ease of use, clean and simple design, outstanding sound quality, and nice features for a reasonable price. This unit has three 8-volt preouts (front, rear, and sub) with auxiliary input capability (for an iPod or other portable audio device), no audible sound coloration, a multi-band parametric EQ, and (my favorite) time alignment, all built-in for superb audio output and a high degree of flexibility. This unit reads MP3-encoded discs as well as audio files stored on a memory stick, which is really cool.”

Turner continues: “For front speakers, I would use MB Quart PCE-216 2-way 6.5-inch components in the front doors and eliminate the rear speakers entirely — you just don’t need them in a pickup. I would install these speakers in the front doors where the factory 5- x 7-inch speakers normally reside. The installation would involve making a plate to mount the 6.5-inch in the 5- x 7-inch location, and I’d recommend at least enough sound-deadening material to dampen the sheet metal directly surrounding the midbass driver. As long as the ‘Quart midbass is properly sealed front-to-back, it will sound awesome in the doors of a Ranger. I would mount the tweeters that come with the set high in the door or on the side mirror backing trim to raise the soundstage — this seems to work well in the Ranger. By using the time alignment controls on the head unit, this speaker setup should be able to create a perfectly centered image on top of the dash.”

“For an amplifier,” Turner adds, “I would use a JL Audio300/4, which puts out 75 watts x 4 at four ohms. This system would be set up so that the two front channels of this four-channel amp would run the PCE-216s at 4-ohm stereo, giving them 75 watts per set. The rear two channels of the amp would go to the sub. I would mount the amp beside the sub enclosure (behind the driver’s seat) in the regular cab and where the driver’s-side jumpseat is located in the extended cab. I would remove the stock jump seat and build a panel to flush the amp into this area.”

Finally, Turner offers some insight for subbass in regards to both a regular cab Ranger and an extended cab design. “I would choose a JL 8w3V2-D6 for the regular cab (due to space issues) and locate it behind the passenger seat in a sealed enclosure. For the extended cab, I would use a JL 10w3V2-D6 and build a sealed enclosure for it into the spot where the passenger jump seat used to reside. These woofers will work in nearly any sealed enclosure you can fit the woofer into. The whole shebang should go for around $2000 and sound great.”