Amplifier Installation Issues - A First Hand Perspective

Recently I had an amp and speakers installed in my Prius. The install ran into some issues for some of which I had sent a query in an earlier post. I've seen lots of writeups on upgrading the audio system in a JBL equipped Prius, some writeups on upgrading the Prius with the stock audio system, but none documenting issues faced during an audio upgrade. Now that most issues relating to my audio upgrade are resolved, I thought I should document completely the various issues that arose during the amp and speaker install in order to help others who might be planning a similar upgrade.

The audio upgrade consisted of Alpine R speakers for the front and rear driven by an Alpine PDX-v9 amplifier for my 2012 Prius III with a non-JBL 6 speaker Display Audio system. The parts were purchased from Amazon and Crutchfield. I choose these parts since I had seen earlier PriusChat posts about installing these components, so I knew they would fit in the Prius. Also, I wanted the amp and speakers from the same company, since it is very likely that the company has tested them together and ensured that they would work perfectly together. Since the amp did not have speaker inputs, I also selected the AudioControl LC6i as the Line Output Converter (LoC), as I wanted an LoC with SNR characterestics as good as the amp.

I choose to have the amp and LoC mounted in the cargo tray above the spare tire. The other alternative of locating them under the front passenger or driver seat did not appeal to me, since when its raining, I get into the car with very wet shoes and umbrella, both of which cause lots of water drops to be sprayed all around the car floor.

On a Friday morning, I gave the install shop the new speakers, the amp and the LoC. I was told that
the install would take all day, but I should get the car back by evening. I'll now list the various
issues that cropped up during the install.

1) Part testing.
When I gave the install shop the sealed parts in their original packaging on Friday morning, I asked them to test them before beginning the install, since I did not want to receive a call from them
in the middle of installation saying that a part was not working.

I got a call from them on Friday evening, saying that they had installed everything, but the stereo was not working, and that the likely reason was the LC6i was not working. I asked them why they had not tested the parts as I had asked them to. I was told that they did not have the facilities to
test parts and testing was done by actually mounting them.

I then asked them if they could replace the LC6i. I got a call from them after an hour, saying that they had gotten an LC7i from a local stereo shop and would continue the install with that the next day. The LC7i is basically the LC6i with an added bass restoration module. I asked them to pack up the LC6i in its original container so that I could return it.

2) Hybrid Error

On Saturday afternoon, I called to ask about the install status. I was told that everything was working, the door panels were being put back and the car would be ready for delivery by evening. However, there was no call in the evening, so I called just before their closing time to ask what the latest status was. I was told that the Prius was throwing a hybrid system error. They had called a Toyota tech, but he had not yet come. I asked them if they had tried starting the car three times to clear the error. They said that they had already tried that, but the error did not go away. They also said that they were shutting down now and would reopen on Monday.

On Monday morning, I visited them with my Bluetooth ODB2 interface. The car was able to lock/unlock the door, indicating that the battery was not completely discharged, but starting the car would only give the Hybrid error message. After plugging in the Bluetooth ODB2
interface and starting the Torque app on my Android smartphone, I retrieved the following DTC - U0100. I could not understand this DTC, but the ODB2 interface was also telling me that the 12V battery voltage was 10.6 V. I told them that the 12V battery was too run down to start the traction battery and would need to be charged. They used jump cables from another car to the Prius hood jump connector to charge the Prius 12V battery . After 5 minutes, I verified with the ODB2 interface that the Prius 12V battery voltage had risen to 12V, so tried starting the car, but still the same Hybrid error message cropped up. One of the techs there suggested that it might help to clear the DTC first. I cleared the DTC and sure enough, the Prius started at the first attempt.

It appears that the installers were used to running the car in accessory mode while installing and testing amps and speakers in order to avoid exhaust fumes in the shop. While this techniques is OK for regular cars, its a real no-no for the Prius with its undersized 12V battery. I had told them of this beforehand, but perhaps they did not remember.

3) Nav and Bluetooth not working.

I was very to see my brand new Prius working again on Monday morning, since I had spent the entire weekend with visions of my Prius not working again The upgraded audio system made a HUGE difference, so I drove back home in a happy state of mind. I thought I should make a call before arriving home, but when I made the call, I could not hear anything. I did not think much of it, but then I idly turned on the Nav system, and noticed that there was no audio from the Nav. At this point, I made another call and verified by transferring it to my handset
that the audio problem was with the car, not with the handset. So back to the install shop.

They spend a couple of hours looking at the issue, but could not figure it out. I told them that I would post a query on a Prius specific forum and see what others had to say about it. While driving back, I turned on the Prius audio fader and noticed that if I faded to the front, there was no audio, while if I faded to the rear, there was no difference in the audio at all. This told me two things - first, the head unit output to the front speakers was not connected to the amp, and second, the amp was feeding the rear speaker inputs to the front speakers as well. I suspected that the Nav and Bluetooth were only connected to the front speakers, since they are targeted at the driver. That would explain why they did not work when only the rear speakers were connected.

