Any JBL woofer replacements that improve things?

Will all users who have made changes please speak up and let me know (good or bad) what speakers you went with and your percieved improvement in sound. I have ordered a package 7 , and the one downside for me is that you cannot get all the safety equuipment and the upgrade radio without springing for a package 9 which is overkill for me as I really don't need or want navigation (station car).

 

Well it might matter, because the premium has 9 speakers the regular 6. Don't know all locations and also don't know whether wiring is in place in the regular (for the extra three speakers). If not pre wired, the cost would go up and the finished product may not be as clean.

 

Sorry, I can't remember but I *think* it was the premium system.

I can't seem to find the post in the archives but I don't think that the Yahoo search feature is finding older messages.

IIRC the individual stated that they thought this upgrade took the system from a 7/10 to a 9/10.

 

so i was thinking about adding a powered bazooka in the trunk, and putting some simple capacitors on all 9 of the other speakers for a 1st order high pass filter around 120Hz.
do not know how well this is going to work, anybody have any input?

 

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B O S E

Back when I used to work for a sound company that did home/car installs, and provided sound for DJs, concerts, political events, etc, we had a saying...

B ring
O ther
Sound
E quipment

BOSE is HIGHLY overrated. As our service dept could attest, it was also highly inferior in quality to JBL and several other brands that were much cheaper, and extremely inferior to any brand near the same price as BOSE.

It worked fine for very low powered home systems, but anything else just blew chunks.

I can't count how many factory "premium" BOSE systems I replaced in the various makes of cars. People would come in with sticker shock on their faces after checking with a dealer on replacement costs for a speaker for their Corvette/Caddy/Nissan/whatever. They were usually $200 on up for a single speaker. You couldn't buy them anywhere but the dealer, as BOSE made each system specific to a car, including the impedance of the speakers being different by make! I've seen anywhere from 0.32-6 ohm for Bose speakers.

In many cases, it was cheaper to trash the entire system, replacing it with a decently powered indash and new, standard 4ohm speakers than it was to replace 3-4 Bose speakers in the car (in one case, replacing just the speakers in a flooded car was going to cost $2000 at the dealer. Needless to say, I built a complete deck/amp/speaker system into the car for much less).

After seeing the non-stop flow of Bose home/pro speakers flow in/out of our service dept for repairs, my opinion of Bose is pretty low.

 

Well, after listening to the JBL system more I think the system is reasonably good, just not top end. However, it's better than I expected given the not-so-flattering reviews here. It's certainly way better than the base sound system of the 2001 Prius (but that's not saying much).

The mid-range is slightly weak, but it's tight. The bass is quite weak, but again it's tight (relatively). (I play all my music at quiet to moderate volumes, and I have the built-in "equalizer" on the screen set to pretty much neutral for bass, mid, and treble.) And I don't find the system too tinny.

IOW, I'm happy with the JBL system and am keeping things the way they are. I'm not a bass phreak anyways, and for ideal bass I'll just go home to my living room for the time being. If you guys get good results with your mods then I'll consider it, but I'm not gonna be the guinea pig.

I'm concerned that increasing the mid to lower bass response with stock (or aftermarket) speakers is gonna screw up the balance for the high bass, and/or may muddle the bass somewhat. One wonders if the system really just needs a powered equalized sub if you really want to fill out that lower bass (assuming you can install that sub somehow).

 

I was taking a look at the specs for the audio system last night, and there are a lot of complications for someone who might want to replace the factory speakers.

What I'd like to do is get a high quality component speaker set (separate tweeter, woofers, and crossover) like the Focal 165k K2 set, and use them to replace the front woofers and tweeters, and disable the center.

But there doesn't appear to be any location you could tap into the full range left and right signals.

1. One problem is that presumably whatever sound goes to the center is subtracted from the L and R signals, so just disabling the center will likely cause sounds centered (not L or R) to be less audible, which generally messes things up.

