Speaker Door Pods & Audio Upgrades for the LandCruiser 70 Series

Your 70 Series was built for work and remote travel, not for music. Factory audio is the weakest part of an otherwise excellent vehicle. Most variants leave the factory with a small number of speakers, in modest locations, and in many cases no front door speakers at all. You get a cabin that's loud on the road and thin on sound. Here's how you fix it properly, starting with the upgrade that does the most on this platform, speaker door pods, then speaker sizing, head-unit pairing and where amplifiers and subwoofers sit.

If you read one section, make it the one on door pods. Every other audio upgrade in a 70 Series is built on top of them.

Why your factory audio sounds so thin

The 70 Series was designed around durability and serviceability. Audio was never a priority and it shows. Depending on your variant and build year, you may have as few as two speakers, often in the dash or rear, with the front doors either empty or fitted with a small speaker in a spot that doesn't project into the cabin. Workmate and base specifications are the most spartan. Even the higher trims are modest by modern standards.

Your doors are both the problem and the solution. Your factory door card typically has no proper speaker mounting provision in the lower door, where a modern component or coaxial speaker would normally live. With no mounting point, you've got nowhere to put a quality speaker low and forward, which is exactly where you want it for a wide, even soundstage. A speaker door pod fills that gap.

Why door pods do the most for your money

A speaker door pod is a moulded enclosure that mounts to your door and gives a quality speaker a proper sealed location where the factory door has none. It's the highest-impact audio upgrade you can make to a 70 Series, because it fixes the root cause instead of working around it.

• You get a mounting location that doesn't otherwise exist. Instead of cutting the factory door card or wedging a speaker somewhere unsuitable, the pod gives a 6.5 inch speaker an engineered, vehicle-specific home.
• Sound comes from low and forward. Front pods put the speakers down near you and toward the front of the cabin, so voices and music feel like they're coming from in front of you rather than behind.
• The speaker gets a degree of enclosure. A controlled volume of air behind a driver beats firing into an open door cavity, and a purpose-made pod gives the speaker a more consistent acoustic load.
• They look factory. A well-made pod is moulded to follow the contour of your door trim, so the upgrade belongs rather than reads as an afterthought.

That's why you fit pods before amplifiers, subwoofers or even a head unit in most 70 Series audio plans. Since the 70 Series so often has no front door speakers at all, front pods are frequently the difference between usable front-stage sound and none.

Front pods, or front and rear

Your first decision is how many pods you need. PVS offers door pods as a front pair and as a front and rear set, and your choice comes down to your cabin layout and how you use the vehicle.

Front pods are the priority in every build. Your front stage carries the bulk of the music and all of the vocal content, and in a 70 Series the front doors are where the worst factory deficiency sits. A quality front pair fixes the most important part of the system. If you're in a single-cab, or your rear seat is rarely occupied, front pods on their own give you a complete and balanced upgrade.

Front and rear pods make sense if you run a dual-cab (79 Series) or wagon (76 Series) and the rear seats get regular use. Rear pods fill in the cabin for passengers in the back and give you a fuller, more enveloping sound when you're carrying people. They're a comfort and fill addition rather than a fix for a fundamental gap, so you put them behind the front pair in priority.

Choose pocket or no-pocket

Some 70 Series door pods are a plain speaker enclosure. Others build in a storage pocket below the speaker. Both have a place, and the call is about how you use your door, not about sound quality.

A pocket pod keeps a small storage cubby in your door, which earns its place in a working vehicle if you actually use that space for gloves, straps or a notebook. A no-pocket pod gives the full moulding over to the speaker and a clean trim, which some owners prefer for the tidier look and the simpler shape. Neither changes the speaker size the pod accepts. Confirm which style a pod is before you order, and decide on whether you'd rather keep the door storage or have the cleaner look. Both styles mount your speaker in the same low, forward position that makes the upgrade worthwhile.

