Beat Sonic amp vs Alpine speaker upgrade

[bhegedus]

Looking to upgrade sound system on my 2025 SR5 (non JBL obviously). not looking to spend an arm and a leg just want a little more clarity and loud enough to be enjoyable with windows down. From what I'm seeing most people do the beat sonic amp or the alpine speakers, both would be ideal but for cost purposes wondering which would make the biggest difference? 

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[Xhale760]

I have the beat sonic 3t3 with subwoofer out option. It takes 8 mins to install and the performance was night and day difference. Much louder and cleaner doesn't sound like paper speakers. I always have the option to add a powered sub if I want. I will upgrade the speakers down the road but this is all I need for now.

 

[Tytlynz]

I have the beatsonic in my sr5. It makes the mids and highs clearer, but showa off the weakness of the stock woofers (no sub.). Ideally the Alpine upgrade should cure that weakness, but then you may want a better amp to get the best out of them. I am fine for now, and if forced to choose, I would stay with the beatsonic unless I could swing the Alpine system and a better amp to power them. The beatsonic truly improves the stock sound.

 

[bkw777]

I have both of these, meaning I got the 2t3 not the 3t3. I would not call it night and day. In fact I can barely tell a difference. It's better, but it's not $900 better. And it's more louder and harsher than better. I think the stock setup actually sounded better. It's easy enough to do the swap I think I'm actually going to put it all back to stock just to A/B test for a while. I was only listening to audiobooks before the swap so not a good test.

We should make a list of songs that show the difference, both good and bad. songs that sound better on the alpine spealkers, beatsonic amp, or both, and conversely, songs that sound better on stock.

Also recommended gain setting for both amps with stock speakers and with the alpine speakers.

I'm also going to test adding resistors in LPAD configuration to the Alpine dash speakers. I think they are dominating too much and part of why it sounds harsh. Maybe if I attenuate those a little the doors will come up and make a better mix. Using an online lpad calculator it looks like a simple lpad of R1 2 ohm & R2 4 ohm both 5 watt will drop 6db and be enough for a 45 watt amp.

I currently still have the amp at the factory 50% gain setting, but that default might have been chosen for the stock speakers. So maybe that can go up for the Alpins speakers.

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