2. The other problem is that there is no full range output exposed from the amp. The amp has the front crossover built in, so there are separate tweeter and woofer outputs. You don't want to use the built in crossover because to do that right you would need woofers and tweeters whose impedance (ohms) is the same and sensitivity (db) is the same, not to mention impedance peak frequencies. The chances of getting that dead on right are nil.

3. And yet another issue is that the left woofer needs to have the navigation system audio inline. Currently the wires go from the amp to the nav system, out the nav system to the left woofer. Replicating that would put the nav audio between the aftermarket crossover and the aftermarket woofer, which could cause issues if there are impedance differences. Maybe you would put the nav system between the amp and the aftermarket crossover, but then the nav system might see a different impedance than it expects which could be a problem.

The rear speakers have the crossover outside the amp, so there are full range right and left lines to them. I was thinking of tapping into that for the front aftermarket speakers, and moving the front factory speakers to the rear and driving them with the front amp outputs. But then the nav system goes to the rear woofer instead of the front. Probably okay for nav purposes but not okay for bluetooth use. That could be remedied by switching the nav around to the rear amp/front speakers but that still potentially has the impedance issues.

In the end I am hoping that perhaps all this will just not be an issue, if:

1. The center channel output is negligible or can remain enabled, and

2. The factory system happens to drive the woofers full range just because they saved money on a low pass. Then the lines to the woofer could drive the whole aftermarket crossover, tweeter, and woofer.

3. The nav system isn't too sensitive to impedance. The factory woofers are 4 or 6 ohms if I recall, and the aftermarket ones would likely be 2 or 4 ohms. It may be the case that when Denso designed the nav they built in some tolerance in the electronics to different impedance speakers.

Probably the highest likelihood of success will be if I can tap into the signal that goes from the head unit to the amp for the front channels. Sending that to an aftermarket amp might solve all the problems except the nav impedance concerns.

After looking at all this, it becomes very appealing to just get the base stereo, and no nav, which would mean external crossover, and hence full range signal coming right to the external crossover, ready to be tapped into full range. Optionally an aftermarket outboard amp could be driven by that signal for more power.

This message has turned into a brain dump more of what's been going through my head. Hope it helps someone and they figure this stuff out before I get my prius so I can cheat and copy them

 

Oh, one more point: It seems that the biggest subwoofer that can fit in the trunk compartment is a 6.5 one. I am thinking I'd rather just put some good 6.5" woofers in the door and seal it up so the door itself is a subwoofer. Of course the door will never be quite as good an enclosure as a purpose built sub enclosure, but it does offer the possibility of having more volume in cubic feet and hence a lower cutoff frequency than the mass produced subs (where smallness and cheapness mean that air volume is often not maximized).

The other really serious advantage that the door "subs" have is that of integration. I find that I hear timing issues with subs in the rear because the sound arrives to the ears later, and sounds disconnected from the music. Having the "subs" up front eliminates that and greatly improves "impulse response".

Another advantage of not having a sub is that you have more storage space, less hassle moving the sub around. And if your sub is visible, that is a breakin waiting to happen.

If you eliminate the cost of the rear subwoofer, you can spend that money on higher quality drivers and amps up front, which can bump up the quality level significantly. Higher quality sound throughout the full range can make up for missing half an octave on the lower end.

And of course you can always add a sub later if you change your mind

 

Hi there,
I just got a new prius and am just learning the ins and outs.
One thing that's throwing me for a loop and was originally mentioned in this thread was the ALS/DSP omition.

Is this for real? Are they really non-existent?
In the booklet it just says "press the button" and I'm lost.
I have package 9.

Thanks for any and all of your help.

Ryan
(2004 silver/#9/leather/gold badge)

 

brutal.
thanks for the answer.

i could have sworn i thought something like ALS was working during my drives. oh well.
thanks.
-r

 

A bit offtopic, but on that note, I was in a "big box electronics store" today picking up a few things, and some twit salesman cranked up a bose sound system to the apparent delight of a couple that was looking at buying it.

I was not delighted. Sure it was annoyingly loud, but it also had no dynamic range and I heard a fair amount of distortion.

It was a demo alright, but not a very good one. I almost went up to the couple in question to educate them on why they were wasting their money...

Dave