Pick the right speaker size

PVS door pods take a standard 6.5 inch (165 mm) speaker, the most common and best-supported size in the car audio market. That works in your favour: you can choose from an enormous range of quality coaxial and component speakers at every price point, rather than being locked into an obscure size.

Those are the two broad types that fit, plus the depth check worth making before you buy. For most owners a quality 6.5 inch coaxial in each front pod transforms the system. Want the cleanest vocals and a soundstage that sits up on the dash, and a component set with the tweeters mounted high is your next step up. Either way the pod takes the standard 165 mm woofer, so you're buying from the mainstream of the speaker market.

Pair your pods with a head unit

Your speakers are only as good as the signal feeding them. The factory 70 Series head unit is limited, and an upgraded unit gets far more out of new door pods. You get cleaner pre-amp output, more usable power and, importantly, an equaliser and channel balance, so you can tune the new front stage instead of accepting whatever the factory unit puts out.

A vehicle-specific head unit for the 70 Series also brings wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which is where most owners keep their music. There's little point fitting quality door pods and then feeding them compressed Bluetooth from a basic unit when a proper head unit can drive them cleanly. If you're upgrading the system as a whole, plan the head unit and the pods together. Browse 70 Series head units and interfaces, or see the wider car audio range for amplifiers, speakers and accessories to finish the build.

Your head unit sits in your line of sight and ties into the vehicle's wiring, so fitment and compliance matter. Check how an aftermarket display sits with the Australian Design Rules and the road rules.

Add an amplifier and a subwoofer

With the pods and a capable head unit in, an amplifier and a subwoofer are your next two upgrades, in that order for most builds. Neither is essential for a result you'll enjoy. Both extend what the system can do.

Amplifiers

An external amplifier gives your door speakers clean, controlled power well past what a head unit's internal amplifier provides. What you gain is headroom more than volume. Speakers driven by a quality amp stay clean at high levels rather than distorting, and they sound more effortless at normal listening levels too. If you've gone front and rear, a four-channel amplifier is the natural match, driving all four door speakers. Your 70 Series cabin is noisy on the highway and on corrugations, and that clean headroom keeps music intelligible over road and engine noise.

Subwoofers

A 6.5 inch door speaker, however good, won't produce deep bass. A subwoofer adds the low end that fills out music and makes the whole system feel complete. In a 70 Series your practical question is space: a single-cab has limited room, while a 79 dual-cab or 76 wagon gives you more options behind or under the seats. The usual approach is a compact sealed enclosure with a single 10 or 12 inch subwoofer, driven by a dedicated mono amplifier or a multi-channel amp with a sub channel. Keep the subwoofer level matched to your door speakers. You're extending the bottom end, not burying the front stage you worked to build.

Fit your pods

• Run new speaker wire. Many 70 Series doors had no front speaker, so you may have no wiring to the door at all. Run fresh speaker cable from the head unit or amp to each pod as part of a proper install, and your speakers get a clean feed.
• Consider sound deadening. A layer on the door skin behind the pod cuts panel resonance and improves the speaker's output. It's cheap and it pays you back, especially in a noisy 70 Series cabin.
• Confirm your body style and speaker depth. Order the pod set that matches your single-cab, dual-cab or wagon, and check the mounting depth of any unusually deep speaker before you buy it.

PVS door pods are moulded to suit the 70 Series door and mount in the factory location, so the upgrade reads as integrated rather than added on. Know those three points before you start. If you're not sure which pod set or speaker suits your variant and build year, contact our team before ordering and we'll confirm fitment for your vehicle.

Where to go next

• PVS audio collection, speaker door pods, speakers and audio accessories for the 70 Series.
• Car audio range, amplifiers, subwoofers and components to extend the system.
• Head units, vehicle-specific units with wireless CarPlay and Android Auto to drive your new speakers.
• ADR compliance hub, how aftermarket head units and displays sit with Australian Design Rules and the road rules.

Work through the door pods first, then the head unit, then amplification and bass. Those pages and collections cover the full 70 Series audio build.