2005 JBL Premium Sound, Front Speaker Blown

You should consider that the JBL amp is also blown. I had a front door tweeter go south, replaced under warrenty. You will need to match speaker Impedance if you plan to use other than the OEM JBL's.

I think option A is your best bet, get a replacement from Toyota, swap it out. When you do, make sure car is powered down!

 

WOW, sure glad mine was uner warrenty!

Well, as long as the Sound Pressure Level, and Frequency Response of the Hertz Speakers are very close, I would say go for it. As long as the balance of SPL from all the speakers stays within specs that JBL set when they designed the system, it should sound fine, if however you notice the fronts are either way too loud, or soft, your going to have to consider another speaker with the SAME Impedance. I assume you are going to replace a pair, and not just the one speaker. Replacing just the one would defiantly throw the system out of proper balance. That would sound bad!

Let us know how it works out for you!

 

There is a difference, Have you seen a schmetic on how the speakers are hooked up to the amp? I can supply one if you need, just PM me your email address. The back speakers are goingthrough a crossover built into the amp, the tweeter and larger speaker are a pair, they were matched for their outputs. This is where you really need to keep the impedance the same. Sadly the schmetic does not show the impedance of the speaker, you actually need to look at what's already there.
If they throw the wrong speaker in the back doors, the tweeter to big speaker is going to sound way off, and that also is bad!
Given the amount of money you are going to throw down, maybe doing just the blown speaker with a Toyota OEM would be easier and safer to do. you could mount it yourself! I have had my door panels off, it's easy to get to!

 

This is what I meant when I pointed out the SPL and Frequency Response has be close. The impedance difference may be enough to throw the crossovers off!
However for about $100, you can go the route I did and get a BOSS BASS 600. It's a powered subwoofer that I set in the back, and it will fill in the low end you are missing! If you buy it from Amazon, OR SOMEONE THAT HAS IT IN STOCK, and pay a decent price and let them install it to make you "Happy" that might be a nice consideration!

Here is a link to what I did..

http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...3215-give-gift-base-boom-bottom-end-xmas.html

EDIT, THESE GUYS HAVE IT IN STOCK.. $129
http://www.onlinecarstereo.com/CarA...utm_campaign=google_shopping_Price_Comparison

 

Yes, it works just like the day I installed it. You are not going to hear this subwoofer 3 cars away, I just needed, like you, to fill in the bottom end that was missing in the JBL System.

In order,
1 - It's not that big,that's the beauty of this thing! You can pack around and on it!
2 - I never considered mounting it under the passenger seat!
3 - Yes, it would be muffled and at that point, there would be no point to doing this that way!

At this point you already have the 4 speakers installed, pulling all that out and putting in a stock JBL, well, I doubt the installers will be happy, If it were me at this point, get the subwoofer, it's small. you can see how it fits in the back of my car. It's loud enough to fill in the bottom end
It's a tough call, but you will have to make the final decision!

 

Wow, great update, just to be sure I just went out to the car to confirm, my sub works fine. Tell your Stereo guy, I give him a ATTABOY for all his efforts, you found a good one! I can very well imagine that a great many failures of the BOSS BASS could be happening due to "Driving the piss out of it" occurrences! Too loud is Too loud for all things, it all depends on how the unit was and what it was designed to do. I don't kid myself, this unit is meant for a small volume of space, Prius, at a moderate volume, properly wired into the system. Once balance is set, it should be left alone! It's not a concert bottom!
I use an Ipod into the JBL system, Loudness on. The volume I run my system at is usually never above "25", usually around 18~20 on the little Vol Display that pops up when you change volume. To me the system sounds fine, although the center speaker thing was stupid.....it throws the separation off. But the BOSS adds just that little bit of fill I felt the system needed!
I have Tinnitus, which is a BITCH by the way, so super loud is not really a option for me, I do not need it. That being said I drive the BOSS with a rather low level compared to others, but that may be why I am having no problems. 2 basic laws of science....
"If you push something hard enough, it will fall over" Thuds First Law!
"If you overdrive the Piss out of something, it will let the smoke out!", Sullivan's Third Law!

So with those two laws of Logic implanted, when you come up with something, PICS!!!

 

I have learned the same lesson over and over in the past. OEM systems are actually very carefully engineered to give the best sound quality at the lowest cost. Speakers. in particular, look cheap but actually offer a better overall compromise in sound quality unless you go for a total rip-out and replace (Crutchfield's opinions to the contrary nothwithstanding). You can get most OEM parts on the web at 50% of the local dealership's parts departments but it sounds like it's all worked out for the best (especially as your ex will be footing the bill......................)

