I have a 2023 GX460 with Mark Levinson and thought the sound was lacking and pretty weak to be honest especially the sub so all the threads I have gone over in the forums dealt with replacing speakers for a non mark levinson system. I decided to take on the task and give it a try for the front stage and subwoofer. I keep my system in surround mode and the upgrades I have done put the oem speakers to shame. It plays loud and clean. The amount of bass coming from the doors is pretty remarkable. The oem amp is high quality for all the mids and highs so that didn't need touched for front stage and rear surround. For the dash I used Audiofrog GS40 4" midrange which I had to dremel part of the ring in order to fit it into place as shown in the pic. For the center channel which was a perfect fit was the Infinity Reference REF307F 3 1/2" midrange 2way and for the doors I used Audiofrog GS690 midbass. No problems running the oem ML amp to these speakers with their impedence so anyone with a Mark Levinson sound system wondering if you can change speakers it works fine. The speaker impedence is 4ohm from 6ohm which I replaced and that won't cause any problems.






I have replaced the stock 10" sub with a pioneer TS-D10LS2 2 ohm sub powered with an AudioControl 1.300 mono amp. The factory sub box was lined on the flat parts inner and out with sound deadener and filled the box with poly fill. One thing to note I used resonix sound deadener in the entire rear with their 3F sound decoupler as I wanted to prevent any rattling and it worked great. That 10" pounds in the factory box with all the work I have done to it. The pioneer model I went with was a direct fit for the sub box no special drilling of anything needed the sub dropped right in plus screw holes lined right up but I did replace the speaker wire with 12 gauge so I did remove the small factory wiring to and from the sub. Unfortunately I got too distracted and forgot to take pics of the sub installation. I only have this partial pic of the sub area but forgot to take the rest including showing the area covered in sound decoupler. The amount of bass this single 10" puts out is amazing as the body panels are flexing lol.




This was a total pain to do and spent the entire weekend taking everything apart but the end result I couldn't be more happy.

 

Nice! I hate surround mode on the ML system. I also agree the ML system lacks depth and output. Highs will curl your toes, but the mids and lows don't come on until the volume goes way up. I'm not really sure what the guys at ML used for testing/tuning, but it sure wasn't music I listen to. yuck

With that said I plan on adding an aftermarket sub to the factory location as well as an amp for the sub.

 

I didn't care/like the surround mode either, and just leave it off, sounds good enough for me at this stage in my life. LOL

 

I agree that the Mark Levinson system is not up to par in the GX, at least to my ears. The sound is clear and the volume level can go quite high with no sound degradation, but I think an aftermarket sub would vastly improve the system. How many watts is the stock subwoofer amplifier? It looks like the sub is 8ohm so it needs lots of juice but just doesn't seem to be getting it.

How is your system holding up OP? I am concerned about damaging the speaker amp by changing the speakers from 6 ohm to 4 ohm, seems like it would put quite a strain on it. Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Also, how did you wire up your sub? A brief explanation would be helpful. I am familiar with installing aftermarket systems but things can get tricky with pre-installed amps and trying to integrate aftermarket equipment.

 

The system is holding up fine. I have had no problems with the system. Going from 6ohm to 4ohm for midrange/midbass speakers is not going to strain the levinson amp there's no worries there. I have a back ground in competing with car audio 30 years ago so wiring this stuff and running different impedances I am familiar with. It's been awhile since I have done car audio but have enough knowledge to work on my own vehicles when it comes to doing stuff like this. Now if I was dropping the ohm to an aftermarket sub from like 8 to 2 that is where the main strain would come from and would be worried it wouldn't hold up over time. I'm sure the amp would run real hot too if ran long enough. If I was just doing a sub swap and keeping everything factory I would get an 8ohm sub and be done with it but I felt I still wouldn't get enough of bass from that alone. I did test my 2ohm sub with the factory amp and it did play but I wouldn't keep it that way as that is a big strain for the factory amp I just wanted to see if it would play it without shutting down and it did. Sounded decent but still not that car shaking loud.

The stock sub is 8 ohm and I'm pretty sure it is running at 80 watts from the levinson amp. It is anemic looking in total build quality compared to a good aftermarket sub. I'll post a pic of the levinson sub below and I don't think even adding more watts to it would matter it is that weak looking. I replaced the stock sub with a pioneer TS-D10LS2 which is 2 ohms and used an audio control 2 ohm mono amp which is 300 watts for the sub. For wiring the sub it was easy. I took the 2 wires that were originally going into the factory sub and ran those into the audio control amp line level speaker inputs and then ran speaker outputs from the audiocontol amp into the pioneer sub. Pioneer sub dropped right into the factory sub box in the wheel well. Only major change I made since the post was to no longer use surround sound mode. I guess I never made enough comparisons and after awhile of switching between the 2 settings I agree with the other posters that non surround sound mode sounds better. Here is a pic of where I put the sub amp for now. Eventually I need to tidy up the wires better but for now it's fine.



