2010 Overall Audio Quality

What do you think about the sound stage?

I have the 6-disc JBL and find the sound to be good and clear but that I can't "move" the sound to the middle of the car. It stays to the front of the car.

I think this is the main reason for criticism. Coming from an Echo /Yaris, I was used to have the sound more "in the middle" of the car. I guess the rear speakers being in the front of the rear doors, this is to be expected...

 

I have no clue what everyone is talking about. I'm on my second Toyota...having bought a 2007 Camry Hybrid and now have a 2010 Prius. Both sound systems have been great.....and that's compared to Chevy, Pontiac and Jeep sound systems I've had in the past. I would actually say that Toyotas' have been the best. I rarely listen to AM/FM....but on the Camry and Prius they both seemed fine (sounded like regular radio to me). CD quality on both has been AWESOME. The Prius has Satellite Radio which sounds great....though it does fade out occasionally, usually when going under bridges, underpasses, etc. But it's back in a split second. No tinny sound....it's perfect.

 

Hello jb2,

Just got my Prius III with Nav and noticed your comment about how good you thought your iPod sounded through the aux port. I have an iPod Classic and an iPod Shuffle. The iPod Classic sounded pretty bad. Like a tin can echo type of sound. The Shuffle was a little better but still not that great. Any chance you might know why I might be getting pretty bad sound from the aux port?

Thanks in advance.

 

I agree that the soundstage is designed for the front passengers. The first time I had people in my back seat they asked me "why isn't there any audio coming out back here??". I hadn't even noticed before that.

Now I tune my stage 3 or 4 points to the back, bump the bass a bit and have found a happy middle ground. It's not the best system in the world (I have the JBLs), but it's a huge improvement over my previous 94 camry and I honestly don't mind that it is more of a front-centric system since that is where I always ride.

My only niggle is that the FM radio is total weak sauce. My 94 camry had an antenna that broke off along the years and I stuffed back into it's antenna hole. It sounded leagues better that the stock FM reception that I get with 2010 prius. Now THAT is disappointing!

 

I found that if I adjusted the bass/treble I got good sound. I have a 5g iPod and I forst set the sound to Jazz ... this sounded good. I recently set it to Rock and the bass blew me away. There are some songs that do not sound real great ... but that's because they were of poor quality when I recorded them ... as they say if $hit goes in, $hit comes out.

 

Has anyone tried the "shark fin" replacement antenna offered by the Prius accessory shop? My wife's new Corolla has a similar type of antenna and she has no issues with radio reception.

I might be picking up my Prius this evening and I'm inclined to order one of those shark fins because they look way cooler than the stubby mast. Considering the number of complaints about the FM reception, I figure it can't be any worse.

 

I agree with everything you said, and also have called the 800 number. They were cordial and willing to help. Of course, I do hope something comes of it, as my intention was not to make waves, but to have a decent audio system. The salesperson knew this was important to me. I started out buying a III but ended up with a II because of color. The audio almost brings me to tears, it does sound like a transistor radio, tinny, monotone, and the static gets pretty bad at times on stations I've been listening to for years. I find myself constantly messing with the adjustments on every station and every song. front back side to side, front front, back back side to side,,haha had to throw that in.

 

Has anyone actually verified that the front door speakers are 6x9. Two local shops state they are 5.1/4 I happen to think this site is more accurate but want to know for sure before I invest $
thanks

 

I am very happy with mine. I find it a significant improvment over my 2005 Prius.

Alan

 

I have the shark fin on my otherwise stock audio '04. FM reception took a very slight hit with the fin, but NPR comes in over FM just fine, so I'm happy. Would love a '10 with JBL for crankin CDs and the iphone bluetooth though...

 

Was all set to order my shark fin antenna but they don't offer it in blizzard pearl ...I guess its a new color for the Prius...oh well, maybe soon.

So far, I have no complaints about the audio system on my III. Once I tweaked tone and fader settings to my taste, I'm happy with the sound. I agree that radio reception isn't great but it's good enough for news and talk which is all I really use the radio for anyway. For music, it's my iPod or CD's. I mainly want the shark fin because it looks better than that ugly mast antenna.