I went back to the shop on Tuesday and explained my findings, indicating that the front speaker inputs were not connected. I also showed them the fader control in the Prius. They told me that they had tapped the front speaker inputs from the door woofers, and did not understand why it did not work. They spent another couple of hours dismantling the doors and rechecking the wiring, before connecting the front speaker inputs from the dash tweeter location. This worked to restore Nav, Bluetooth and the Voice commands.

Apparently, for connecting front component speakers, their standard operating technique is to cut the existing speaker wiring at the tweeter and the woofer, install new speakers, and tap the head unit inputs from the woofer. This method works for the case when the head unit output is routed first to the woofer, but does not work for the Prius where the output is routed to the tweeter first. In the case of the Prius, when the woofer is tapped, the connection to the head unit has already been cut at the tweeter, so there will not be any input signal. I had given them the Prius wiring diagram that I had downloaded from the Toyota Technical Information System (TIS) website, but they did not look at it, hence the problem.

4) Amplifier Hiss

While I greatly enjoyed the new sound, one thing that really bothered me was the amplifier hiss. This was very evident during the quiet passages in the music, during the inter song gaps, and most of all, when the stereo was switched off, since the amp's turn on signal was connected to the ignition, which meant that the amp and speakers were always on when the car was on, whether the stereo was on or not.

The LC6i and LC7i have a speaker based turn on which is supposed to turn on the amplifier whenever the they detects a signal from the head unit speaker outputs connected to it. However, the shop said that they could not get it to work. They rigged up an on/off switch in one of the empty switch slots next to the driver door so that I could switch off the amp and hence the hiss
when the head unit was not in use.

While the on/off switch is a great way of switching off the amp when not in use, it is not a good way to control hiss, since the hiss is present even when the audio is on. The right way to control the hiss is to match the gains of the LoC and the amp. On Wednesday, I was busy, but on Thursday, I opened up the amp faceplate to check the amp gain settings and saw that it was set to the halfway
mark. The LoC gain was also set to the halfway mark. I turned the amp gain to the minimum, increased slightly the LoC gain and the hiss was gone. Of course, this reduced the overall gain, so I now have to increase the volume setting on the head unit toget the same volume level as before, but now that higher volume is at a much lower hiss level. Another advantage of reducing the amp gain is that whenever the voice button is pressed, the beep is at a more manageable level, instead of the deafening sound at the higher amp gain. Incidentally, the Lc6i and LC7i manuals recommend that the amp gain be turned to the minimum level to control hiss. They also have 3 different grounding schmes to mininize hiss, but none of them made a difference, so I reverted to the original recommended isolated ground scheme.

5) Car cleanup.

Its nice to get the car back in the same shape it was before giving it. In my case, when I got it back on Monday, the rear seats were folded down, and the original Prius speakers were lying on the floor. On Thursday, when I opened the cargo tray to look into the amp and LoC gains, I noticed there a couple of wire ends with open copper strands, and little copper strands all over the cargo tray. It looks like they did not vacuum the cargo tray.

When giving the car, I had asked them if they could remove the existing riveted speakers without
spraying metallic dust all over the car. I was told that when they would drill out the rivets, they
would use a vacuum to suck out all the metal shavings. I did not see any debris in the front row or
the rear row, so I assume they did vacuum those areas.


6) Retaining all packaging materials and accessories.

When I was told on Friday that the LC6i was not working, I asked them to pack it up in its original packaging, together with its manual, ensure that the amp and speaker packaging was not thrown away, and unused components like speaker grills were left in the packaging. I now have all the original packaging andunused components so that in case any part fails, it can be returned in its original, complete packaging for a replacement or a refund. I returned the Lc6i to Crutchfield on Wednesday and got its refund on Friday.

Conclusions

At this point, I have an audio system that I am really happy about, Previously, I did not at all enjoy listening to music at a high volume, but now I really enjoy it. I think the likely reason is that my ears were previously rejecting low fidelity, bass limited music at high volumes, but are now accepting high fidelity sound provided by the amp and speakers.

Some folks have mounted fans to cool audio equipment placed in the cargo tray, but that requires cutting up the rear deck to vent the fan, so I've not done that. Also the amp is a class D amp, so it should run cooler than a class A/B amp. I've put a recording thermometer in the cargo tray to see how hot it gets inside with the amp running - so far its been 91 degrees, but I am waiting to check it after running the stereo for hours together on a hot day.

Some must be wondering if I regret having the shop install the audio gear, instead of doing it myself, or having it done at another shop. I don't. Installing an amp and new speakers in the Prius requires drilling out the rivetted speakers, fashioning new speaker mounts (especially for the tweeters), laying new speaker wires to support the higher current requirements of the new speakers, proper shielding of the amplifier high current connections etc. It is best that these tasks be done by professionals. While I've installed stereos and speakers in my previous cars, this job is certainly outside my competency and comfort level. Since professionals worked on the car, I knew, for example, that the reason the front speaker inputs were not working was not because they had been accidentally shorted. They also came up with a nice solution to retaining access to the spare tire under the cargo tray. The amp and LoC are velcroed to the cargo tray, and the wires leading to them are enclosed in a flexible harness with some slack. The slack allows the amp and LoC to be simply lifted from the cargo tray and placed on the trunk, thereby emptying the cargo tray, which can then be removed to access the spare tire. The cargo tray has not been modified in any way. These are the things you hire professionals for.

