JBL' s audio review

Thanks for the review, Phillippe. And please don't apologize for your English. Just be thankful that the rest of us don't try to post in French!!

 

I find the system adequate overall, but not great. The base is moderately tight, but only at low to moderate volume. But even then it could use improvement.

The mids and highs are good enough for me for a car though.

Fortunately, I don't often have the stereo cranked way up. And overall it's certainly much better than the base system on my old Prius 2001.

My biggest issue with the system is that there is no aux input. I would love to be able to plug my iPod directly into it.

 

well its plain to see that France is not getting anypreference as far as Prius deliveries. But trust me, it
is well worth the wait.

 

I thought the same thing for my 2001 Prius. But of course, the 2004 came with the same thing, even with the JBL system.

 

ummm well the cassette player isnt totally useless. i
know of a friend of mine who does a lot of driving and
has one of those cassette power adapters for his
portable music player cause he frequently goes places
where he is in the boonies and cant pick up radio and
doesnt carry a lot of CD's because they make his car
that much more inviting for a smash and grab.

 

Lots of libraries have most of their "Books on Tape" on Tape. Another good use for the Cassette on long hauls.

 

hmmm that gives me a thought. i wonder if anyone has
ever thought of adding an open mike on the steering
wheel to enable recording. I think some might find it
handy to be able to record notes instead of having to
write them down.

 

Well, if you have Bluetooth, you already have a Mike there. Looks like a Job for Coastal Dave.

 

i would buy it... as it is, i am constantly either having to stop or more likely if on the freeway, writing and driving at the same time. I had one of those personal recorders. it looked like a pen and would record like 5 minutes of audio... it worked pretty good... but i guess it ran out of ink cause it quit after about 6 months. so i got one of those mini cassette recorders. it was pretty good although i was caught with dead batteries. To have one in the car would be cool i think.

 

You can get lots of audio books on CD or even AAC (for the iPod). iTunes audio books. (You need iTunes loaded to use that link.)

 

Eug:

what he had was a power adapter that was shaped like a
cassette. he popped the cassette into the player and it
would draw power from the cassette player to run his
portable music thing. and the reason he didnt like CD's is
that he travels for a living and spends a lot of time in
hotels. he doesnt like to leave anything in the car that
would entice a thief and the portable music player is
much smaller and carries more music than a large
bundle of CD's.

 

I've used one of these for years, to use my MP3 player (actually, my Clie PDA with MP3 player built-in) through my old '88 Civics casette player.

Very handy, and as you point out, Dave, fewer things for someone to break in and steal.

 

regarding books on tape and aux input...

Cassette players in cars now just seem like having an 8-track in there. The few things I have on tape I have converted to mp3 and burned onto cd. For books on tape, you can get by with a low bitrate and it sounds just fine so you can jam more than one book onto a cd.

Of course, my current car (an old 1995 Avalon XLS while I wait and wait and WAIT to get my Silver #9 Prius) has an Alpine 9815 head unit which plays mp3s. I recently got a 60 gig Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra which works great though the 9815... happily(?) I should have about 8 months to kill to see if there will be workable aux input for the Prius sound system, or maybe I can install my Alpine in there.

Having a stock stereo, an Alpine, AND a Nomad is a little ridiculous, but I migrated away from audio cds a couple years ago and have no intention of being dragged back now. There must be a solution!

 

Pourquoi? Nous parlons francais.