Overall, I'm loving my new Prius !!

 

I'd have to say that the JBL 8 speaker w/NAV in our 10 Prius V is much better than the JBL w/NAV in our previous 05 Prius pkg 6, but still not as good as in my 07 Camry Hybrid with NAV. The Camry radio has more "presence" (about the only way to describe the difference). The new Prius is quieter, which may account for some of the improvement over the 05. The sat XM radio seems Ok with only minor drop outs in covered areas like tunnels and garages.

 

I have the 2010 JBL system, and I think the sound is pretty terrible. I guess partly because I'm used to sound coming from rear deck speakers, but maybe I've just become an audiophile somehow. The only thing that helps is that I've been listening to 1st Wave on Satellite a lot. The songs they play aren't recorded well, so the overall disappointing system doesn't matter as much.

 

I have 2010 model III with Nav. The radio reception is pretty bad compared to my previous car (05 Corolla). I listen primarily to FM news / talk and for the last 3 years have been listening to a variety of stations from Sacramento (close by) to San Francisco (~75 miles). I used to receive the SF stations in the Corolla but can't in the Prius. Even worse the close by stations are full of static. Kind of annoying. The antenna is shorter in the Prius compared to the Corolla.... that may be the problem since the Corolla has the factory installed base package radio... nothing special but worked perfectly fine for news etc.

 

The factory sound in my Prius G3-II was pretty poor. I just dropped it off at the car audio store to get new front and rear door speakers and an amp put in. Hopefully this will help a bunch!

 

Check the cables themselves. Also check if you are overdriving the aux-in channel (if you are using a headphone jack, for example, you could have the volume of the ipod turned to high - In which case you'd need to lower the output volume of your aux device and increase the volume of the receiver.)

 

Will be interested to hear what the audio store does for you, how much they charge and what they put in.

 

Hi!

They put the following in:

Front-door: Rockford Fosgate Punch 6x9 4-way (P1694) - $125
Rear-door: Rockford Fosgate Punch 6.5" 3-way (P1653) - $100
Amp: Total Mobile T2-320.4, 4 channel amp - $225
Amp install kit - $60
Labor - $140

(I know I could have gotten the stuff cheaper off the internet, but then I would have had to pay shipping, plus I got burned really bad once ordering electronics from some of the shady places on the net. I brought my car in at 9:15am and they had it done by 1:00pm)

(Also had the tint that came with the car stripped off and re-tinted to illegal 35% front and 15% rear or something like that)

I haven't pulled my doors off yet to see how they mounted the speakers, especially in the rear. It *really* sounds great. Their is no high pitched whine, no "pop" when the audio turns on, it seems just like the factory system. It sounds incredibly better. I still think there would be a lot of room for improvement if I replaced the factory head-unit, but there is no way that's going to happen.

The amp is mounted under the seat, they used a line-output converter to convert the speaker level inputs to RCAs (looks like they didn't charge me for that). Basically you can't tell anything was done to the car if you look at it, but it sounds incredibly better than the stock 3rd gen-II system. When the volume is at 35 (out of 60) it is about as loud as I could tolerate, and there was no distortion or anything. Crystal clear.

When I get the leather seats in this week I'll be super happy that I didn't spend all the extra to upgrade to a III w/ leater, etc. It will have cost me $1450 total to get my G3-II to be better equipped than a G3-III!

 

If you guys are really in tears (I was!) with the radio on your Gen3 - II's, then you may be best suited to just bring it to the local stereo shop. They can put an amplifier in it and new speakers in the door. Shouldn't cost you more than about $600-$650 for some decent stuff. Don't worry about it looking bad - you can't visually tell *anything* isn't stock unless you look under the passenger seat (and see the amp - which you could hide like they hide the XM unit on the drivers side!) So basically you get a badass audio system, and you paid less than the JBL radio would have cost (and it sounds infinitely better). They should be able to install it in about 4 hours or less. I am so incredibly happy that I decided to get that done!