Of course, I wish they had listened to what I had said at the onset about testing the parts, using the Prius wiring diagram, not using accessory mode of running the Prius etc. But they did not try to shoo me away each time I came back with a problem to report, but instead tried to work diligently on the problem. I've used them before for other tasks and I know that they back their work, so that gives peace of mind.

I hope these issues will be of use as a checklist for others planning to upgrade their stock sound. It can be a bit of a pain while doing it, but the end results are definitely worth it.

UPDATE - Dec 2012

I've added a subwoofer to the Prius. As anyone who has read this post so far has figured out, that too was not a straightforward process - it took about 3 months!

First, I asked Tim for the backshell for the Prius subwoofer enclosure. (Gen 3 Prius right Subwoofer Enclosure) That took about 3 weeks. That enclosure can take either the JL Audio 10w30 or the Herz HX 250 sub. I had initially ordered the JL Audio sub, but after reading the user experiences on this forum, I decided to go for the Hertz, so returned the JL Audio sub and ordered the Hertz sub and grill.

However, superstorm Sandy, and a missing package caused almost a month's delay in receiving the
sub and grill. Finally, once I had those two in hand, I gave them to the amp install shop with the backshell. Unfortunately, this shop only had experience with MDF boxes, not fiberglass, so even looking at it for a week, they could not figure out how to proceed. I called Tim and asked him if he could complete the shell and he graciously agreed. In the meantime, I located a local shop with expertise in fiberglass enclosures, and they agreed to complete it, so I decided to give it to them instead of shipping the enclosure back to Tim. An added advantage was that they were Hertz dealers and had a lot of experience with Hertz subs, so I figured that they would do a good job of building the enclosure.

It took me a couple of weeks to fit in their schedule, but towards end of Nov, they built the enclosure. Unfortunately, once the enclosure was built and the sub fitted, it turned out that the sub speaker connector onmy amp was missing! The Alpine PDX-v9 amp has quick disconnect speaker connectors for its 5 channels (2 front, 2 rear, 1 sub). I had given the amp with the 5 speaker connectors to the amp install shop, but while they had used 4 connectors for the 4 sets of speakers, the 5th connector was missing. I asked them about it and they said that they would order it, but after waiting for 2 weeks with the sub installed but not connected, I finally timed out and ordered the speaker connector from ebay. With that installed, hooking up the sub was only a matter of minutes.

The current sound is totally awesome! Previously, the speakers sounded good, but now they sound great! Without a sub, the physical sensation of low frequency notes cannot be reproduced by the other speakers.

The only drawback of the sub installation is that the installers were super expensive and managed to lose the speaker clips that cover the screw mounting holes of the sub even though both the grill and the speaker came with the clips. In fact, they did not even know about the clips till I asked them, even though they were supposed to be Hertz dealers!

You can check out the sub in the attached pics.

One really important aspect of installing a sub. Make sure you get a sub level control knob that you install in the dash. I've found that each CD requires a different level of bass, so the sub level that sounds good with one CD will sound boomy with another CD.

Another aspect is making sure that the amp has a subwoofer subsonic filter to cut out frequencies below what the sub can handle. For example, Hertz recommends setting the subsonic filter to25Hz for its subs.

 

Glad you like it! And great that your audio install went without incident. While I wish that all installs are incident free, we might as well try to learn from unsuccessful installs. I certainly learnt a great deal

I'd really like to thank the PriusChat forum and all those who actively contribute to it (like you). All that background information was really, really useful, e.g. I had no idea that bluetooth ODB2 interfaces and an Android based front end were available till I read the forum. To me, the best way of thanking the people of this forum is to contribute our experiences, whether good or bad, so that others draw the same benefit that we did.

Thanks.

 

Hi Ajtozzi

I would not be too hard on them even though the stereo install was bothersome.

The Prius is a different beast from regular cars, and this was their first hybrid.

I, and most others I know, tend not to do well at any task the first time.

For me what was more important was that they were willing to work with me instead of brushing me off.

Thanks.

 

Hi

The shop was Ultimate Sound and Security in Keyport, NJ.

I've used them before and after for jobs on other cars including stereo, speaker and rear view cam install, and have not had any issues with the other jobs. But I fully agree with you that they could have done far better on this job.

Thanks.

 

Sorry for the delayed response, but I only check PriusChat once in while.

Do you have a device between the head unit and the amp? In my case, there is a Line output Converter (AudioControl LC6i LoC) between the two. In such cases, the amp turn on needs to come from this intermediate device, else you will hear this click.

In my setup, the ignition on is fed via a dash mounted on/off switch to the remote turn on input of the LoC, which in turn feeds its remote turn on output to the amp.

No clicks on startup.

Thanks.