Well I've F-ed Up My Prius

Thanks Dan. You really are the 'Man'. I'm going to open up the doors and check to be sure I have the phase right on my system. I figure the colors should be the same my my non-jbl system (just minus the extra speakers). I wonder if we can put this info in the FAQ or somewhere people can use it for future audio modifications.

thanks again,

Peter B

 

Non JBL:

Violet, Pin R3-5: LF-
Pink, Pin R3-2: LF+
Blue, Pin R3-5: RF-
Light Green, Pin R3-1: RF+
Yellow, Pin R4-6: LR-
Black, Pin R4-2: LR+
White, Pin R4-3: RR-
Red, Pin R4-1: RR+

I believe there is a post with links to diagrams of the pinouts for Toyota radios.

 

As an avid audiophile, I have to raise my two cents here.

The quality of the sound depends upon a lot of different factors.

1) The mounting enclosure area contributes a lot to the overall sound of any speaker. It adds resonances and defines the low end rolloff.
2) The speaker placement (not an easy thing to change).
3) The vehicle's acoustic properties (the materials, shape, etc.)

When you're mixing speakers, you need to deal with different speaker efficiencies. Basically, most times you can't tell until you install the speakers how they are going to sound because of the frequency cancellations caused by the interactions of the resonances and reflected sound.

The strange behavior of the new speakers make me believe that you have messed up the wiring. This includes either phasing problems or mismatching tweeter/midrange connections.

I don't believe that replacing the wiring with esoteric speaker wiring will help in any way, shape or form unless the original wiring is undersized (under 16-18 gauge copper). If you don't believe me, take a look at the blind tests done by Nelson Pass (Pass Labs). The bottom line is that only the length and gauge counts (resistance), all the other parameters are just hype to sell $2+/foot stuff. In my home system, I bought a spool of 12 gauge low-voltage lighting wire (from Lowes/Home Depot/etc.) This costs about 12 cents/foot at the time. My system (with home-brew electrostatic loudspeakers) was written up in an audiophile magazine, so it must have picked up a few ears (pun intended).

In my Prius, there seems to be a resonance peak at the low end (I'd guess about 150-200 Hz). The midrange seems to be missing something at the lower end (roughly 600-800 Hz). Because of these, the result is a somewhat unnatural sound (acoustic guitars don't sound real and drums sound like they are toys (at least shrunk in size))

Personally, I've never heard a JBL speaker worth the hype it's given. They make good instrument speakers, but they all have a coloration that makes poor audio reproduction.

The Prius sound is definitely inferior to the system in my 1996 VW Passat TDI that it replaced. That had a wonderfully natural sound.

I still need enough time behind the wheel (my Prius is only a week old) to do a "fatigue" test. That's the time I can listen until I really get annoyed with the sound.

I may try the "pop the center speaker" and see if I concur with the general consensus that this improved things.

Diatribe off :roll:

Gary

 

In order to get more help with this issue, providing more details about your installation might help.

- You mentioned you have a crossover. What signal is feeding the crossover (tweeter or woofer output from the amp, front or back?)

- Is your tweeter connected only to the new crossover?

- Is your woofer connected only to the new woofer?


If I recall correctly, neither the front woofer nor the front tweeter speaker signals from the amp have flat frequency response; they both have crossovers inside the amp.

That theory is from this thread, and hasn't been confirmed:

http://www.priuschat.com/forums/1-vt7284.h...er=asc&&start=0

If true, then the only full range signal for you to hook up the crossover to is the rear speaker output from the amp.

Of course if you had simply replaced the tweeter and woofer drivers without adding a crossover, then the impedance and efficiency of the new units would likely be different from the old ones, causing the likelihood of tonal imbalances no matter how perfect the phase was.