My official Prius stereo mods thread.

OK, some more pics. Haven't made too much progress lately though. Got the trunk wiring done. Got the 8W7 mounted. Now I need to install the door speakers and wire up the Cleansweep SSI and dsp units. Man the sub is massive. From the front it doesn't look like much (although the lack of mounting screws looks rather weird). When you look at the sub from the side though, you realize just how massive the thing is, it's the same magnet structure as the 10W7. Here are some more teaser pics for now:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(cbc @ Oct 6 2006, 12:03 AM) [snapback]328803[/snapback]</div>

Just as a matter of convenience. THe SSI and the dsp both use the factory speaker wires for the inputs. So it goes, factory harness, SSI, then harness to dsp. From the dsp I just need to run an RCA cable to the amps. This is more preferrable to running twelve individual wires from the factory harness to the SSI and dsp in the back. I still need to run speaker wire from the amps to the speakers, but I will just run it back to the factory harness and splice back into that. I actually considered mounting both of them back with the amps, but then I realized I'd have to run all those wires to the units, and then a bunch more wires back to the speakers. Way to much clutter.

Also, in order to minimize the clutter further, I'm using some leftover in-wall speaker wire I have from when I wired my house for surround sound. This has four wires nicely contained in a smooth casing. I can much more easily run two of these. Last thing to run is the 12V signal wire fro the SSI to the amps, but this is easy.

So in all I really have to run is four things.
1) RCA cable (I'm using a four ichannel twisted pair single cable to make it easier)
2) Front channel in-wall speaker cable run (about a 1/4" thick)
3) Rear channel in-wall spekaer cable run
4) 12V turn on lead (this is a really thin wire anyway, and I can wind it around to wrap all the others together)

All of this will be documented, becuase I don't think this type of setup has been done yet. So far everything is pretty standard stuff, and didn't warrant a thorough write-up.

 

So I made a nice little discovery just now. I took off the tweeter housing to get a look at things in preparation for the stereo install and the signal mirror replacement...

At first I was concerned because the factory tweeter looked awfully small, but hten I realized that the JL Audio tweeter had a removable plastic cover. I popped that off, and wouldn't you know the darn thing practically snapped itself into the stock location! Talk about making things easy!

I'll snap some pics once the Florida game is over.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(GeoGeek @ Oct 7 2006, 10:50 PM) [snapback]329649[/snapback]</div>

Man what a good game! Ranked #2 now! Just to show what a powerhouse Florida (the state) is when it comes to football, it's been 24 years since both Miami and FSU were unranked.

Disclaimer: Wife went to UM, so I must cheer for hem as well.

Anyway back to stereo stuff.

I was getting ready for the mirror install, like I said earlier. Well, I deceide to tear apart the rest of hte door jsut to get a look at the rest of the bits inside.

As stated earlier, the tweeter was so easy to isntall it was alsmost like cheating. Well the woofer is not so easy. The JL woofer is a fair sized driver, with a fair sized magnet, but surprisingly not much bigger than the factory woofer. I was surprised to see that it is actually quite a nice unit. The frame was made of plastic, but hey, a factory speaker can only do so much...

Anyway, a problem arose when I pulled out the factory woofer. THe woofer and spacer are an integral unit. THe spacer lifts the woofer off the door and provides clearance for the window. Well, if you try and bolt the JL woofer to the sheet metal, it hits the window. It looks like I'll have to make a baffle out of MDF to mount the woofer on. A 1/2" piece will provide plenty of room, and still leave enough space under the panel.

I'm just going to trace the triangular plastic spacer onto the MDF and then use the included template to cut hte hole for hte woofer. SHouldn't be too hard, just time consuming.

Anyway I think it'll be better to mount the woofer onto the MDF baffle rather than the sheet metal to avoid excessive vibration.

I know I've said it before, but I will post pics of all this. Today I will post pics of the tweeters and woofers to compare stock and aftermarket, and maybe one or two other tasty pics.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(GeoGeek @ Oct 9 2006, 01:04 PM) [snapback]330075[/snapback]</div>

I ended up mounting the crossovers in the back, one on either side of the amplifiers. Mostly for appearances, for those few times I show it off.

I planned on using weather stripping. When I add the sound deadener later, I plan on sealing up the door as much as feasible.

 

Here are a couple of pics of the woofers. You can see in the first picture the size difference of the cones. This alone will help bass response (not that any help is needed with a W7 rockin' da house! )

The second pic is a close up of the quality plastic frame.

Magnet size is relatively close, and overall speaker quality is not too bad for a factory speaker.

 

WOW! All I can say is WOW!

