Two "10's and a 500w amp?

I wonder if the 12v batterry and its computer controlled charging system will power that level of power for those speakers ?

 

In general car stereo equipment is the highest price for lowest quality. If you want really good quality music invest in used pro audio or home audio gear and then set it up to run in your vehicle via an AC inverter.

 

Bass is nice within reason. A single 10" on 300W would already be enough to to make everything in the car rattle.

Should be fine as long as long as you don't run it too much in accessory mode.

 

Don't even try to run it in accessory mode; unless you like asking people to jump start your car. Keep the car in Ready mode, the engine will fire-up if the battery gets too low.
I would install a secondary battery on a manual over-ride switch and a 60A timed relay. Relay closes one minute after seeing accessory power - assuming your going into Ready mode, so the secondary battery can charge while your driving. Manual over-ride switch is to self-jump the car; hopefully that secondary battery isn't too low.
Other option is to keep a fully charged jump pack with you at all times.

 

2024-01-19-16-59-56-r213 by soft_r posted Feb 25, 2024 at 2:30 PM

Old pic, cleaned up since and this month I'm gonna have a nice rack fabricated for the amp to replace the styrofoam under the flooring. So it can be hidden away and protected and not sitting exposed in the trunk.

Lot of people giving advice in here who don't seem to be running anything aftermarket.

Dual 10" sub powered by cheap 1600w (though we all know it probably doesn't really push that) amp.

It KICKS. No 12v battery issues, but then I'm not dumb enough to run my stereo in accessory mode. And the amp is powered via smart power on from high level stereo feed connection so there's not a constant drain when the car is off.

Don't expect to tap the rear audio channel to run to a sub. It outputs practically nothing. You're going to have to tap the front channels.

And if you're already tapping the stereo output feed then you might as well intercept the entire feed and then use the amp to handle output back to the speakers, especially if it's an amp that gives you some decent crossover control.

And if you're doing that then you might as well fix the channels so that the dash tweeters aren't tied to the front door speakers. So put the dash output on their own channels, and then combine the front door and rear door speakers (because right now the rear door speakers have pretty much no output, go listen and see). That gives you the ability to do better crossover controls for tweeters and mids AND it restores your rear speakers to what they should sound like.

You'll lose the ability to do front/rear fade in the head unit, not that you'd ever want to touch that anyway because again, the rears have practically no output stock. So why would you want to mess with F/R fade when there's no benefit to either? You'll still obviously have L/R fade control.

 

Assuming that's a non-JBL? Did you replace speakers or are you pumping those watts into the stock junkers? Have you done any sound deadening?

I've built a lot of car audio systems. Over time I went from making stuff really freakin loud on huge power to making stuff that sounds great on relatively low power. (60w rms per channel for high level speakers) You can do the math but it's not going to nuke the battery in 20 minutes even with the smallish battery in the Prius. I think if you really want to do it right you're going to need a processor with time alignment and spend a bunch of time tuning. All pointless without good speaker selection. I will eventually tear this thing apart and build a hi-fi system in it. It's been almost a year since I did my first mods to the stereo. Guessing I was one of the first at that point? I could only stand the JBL for a few weeks before I had to do something to augment it.

 

My suggestions to OP were in regards to being as budget as possible while still making some small changes to improve the stock stereo situation.

Lol why would I keep the stock speakers? Why wouldn't I do sound dampening if I'm already in the doors?



"You can do the math but it's not going to nuke the battery in 20 minutes even with the smallish battery in the Prius." It's held up fine, zero issues. From what I read the HV ups the amperage if it detects lower than normal 12v to keep it topped up.

"I think if you really want to do it right you're going to need a processor with time alignment and spend a bunch of time tuning." This is just so extra and I feel like the average person including myself benefits so little from this. Maybe if you're already sensitive to it from experience, sure. Just like the average person doesn't know how awful 60hz refresh rate is on a monitor, but once you sit at 120hz for a bit and then go back YOU NOTICE. And the cost and effort to achieve these miniscule gains is likely more than just doing an initial basic upgrade like I did. I dropped 1k on a cheap amp, sub, dash tweeters, some really nice midbass, and of course all the wiring, tools, etc needed. And I got plenty improvement from that. I'll be satisfied with it for a long while I'm sure.

 

Read your post, it sums up as "I got subs in da trunk" , no mention of anything else so we can only assume? Post some details about what drivers you used, baffles etc so people are in the know?

Good to hear, I'm not particularly worried about it but getting a better traction battery with more reserve capacity down the line is probably not a bad idea..

I disagree that the gains would be miniscule. You've got the tweets pointing at the window (bad), 4ft away from the mids(bad) The gains from time alignment would be massive, but yea if you just want to listen to it loud you probably don't care about sound stage, etc. Most DSPs have some auto tuning function so it would be pretty easy to get a basic set up. If you're wiring in a 5 channel you're already 90% done. This isn't that high level, even cheap decks are integrating auto time alignment these days. At the minimum I would probably recommend just going with a component set with a passive crossover.

 

Most people don't care about sound staging, timing, ugly mounting some tweeters so they're facing you, etc. Simple as. Mine sounds pretty nice and clear especially compared to stock and I'm happy with how much $1k improved it.

OP wanted to add a subwoofer. Pointed out that tapping the rears would suck, so tap the front channels. But if you're tapping front channels then you might as well just intercept and feed it all in and out of the amp. Very little extra work to do that. And there's very little extra work to separate the dash speakers from the door speakers. All of this is done with an extension wire harness off amazon and some new wire runs that were going to happen anyway because subwoofer addition.

It is a very budget-oriented way for OP to add a subwoofer, like he wanted, and maybe do a few small improvements in there without spending extra. And it lays the ground work should he decide to do additional upgrades later. He'll have the feeds already done, channels separated properly, etc.

Not everyone wants to dump $3k, or even $1k on upgrades. This dude wants a sub and probably an amp. So I laid out how he can build the foundation for that.

 

Opinions are like arseholes right?

I would probably spend that 1k a bit differently and still achieve a mutually acceptable result. Again I already have come to many of the same conclusions you did. OP asked if we like bass and I'm sure we all do.