"muddy" radio sound

Graeme,
My thoughts exactly. I'm waiting to get a prius, and my father and I test drove it and didn't really turn up the volume that much (there was nothing to listen to). I forgot to really test out the speakers. Oh well.

 

it sounds better at louder volumes. It needs a sub. All that bass is going through the mids and it sounds like your head is in a tube with someone beating on it when it tries to really hit base. Granted, a few songs have really good base response to the system in the prius. I have the BC package. Best sounding song so far is by dave mathews. Get a sub. Your worries should go away.

 

i myself wanted to put in an equalizer board, but felt it would be way too much re wiring.

 

My husband was a bit unhappy until he played around with the audio controls and it sounds pretty good now. But I'm not a stereo snob - I'll listen to anything if it plays my music.

 

i find that mid is good at mid and high is better up along with bass a few notches. usualy i find my treble to be twice as high as bass.

 

I still maintain that this issue goes far beyond frequency problems. The sound of my 2005 pkg 6 and my mother's 2004 pkg 9 (both JBL "9-Speaker" systems) sounds digitally aliased, as though it were always playing back an under-sampled and poorly compressed MP3.

While I can futz with the equalizer settings to round out the sound, it's the digital artifacts I hear that I can't stand. To the lay-ear, you'll hear a distinct "crunching" in cymbals, for example. The comparison between a CD played through my car vs. a standard home stereo (to say nothing about comparing it with studio-grade monitors) is really quite stark.

 

I own a 2005 package #6 (with the premium sound system), and I must say that this car fulfilled all my expectations by far except for one thing, the sound system. Probably my bar is set too high but the sound with the premium package leaves a lot to be desired. I have listened to factory premium sound systems in other cars where, for instance, BOSE was chosen as the manufaturer; then is when you really hear the difference and it's huge.
Just to start off, the tweeters are of average quality and that is why some people have reported the sound to be somewhat artificial and metallic.
The frequency response is poor not to mention the un-natural bass that is poorly produced using the doors enclosures (obviously, not designed for this purpose), making the system prone to rattle noises and unpleasant vibrations.
I wish Toyota at some point consider pairing up with a higher quality audio manufacturer (as Nissan did) and understand that you do not need to own a Mercedes to enjoy the privilege of a pleasant listening experience while driving.

 

Or maybe they could pair up with Mark Levinson, as their wealthy cousin, Lexus, did. Mark Levinson sound systems in Lexii are reported to be world class.

 

I must agree with the "muddy" sound problem. I have had an '05 for about a month now and am VERY displeased with the sound quality.

I have recently made a trip from Atlanta to New Orleans and back and utilized my laptop on an inverter and an FM transmitter. I set the Prius EQ to Full on all THREE settings (I'm underwhelmed) and used the laptop to find a goof EQ setting. This is the best it's sounded.

I am of the opinion that the EQ or lack thereof is the culprit.

I will be researching/pricing out options to add an aftermarket EQ/amp and better speakers.

 

Typical upgrade will cost you around $1500-$2000. Amplifier with crossover, subwoofer in custom enclosure, replacement front speakers.

EQ won't help you if sound system sucks. It will only make it suck harder Good system sounds good without any equalization. In fact, only digital EQ may help since analog units introduce horrible phase errors.

 

Radio sound quality has been hit-and-miss, but usually depends on the broadcaster.

Some songs sound super-deluxe, with highs and lows I never noticed before. "Muddy" describes some of the others very well.

Perhaps if every radio station used DVD Audio instead of whatever MP3-like method they use now for their disk-based players, we'd hear an improvement. So far, I'm not unhappy...

 

Mine sounds awful. But I saved my radio from my old car, and if I can make it fit I
will just install it and leave the factory radio turned off!

My old system is a Kenwood with 10 disk changer, cassette-radio combo. Alpine
300 watt amp for sub-woofer. Infinity main speakers.

I will move what I can find room for into the Prius, and for sure the amp and sub-woof!
If I can fit the radio (needed for the changer) then I can play MP3 CD's too!

I have the AM package without the JBL upgrade. I would have prefered to just have a
regular radio that I could get the car without or toss out when I did get it. I would rather
pick something I like the sound of than use any factory supplied stuff.

 

Wow, I have pretty good ears and I don't really have a problem with the sound system. Should add that I'm typically not too picky about stock car audio. Heck, we mostly listen to XM through the FM modulator. I can tell you this sounds way better in the Prius than it did in the 4Runner.

Had a BMW with the HK Premium system. It wasn't so good, the base system was simply horrible. I actually think the Prius may sound better than the my Mustang's Mach whateveritis.

Can't expect a car to sound like home...

 

You can put amplifier under passenger seat or under trunk floor. Sub in custom enclosure can be placed in the left or right trucnk niches. New head unit can be installed in the opening below the stock unit behind that smoked glass cover. My factory unit is disconnected, I have Alpine installed in the opening below the dash and amplifier under passenger seat.

 

If there is a way to keep all the steering controls and add a new sterio.. i would consider it. Otherwise i purchased the prius because everything was intigrated. Otherwise.. i might just re amp the speakers and add a sub later.

 

Amp won't make any difference. You will feed from *speaker* outputs of the head unit (I assume you have non-JBL system since JBL has its own amp). So sound quality will be gated by stock head unit quality. In fact, you may decrease quality since you will be reducing speaker level to line level and then re-amplifying signal using another amp in the chain. No matter how good is your amp, the resulting quality will be *worse*.

External amp makes sense if you either need to feed subwoofer and hence need crossover and/or if your speakers are low-sensivity units (which is typical for high-end car speakers). So unless you are also replacing stock speakers, I wouldn't recommend installing the amplifier.

Good head unit with nice controls (like Clarion DRZ9255) will be much more pleasant to operate than steering wheel buttons leave alone touch screen.

You can also get iPod adapter for Alpine, Clarion and soon for Pioneer.

 

I know your opinion is that "a good head unit with nice controls" can be more pleasant than the stock system, but I must say, I do like the "clean" look and feel of the integrated system. It's just sounds *so* awful.

I have this little hope in my heart that the terrible audio dithering I hear from my JBL system (on radio, CD, and cassette modes) is being caused by a poorly designed amp, rather than the head unit. If that's the case, perhaps replacing the under-seat amp with something of proper rating would solve the problem.

But, how to test this theory? Is there a way to tap into the outputs of the head unit (perhaps routing them through a pair of high-quality headphones) to see if the dithering and aliasing is happening before the amp?

If the audio quality is bad all the way through the chain, then the only course of action IS to replace the system with something else (such as Clarion or Alpine, etc..). While this has other plusses (such as clean and 100% compatible iPod integration), I'm certainly not prepared to spend that kind of $$ just yet.

 

The amp controls the level and EQ, not the header. The analog output of the header is fixed line level R and L.