 

I know this is an old thread but it gave me an idea as to how I can "improve" my system. The first upgrade I did was replace the front woofers with alpines, which caused me to lose all the bass unless I cranked the volume. Next thing I did was install a 500w amp and 2 12 inch kickers. This gave me the bass I was looking for but it drowned out the lyrics in music. Because it was running of the stock radio I couldn't control the subs, listening to talk radio with subs sounds like crap lol. So then I got a new head unit and the only thing that's wrong is that the front woofers don't get as loud as the stock ones in the back...the left speaker also rattles, my guess is its not properly installed. I'm gonna take my car back to best buy and have them throw the stock speakers back in the car. And sell the Alpines to my friend whose looking to upgrade the speakers in his Saturn ion. Since he's running everything off his deck 4ohms should work fine for him. Anyways the moral of my rant is in hindsight I should have first upgraded my radio, that made the biggest improvement in the sound quality. CDs sound a little better and I miss having the 6 disc changer but I listen to my iPod mostly and the USB direct connection sounds 100x better than the cassette adapter I used before did.

Nexus 7 ? 2

 

I wanted to share my process on this thread. I read this thread after my door speaker was blown, and it really helped me to not repeat the mistakes made that were shared here. I learned with research that the impedance of the various speakers in this JBL system are different in each speaker location and custom designed to all work together. When introducing aftermarket speakers, it will throw off the balance of the sound. I went on E-bay and found a used pair of front door speakers for $65. I first did some research to find out for sure the exact speaker I needed, verified the part numbers on the photos of the ad, and then ordered a pair!

 

HI All. Despite the evils of resurrecting old threads, thanks for doing so - and I hope this is a useful continuation too:

I have a new-to-me 2004 Prius with the JBL 6 disc system. When listening to NPR and classical/FM radio the sound is sometimes very good (I'm not looking for gangsta sound) and sometimes just average, sometimes the front two door speakers sound damaged, as when bass comes along - also the central speaker sometimes sounds damaged -- all a bit like there's a rattle and fuzziness. When playing CDs this happens much more frequently. So, dead/damaged head amp or 3 damaged speakers/cones? Once I troubleshoot what's not right, I'm thinking to buy used speakers or amps from ebay, as I have also gone down the 'lets try some similar new speakers' only to be disappointed. In my case the car has nearly 200K and after fixing it totally up I spent a lot more than I hoped, so I'm not looking to spend more than about $150 to stop the rattle/fuzziness. I might even learn to live with it, as lowering the bass and moving the center of the sound to the rear of the car has made it pretty nice for FM, but still terrible for any CD bass. BTW, I don't mind the cassette-adapter-aux/line in sound.

 

If I'm not too late [om just running out the door but I found this thread and needed to quick register and here I am typing all this isn'tead of the point:.

*breathe*

My fronts went "bad sounding". almost sounded digitally something hapeening, but just plain any sound to my front was some sort of terrible sounding,

The foam surrounds pn the woofer deteriorate in our cars esp , and extra points for where there's a winter climate too.

read about just replacing the surrounds, turns out for some reason these speakers are especially easy to replace the things.
I ordered replacement surrounds off of ebay, LordofBass was the seller took me about 20 minutes shaving out the old ones with a utility blade, maybe an hour for that specific speaker glue to cure, no shims needed. cost maybe 20 bucks. Don't know that I could do any other application, but the prius jbl fronts were ridicuklousy easy and holy man I forgot how good the stock system sounds [ i too need to add a sub, just want more bass......also bluetooth,
sorry for the typos!

 

Thx; I'm going to try that. I googled replacing the front speakers and was sad to see that I have to remove the door cards (or whatever the plastic interior side part of the door is called. I've done the speaker foam/surround repair before on some Radioshack home speakers and am looking forward to warm weather to start the project here. I will look for Ebay surrounds for these speakers, esp from LordofBass. If anyone has current sources with links, please do post! I was thinking about an Aux in cable (and it can easily be done if you disconnect your CD changer, but I am old enough that I don't want to lose my CD changer!).

 

I’m bumping this older thread because I own a 2005 Prius with the original JBL premium sound system. It has the multi-CD head unit which I use both as a radio and as a CD player. It works great. My head unit also contains a cassette tape player which I’ve never used.

To the best of my knowledge there are four separate tweeters associated with the four door speakers. There is also one upwards-facing center-channel speaker located in the middle of the dash behind the LCD display panel. Does it serve as a (small) subwoofer?

At any rate, my driver’s side front door speaker sounds terrible. It’s fuzzy quality is consistent with a torn or deteriorated foam surround.

I’ve successfully replaced foam surrounds on dozens of home stereo speakers. So I’m comfortable with that part of this task.

However I haven’t ever disassembled the driver’s side door of my Prius. So I would appreciate receiving pointers to forum posts which describe “how take apart the door panels without damaging them.”

-Greg