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Complete novice here. I'm not going to be installing any of this myself, but wanted advice about speaker placement, etc..

I've got an Avalon Hybrid XLE Premium with 9 speakers (stock) and stock headunit.

My primary goal is super clean sound. I don't prioritize extremely high volumes or bass that makes you see double, as I am old now lol.

According to another forum, these are the specs of the stock system:

Three 3" speakers in the dash
Front Doors have a 6.5" speaker in a 6x9 bracket running at 2ohms from the small amp under the driver's seat
Rear Doors have a 3" speaker in each door
Rear Shelf has two 6.5 speakers in a 6x9 bracket running at 2ohms from the small amp under the driver's seat
So all the small 3" speakers are powered off the head unit and the front door and rear shelf are ran from the amp
all the 3" speakers are 4ohm and the 6.5 are 2ohm.

So far, I plan to get:
Apple Carplay compatible head unit
Morel Virtus 6.5 components in front
A DSP/DSP amp combo of some sort to replace my existing stock amp
6x9 coax speakers in the rear


The rest is what I'm struggling with.

1. Can I mount the tweeters from the front components in the left and right dash speaker holes?
If so, do I disconnect the center speaker, or replace it and run it of a separate channel?

2. Do I need a subwoofer or will 6x9's in the rear suffice? By suffice, I don't mean "will it give me as much bass as a subwoofer? (no) " but rather, will using 6x9s as a primary source of bass muddle the sound clarity?

3. Should I even bother upgrading 3 inch speakers in the doors or running any extra power to them?
Should I disconnect them entirely?

4. What kind of amp/dsp should I get? I hear Helix is the best (price isn't really a concern), but would it be overkill for my needs?

5. If the above questions are conflicting with one another, please give me advice on how you would set up my system for optimal sound quality.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Freakquency]

you already have a leg up by being able to swap out your factory head unit.

I run a Helix Pro and it's great. So you can't go wrong there in my opinion but a lot of guys I've seen on a bunch of forums all have their preferences. Zapco DSPs look great to me and the miniDSP stuff looks nice as well.

As far as the center channel...don't bother with it...get your staging with the front stage correct and it won't matter.

A sub can't hurt. Being that you don't care to see double or have it extra loud...a nice 10 would likely suffice depending on your music tastes.

I learned the hard way about trying to put new speakers in the rear doors of my Avalon (2019) but if done much better than my attempt then i can't imagine it won't hurt. I'd love to get differential rear fill to work in my car.

As long as the tweeters from the component set will fit in the factory locations then there shouldn't be an issue. I'm running stock locations with all of my speakers (much to my dismay, but budget limits that side of things for now) and my only concern at the time was making sure it looked as stock as possible. I didn't have any issues during my install

Good luck with your build, i'll be keeping an eye on how it goes.

 

[return to form]

you already have a leg up by being able to swap out your factory head unit.

I run a Helix Pro and it's great. So you can't go wrong there in my opinion but a lot of guys I've seen on a bunch of forums all have their preferences. Zapco DSPs look great to me and the miniDSP stuff looks nice as well.

As far as the center channel...don't bother with it...get your staging with the front stage correct and it won't matter.

A sub can't hurt. Being that you don't care to see double or have it extra loud...a nice 10 would likely suffice depending on your music tastes.

I learned the hard way about trying to put new speakers in the rear doors of my Avalon (2019) but if done much better than my attempt then i can't imagine it won't hurt. I'd love to get differential rear fill to work in my car.

As long as the tweeters from the component set will fit in the factory locations then there shouldn't be an issue. I'm running stock locations with all of my speakers (much to my dismay, but budget limits that side of things for now) and my only concern at the time was making sure it looked as stock as possible. I didn't have any issues during my install

Good luck with your build, i'll be keeping an eye on how it goes.

Thanks for the info!