Upgrading The Sound In My Truck

This is my truck:

After my dad passed away in 2014, my mom had no use for a second vehicle - let alone a pickup truck. So, she sold it to me.

Prior to getting the truck, I never thought that I would find use for it. As it turns out, it has come in VERY handy on more than one occasion, for a multitude of projects around the house. 

You may recall a couple of years ago I upgraded the factory stereo to something more desirable (to me): 

I don’t drive the truck everyday, but the Wife and I drive separately to work at least once each week - and on those days I take the truck. This provides me about 90 minutes of time in the cab (45 minutes to- and 45 minutes from work), and the factory stereo is really sub-par. So recently I decided that I was going to upgrade to a nicer head unit (with the future possibility of making an upgrade to nicer speakers).

I picked out a new Pioneer FH-S501BT head unit because it was reasonably priced, and had Bluetooth capability (one major criterion for me was the ability to connect my phone to listen to music on my commute).

Welp, here we are two years later and I up-and-decided that it was time to upgrade the speakers. 

But, to get you up-to-speed, I need to give you my history with car audio...

When I was a junior in high school a friend of mine named Danny bought a used, two-door Jeep Cherokee. It was awesome. Shortly after purchasing the Jeep, he got his hands on an Alpine CD player deck, and installed two 12-inch subwoofers in the hatchback area (something that looked a bit like this). One day he picked me and a couple of other friends up in his Jeep to show off his new ride - and sound system. I got to sit in the back seat and feel the speakers shake my insides. 

And shake my insides they did. I was never the same after that ride. I became obsessed with the feeling of earth-shaking basslines. 

Also, for the record, I should have probably worn earplugs because Danny liked to pump up the volume!

Fast forward about three years to when I was in college. The summer between my sophomore and junior years I paid $280 at auction for a 1988 Dodge Caravan. The van was used for deliveries to and from a local hospital and had 130,000 miles on it. I wish I had a picture of it, but I don't. A quick Google search turned this up:

...and that's exactly what my van looked like. No rear windows. It was epic. (If not shady-looking!)

More epic was the stereo that I installed. I purchased a Sony CD player head unit and, taking a cue from High School Danny, I added two 12-inch MTX subwoofers in a bandpass box. For the remainder of my college years, you could hear my van coming a mile away. I was able to shake the windows of houses as I drove by. In fact, the vibrations were so heavy that one day while I was driving the rearview mirror fell off of my windshield. The glue that held it to the glass was no match for the bass.

After graduation from college I had to "become an adult". I got a job and got married. The van was sold, and the stereo along with it. Years went by and so did the cars. A Volkswagen Jetta. A Scion xB. Another Dodge Caravan - but this time with kids in the back instead of speakers. Most recently, a couple of Hondas. But none of them could compare to the joy I felt driving around and thumping the eardrums of any passers-by.

Now I'm in my mid-40s. My kids are both in high school (and one is a driver now!) and I no longer have to tote babies around in carseats (or worry about their young eardrums). 

Since the pandemic hit I have been looking for little projects to work on because we're spending so much time at home. One day it hit me: finish the upgrade to the audio in the truck!

A scouring of Amazon brought a LOT of results. I was looking for something that would hit hard enough with sound, but not hit my wallet too hard.

I landed on this:
 

This is a Rockville Audio 12-inch subwoofer in a sealed box with an integrated 1,500 watt amplifier. In addition to the speaker/amp combination, the kit I purchased also included all of the associated wires and fuses for installation. I got the whole set-up for under $150. Not too shabby. 

So, that was the easy part. Next up: installation.

Back in the heady days of my creepy white van, I was a dude that had no idea what he was doing with car audio equipment. I based my installation know-how on stuff that I had heard from friends.

This time around, things were a bit different. We. Have. The. Internet. And it is the real star of the project.

First up, make space for the speaker box. I searched for a speaker set that would be "slim" enough to fit behind the seats of my truck, as there isn't a lot of room in the cabin. To start, I removed the driver's seat:

Next up: power.

The 1,500 watt amplifier needs power from the vehicle battery, so that's where I started. I ran power wire from the battery, across the engine compartment then through the truck's firewall into the cabin:

   

Once in the cabin, the power wire then runs along the passenger side of the truck (underneath some trim beneath the seat), and into the area behind the seats where I placed the speaker: 

 

Once I got the power wire and fuse (that little clear plastic thing on the floor) connected, I pulled the stereo out of the dash and ran the speaker wire. Behind the dash then down the driver's side of the truck, to connect to the speaker/amp behind the seats.

(sorry - I didn't get a good picture of running the speaker wires)

Last, I ran the ground wire and connected it to a bolt that holds down the driver's seat (as I put that seat back into the truck). That's the grey wire in the foreground:

After the seat was back in the cab, I put everything back into place. And then I rested.

So, all said and done, the 12-inch speaker sits right between the two seats. And boy does it hit. One of these days I'll post a video to show it off (even though the camera on my iPhone likely won't do it justice).

Next up in the list of COVID-19 quarantine projects: my basement renovation. More to come....