Here is pic of the factory levinson sub in case anyone wondering how small the magnet is.

 

Thanks for the additional info! My two yellow labs would make a mess of that amp and wiring if it were placed on the cargo floor. Did you see any areas in the quarter panel area where an amp could be mounted? I need 100% of the cargo floor space and love the idea of an upgraded factory sub and amp like you've got....just need to have the amp hidden and protected from the elements.

 

Awesome! I bet it sounds badass.

 

Thank you for the reply, it is helpful. I'm tempted to try the midbass swap first, those door speakers sound small. My old Prius JBL system had great bass from the door speakers..and that system was low quality.

When I play really heavy bass songs the ML system sounds ok, but for the typical metal song it really lacks and sounds hollow (75% of my listening). I want to feel that double bass drum in my chest. I'm resorting to almost full blast volume level (50-55), but this results in occasional rattles from the dash speakers, especially if I up the bass settings (flat eq sounds best to my ears). I really didn't want to modify the sound system, that was the whole point of upgrading to ML..but alas.

 

There's actually room if you remove the tire jack where you can get to the amp from behind that little removeable panel. I thought about eventually putting it back there and keeping the jack elsewhere but with a the amp being wired in 2ohm setup which runs hot I would be getting no airflow so kept it in the open. I think if you went with a 4 or 8ohm amp setup hiding behind the panel/quarter panel should be ok. There is room above that panel as well in the quarter panel but it's one of those things where if you ever needed access to it you'd be out of luck and the amount of work to remove the entire quarter panel is time consuming and a total pain. You have to take a lot of stuff apart to pull that quarter panel out.

 

Hey Bullion, just wanted to confirm the AudioFrog GS690 fits with no modification. Crutchfield says it doesn't fit (I'm assuming they are wrong). Also what speaker wiring harness did you use for those speakers. This one? https://www.crutchfield.com/p_120728...s.html?tp=3097

Thanks

 

Yeah it fits with no modification but you need the metra brackets. One thing to note on the brackets you have to slightly shift the position and angle the screws on 2 of the holes so you can use all 4 mounting holes for the speaker in the bracket. The bracket itself goes into the door mounting holes no problem it is the speaker that has to be adjusted to fit the bracket properly. I bought some self tapping screws and very carefully did it. Was nerve wracking trying to self tap a screw into the plastic bracket with the foam surround right there lol. https://www.crutchfield.com/p_120828...-Brackets.html

That is the correct wire harness you selected but you will need a total of 4 not 2 because audio frog on the 6x9 uses the fat end on both positive and negative so I had to use a little tool to pull out the skinny wire from the harness and replaced it with the fat end. That's why if you blowup the picture of my door you can see both my wires are white because I had to add the fat end wire. I can't remember if I had to swap positive and negative for the door speakers I know I did for the dash though. I followed the wire color codes that were listed in one of the previous audio threads. I'll see if I can find it.

Also used these 6x9 boom mat but cut the entire back section off. Do not keep the back part on, cut the entire back off even up an inch on the side. I just wanted the sides to protect from any weather elements that may trickle inside if there is. If you do use those be careful not to overtighten and warp the basket as it is easy to do. Just back off if you see it starting to torque too much. It creates a nice air tight seal from the speaker to the bracket. https://www.crutchfield.com/p_696B05...1-2-depth.html

 

Thanks Bullion. Seems a bit more complicated than I'd like for a speaker swap but will prob still go for it. Must be why Crutchfield says it doesn't fit. I'll check back in if I get it installed. Cheers

 

For any current/future readers who are dissapointed with the ML system, I suggest cranking the bass up to max and increasing the treble/midrange until it sounds right to your ears. Def turn surround off. This makes the whole system sound much more alive and full. I never do this to any other system but it is needed here for some reason. You will need to use sound deadening on both front door panels and some around the sub (and on the inside of your external gas cap cover), otherwise it rattles at high volume. I did not remove the rear panel to access the subwoofer, just the small jack panel access. It took me around 6 hours from start to finish to do all the deadening and it sounds pretty damn good. I'm sure the speaker swap Bullion did would elevate the sound even more, but for only a $30 investment in material and a bit of time - it is now pretty legit.

 

May I ask what you did for the power cable to the audiocontrol? How did you route it? I'm thinking of doing the exact same thing with the sub, and doing a stealth build with the stock in-panel sub box.

Also, did you have to do anything special with the door speakers to get them to sound good? I originally tried replacing mine with some Infinity Kappas, but they sounded awful.

 

The Mark Levinson system was such a throwaway upgrade for Lexus.