So when I was putting the doors back together after the mirror installation, I deceided to go ahead and pop in the JL tweeters since they are so easy to install. I wired them to the existing wires.

All I can say is WOW!

Even when driven by the factory amp, using factory equalization, these things sound phenomenal. To use the old stereo magazine review phrase, "It's like someone took the cotton out of my ears."

I listened to a wide variety of songs this morning that I'm emminently familiar with, so that I could more accurately determine any difference.

Everything just sounds so open now. Sybillants (s, th, f sounds etc.) are much more controlled. THe factory tweeters would break up and you would hear a hissing instead of the actual letters. Now the sound is much clearer and concise.

Where these things really shine is with accoustical guitars. Before, I would hear someone playing a guitar. Now I can hear someone playing a guitar, but I can also hear the rasp of the pick as it goes over the ridged surface of the strings. The detail is amazing; I nearly cried.

I have to give Toyota/JBL credit for a wonderful job of location and aiming the tweeter. Imaging was spectacular. Sounds were very accurately placed where they should be. High hats were off to the side, triangles actually sounded like they were made of metal, and voices were rock solid center stage.

What makes it more amazing, is that I only have the driver's side woofer in!

If it sounds this good now, I can't wait to get it all connected!

So now I know that in order to get better sound, you can just swap in some speakers. Even with the higher quality of hte factory speakers in this system, even a moderately priced component set would sound great.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Austin @ Oct 13 2006, 02:20 PM) [snapback]332384[/snapback]</div>

I bought mine from my local JL dealer. I paid retail ($800) but I have the assurance of having a real dealer behind me. You can likely find them online somewhere cheaper, but JL will not warranty them.

 

OK, I updated the stereo section of my website for some of the stuff I've done tha past two days. Check it out.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(AndrewGS @ Oct 16 2006, 01:06 AM) [snapback]333307[/snapback]</div>

I don't remember right off hand. It's much thicker than I expected. Toyota cut some corners, but they didn't in a couple of places. The wiring is at least 16-18 gauge, and is sufficient for the short distances and for the power of the amps. Of course, "sufficient" is just that, and it'd be better with 12 gauge or so, but I'll see how it goes. If it turns out to be substandard, I'll probably replace it The only one where I'm using new wire is the sub, but that's in the trunk anyway, so it's a non issue.




I installed the JL components in the front doors. They sound great. Right now it's just running off the factory amp. Low end is much deeper now. The biggest change is from the tweeters though. They are much clearer. It's almost like a towel was being held over the tweeters, and after switching the towel is gone.

My recommendation, spend your money on the best set of tweeters you can. Woofers are, in my opinion, less important. Also, if the tweeters cover a wider range of frequencies, it's even more important that they do it well.

I've got a couple of days off this week, so I plan on finishing up the work soon. Maybe on Wednesday, if not, then by Friday.

Pictures and write up will then be posted on my website, an maybe a few on here.

 

IT'S DONE!!!!!

Well, almost.

I have everything installed except the rear speakers. But still, it sounds great. I;m in the process of writing up the whole thing. I don't know exactly how much detail to go into, though, as some stuff is just stuff you figure out (like where to run a wire or something).

A couple of things:

The JL Audio Cleansweep modules make things very easy. THe actual installation was a bitch, as you have to splice into each speaker wire TWICE (once to get the signal out, and once to put hte signal back in). So you have 12 wires that need to be cut and spliced into twice. Then there are also the power, ground and other wires for the units. But ince I got that done, the actual setup and use was underwhelming to say the least. The SSI summing unit was the hardest part, and it involved turning two small dials until the green led lit up. Took all of 10 seocnds. The dsp unit was even easier. Once the SSI was set, I just pushed a button. That's it. One button. THe units use a special calibration CD with a special calibration track. The dsp took about 20 seconds to analyze and equalize the signal and that was it. THe lights flashed a bit and then after 20 seconds I had 4 green LEDs. That was it. Then I just connected the turn on lead, and...

MUSIC!

I thought the components sounds pretty nice with the factory amp driving them. They were obviously better than the factory speakers. When I actually used the amplifier though, they woke up.

And that sub. How did they get an 8" sub to sound like one much, much bigger. I've had subs of various sizes before, from a pair of 8's to a single 15". The 8W7 far outperforms any other 8" sub, and short of the JBL 15" I had, this thing goes lower. Wow.

Now I just need to spend some time fine tuning the gain settings and so on. It only gets better from here.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TheParadox @ Oct 25 2006, 05:34 PM) [snapback]338266[/snapback]</div>

Of course I can't do that. That would be copyright infringement!

I'll send you a PM.