I am a newbie and have been driving my 2005 Prius for just a week. So I do not know all the intricate functions. This morning I took out my 3 year old cassette adapter (the cheap ones you usually buy in Walmart for 5 bucks) out of my old Jeep and put it in my Prius. I have a 6 speaker JBL sound system in the Prius. I usually listen to podcasts from my iPhone and I have two issues to report. First issue: The voice is too sharp. It hurts my ears. I tried messing up with the equalizer but that didn't help. I think I will go and try different adapters to solve this issue. But if anyone knows a good adapter or anything better then let me know. Second issue: Only the speaker on the front left was having any sound although the settings on the audio screen was showing that the sound should be centered. When I tried moving the balance to the right speaker then only the right speaker will have any sound and the left speaker will go mute although I haven't changed the balance 100% to the right. The FM sounds fine and have audio in all speakers. Anyone else had this issue? Any setting I need to alter?
Well first off, cassette adapters are probably the WORST method of introducing external audio into any stereo! If you have the JBL SYSTEM, is there not a jack in the center console to to plug the headphone out of your device into the JBL??? It should work when you hit the AUX button. I think both your issues are from the bad adapter unit.
My guess is that you have a defective adapter, or at least one that is not aligned properly for the tape deck in your Prius. Try playing a tape and see if it works OK. If so, it is definitely your adapter. If not, you have a bad tape deck.
I would be trying some new adapters and see if they work. My adapter was working fine in the Jeep so I assumed it will be fine in the Prius. The 2005 Prius doesn't have an Aux input as far as I have researched.
I use a tape adapter in my 05 with jbl for both my iPhone and xm radio. It's a cheapo from Walmart. Works perfect.
Resolved the issue by reading instructions on my Cassette adapter. I had to turn the volume on my iPhone halfway down and then increase the car volume. Which took care of the sharp sounding voice. All podcasts sound fine now on the JBL. The joint-stereo encoded podcast sound better but not up to the mark.
Cassette adapters have a habit of jamming in logic-controlled decks (defeating the eject mechanism) and then you have to remove the deck from the dash and dissassemble it to get the cassette out. I don't like FM transmitters but I would choose this over the cassette adapter (I use a DICE and the sound quality is great).
Cassette adapters are far better than most FM transmitters. The OP has an 05 Prius. The aux in jack wasn't available until the 06. It shouldn't have one.
Ok so that fixed the distortion problem (your input signal was too "hot"). But what about the second problem of only getting output to the left speaker. What resolved that one?
