I have been listening to some pretty loud music lately (never letting the volume go above 50). The last day or two i seeem to have to turn up the volume into the 40's range (which I don't remember having to do before). Could my loud music have decreased the volume level of the speakers without blowing them? Is there any way for my dealer to test the integrity of the speaker system? Thanks.
^^^ Agreed. If you don't listen to your car stereo for a day or two. When you get back to listening again, it will seem louder. It's just your ears getting used to the loud music. There's really not enough amp power to blow up the speakers.
I agree with the second post. Relax, there's nothing wrong with your stereo. It's your hearing that you've damaged.
At least on the JBL Prius, the amplifier cuts the bass to the speakers I think to protect the speakers from the possibility of damage at high levels. Toyota seems to have engineered the system for reliability at the expense of sound quality. So I doubt you have hurt the speakers. And usually if you had damaged them the damage would appear as distortion rather than just being less loud.
I work in the studio all day at 85 dB SPL, which is safe for 8+ hours. I think for most modern CDs, that's about 35 on the Prius JBL system. I wouldn't recommend listening at 40 for more than a couple hours in a day.
Isn't the bass boost just part of a non-defeatable loudness control? It boosts high and low frequencies at lower volume levels, and gradually dials the boost back as volume increases, reflecting the fact that human hearing is more sensitive to those higher and lower frequencies as volume increases. Some graphs: http://www.extron.com/technology/archive.a...dnesscontrol_ts
The volume levels vary greatly depending on the level of the source material. What is deafing for one CD at 40 might be barely audible on another (or radio, tape, satellite, etc.) The volume number on the car is just a relative number to help people gauge the amount they are changing the volume. Unless you're using a sound pressure meter (measuring loudness in dB) nobody can really tell how loud you are listening. Sorry. From what I've heard, you'd have to be listening pretty loud to damage the speakers. The sound begins to distort as it gets loud, it sounds messy before it gets damaging (to your speakers, at least. Your ears damage more easily)
Yup, it's the ears that go first, and the damage isn't apparent until years later... I used to think the music wasn't too loud as long as I could still hear the phone. When the knick knacks bounced off the mantle, and the plants migrated from the top of the speakers to the floor, *that* was too loud. I'm off to the ear doctor tomorrow.
speakers rarley get damaged by loud music, what they get damaged by is distorted music that comes from an amplifier working too hard. Almost all modern steroes have filters that will stop an amplifier from working too hard (called soft clipping or similar). I'm pretty sure a car stero would have something like this. So don't worry about your speakers worry about your ears
I like listening to music quite loud at times (~50-52 range), but rarely for more than 10 or 15 min at a time (and yes, my ears are still in great shape ) No problems at all from the Prius speakers, they handle everything I throw at them with flying colours. From my latest rock tunes to classical, it all sounds good. / Current Favorite "Loud Track": Koda Kumi - No Tricks
Hmmm... I have the non JBL, and it seems that anything around 42 and up starts to distort a bit. I'm talking in general here, with standard default EQ settings...
