What happened to the Bass in 2012 PIP?

JBL GreenEdge in the 2012's is kinda a step down from the JBL Premium audio found in 2010-2011 package III, IV, V. Or so I've heard.

 

Just changing the OEM speakers to decent speakers will not fix the lack of bass.

 

Which one was the treble? Anyway, as lopgok said, speakers alone will not help, if there isn't enough bass coming from the amp, head unit, and/or actual song you are playing. For a great system, you may need to change other components.

 

I don't know how much power the entune radio puts out, but a wild guess is about 5-10 watts rms per channel. I suspect an aftermarket amp with perhaps 100 watts rms per channel might help the bass a bit.

At home, I have a 500+ watt per channel amplifier. When bass notes are played, they take up quite a bit of power. If the radio doesn't have the power, the bass will be lacking.

I used 4 kenwood 3 way speakers to replace my door speakers. They are much better than the factory speakers, but far from ideal for low frequency response. I also replaced the squaker speakers with pioneer 2 way speakers. That was the single biggest improvement to the sound in my car, but did nothing for low frequencies.

 

In my 2012, I repplaced the door speakers only which did help with the sound, I installed a 50w rms amp and use the speaker outputs from the stock headunit. I got a big change in sound. and I have lots of bass. That being said, before the changing of these items I pushed the speaker controls to only the fronts. I'm not in the back seat so it didnt matter, that help get me by. You also have to think about this also, even though I have what I have speakers in the rear only sound good if your in the rear seats, such as the fronts only sound good in the front. You can adjust the front to rear settings, to put yourself in the middle, but the highs and mids will lose the impact the have as you drop the outputs to one or the other.

 

How easy was it to add that amp? Plug&Play?

 

You're kidding right?

You need to run reasonably thick power lines to the amp.
You need to interrupt the speaker wires and route some to the amp.
You need to run some speaker wires from the amp back to the cut speaker wires.
Under the passenger seat is a reasonable location for the amp.
You should remove the passenger seat, carpet, and probably the factory radio for starters to access wires.

 

Wasn't kidding as it is pretty simple in some cars, as they are also wired for upgraded audio systems.

That said, the details you mentioned is exactly what I was looking for (ok with running wires, taking car apart, etc., but didn't want to splice since it is a Lease).

 

The OEM speakers have an alright bass if you set the bass a few notches above trebble and mid. The mids and treble are garbage though.

I was told that if I upgrade the speakers to moderate priced 4ohm speakers, they will ahve better mids and trebble but I will lose bass. Something about the cheap toyota speakers actually having a strong impedance.

Does this sound accurate? Maybe he just wanted to sell me more expensive stuff.

 

I bought a Polk amp at Best Buy and they installed it, they did a great job and no complaints from me, and I'm picky. It is under the drivers seat. If you live in cold areas and use the heater a lot and blow the heat on the rear floor outlets, it may not be a good place to put a amp due to the heat casusing it act up. It may have cost me about 125 or so to have it installed plus cables and stuff. I think the total was $300 for the install maybe less.

 

Just sold my 2009 Prius IV with JBL premium. The sound experience was fine, with extremely satisfying bass. Now I have a 2012 7-seater Prius with JBL GreenEdge. The new system (in a slightly wider car) has noticeably better channel separation, and also better precision than before. However, the bass is only blah. Perhaps it is just as well: The car´s front doors don´t make the pathological noises as if they are falling apart, as it was with IV with JBL Premium. Although I still long for the impressive bass with the previous system, I sympathize with the Toyota-JBL cooperation for their energy-saving efforts. It´s okay.