Looking to upgrade the JBL "premium" speakers...

Well, my last car came complete with a Bose speaker system, and they are definatly a fantastic set of speakers. I don't know much about the technical details of speaker replacement, but I do know good sound quality, and these do have it. Very very good with bass.

 

Boss has a sub they make that is enclosurless and is only 8 inches big. It puts out a lot of bass though. So it's 8 diameter.. and only 2 or 3 inchest thick. Which is as small as a normal speaker.

Unless you are going to switch out the JBL amp and the speakers for something like Alpine or Boss. or boston acoustics.. don't waist your money. JBL is a good company. replacing them with something that is not top of the line would not have any effect. You have to replace your amp. The main problem is that the back speakers are underpowered. The other problem is the car is a huge piece of plastic that clips together.. more bass.. more things will ratle. It's a simple car. wonderful car.. but simple.

 

This all depends on what type of system you are wanting to put in. Are you wanting to add any subs? Keep the speakers stock?

If you want to keep the speakers stock, you'll have to find either 1. an amp that is capable or amps that can power all 9 speakers. 2. take the back speakers off the jbl and power them seperatly. Youll have to have an aux feed ran to the new amp.

What i would do, if money permited. I would re do the system from the second it comes out of the sterio. I would have the lines cut and sent through a nice equalizer unit and some sort of fader so i can individualy control eash speakers output. These can be done with Pre amp RCA controllers. Each speaker or several speakers would get an amp. Most likely, i would get smaller amps for each set of speakers. so, 4 amps and keep the center on stock control. I haven't really looked into this too far.. so i don't know my exact recommendation for the amps.. or maybe just one amp. I'm a power nut.. so maybe this won't work for anyone else.

To keep it simple.. just have the rear speakers removed from the JBL and powered by a seperate amp. It helps a lot. If you are looking for a serious system, PM me.. and i'll help you look up some equipment. :mrgreen:

 

Has anyone driven to a stereo store, and had someone say "Sure, I can put in better speakers than that"? About all I'd feel like doing is putting those in, since once upon a time it worked wonders for a Geo Metro.

Specific model numbers that were recommended would be helpful...

 

Forget about changing the speakers. I changed my rear speakers and there was no improvement. I did add a equalizer/amp to send more power to the rear speaker and that did improve things, but send too much bass to the doors and they rattle. I am thinking about adding a sub under the hatch floor. That's the only way to go.

 

I want better sound in my non-JBL system. What I think is missing most is high-end. I'd like to see a small tweeter high up on the door. Anyone seen any custom mod people that are pioneering this?

Tim

 

Well, I can get the front doors to rattle without spending any more money.

Thanks...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Dion\";p=\"29279)</div>

My experience is quite different from yours. And those rear speakers are such total pieces of crap, I can't believe that you heard no improvement - unless the speakers you installed were too difficult of a load for the JBL electronics to drive.

I've got the JBL 9-speaker system and it used to sound so bad, I actually stopped listening to it. It was so bad I'd rather just turn it off. This weekend the local Circuit City had Infinity 6010cs component speakers on sale for $50 off, so I had them install a pair in the front (they only had one pair at the store I went to). Huge difference. I've had these speakers in other cars, powered by separate power amps, and liked them for the price. Although the sound in the Prius isn't as good as in my other cars (due to the crappy electronics), it's still a big improvement. The sound quality is now acceptable and I've begun listening to the stereo again. The rear speakers now sound even worse by comparison (I didn't think that was possible), so I'll be installing another pair of 6010cs speakers next weekend. I'll probably buy them on Ebay and install them myself, rather than have to wait around Circuit City for 90 minutes. I still have to try disconnecting the center speaker, and I'll install a Bazooka subwoofer as soon as the special wiring harness is available (too lazy to figure it out on my own, pitiful for someone with an EE degree).

 

Re: Looking to upgrade the JBL "premium" speakers.

So are the door-speakers in the JBL-system 6¾" or 6½"? Crutchfield says 6¾" but I see 6½" mentioned a lot on PriusChat. Seems some of the better speakers come only up to 6½" too.

 

I don't know as I already tossed mine. I did check out what the installers gave back to me, and there was not a plastic basket as is shown in Sparky's PDF. So the JBL system might use a larger speaker (6-3/4'") than the non-JBL. I know the speaker I threw away was a lot more substantial than the one shown in Sparky's PDF, which was from a non-JBL system. Still a POS though.

The Infinity speakers come with an adapter ring that will fit the 6-1/2 speakers into the larger hole. You should be able to buy similar adapters separately to install any other 6-1/2" speaker in the Prius doors.

I bought a second pair of Infinity speakers on Ebay so now I've forced myself to install them myself rather than taking the lazy way out and getting Circuit City to install the other pair.

 

Re: Looking to upgrade the JBL "premium" speakers.

I see the Infinity's come with a crossover.

(2-way external crossover network (18 dB/octave, 3,500 Hz high-pass and low-pass) )

Did they use the Infinity's crossover for the front speakers? If so how did they wire it? Or did they just replace the mains and tweeter and use the crossover built in to the JBL amp?
-Lee

 

Re: Looking to upgrade the JBL "premium" speakers.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(leeskarha\";p=\"104127)</div>

The latter. They figured out the two speakers were driven separately and gave me back the crossovers along with what they took out of the car.

I wasn't too worried about the frequency responses of the Infinity drivers beings so different from the stock speakers that it would be handicapped by utilizing the filtering/crossover in the amp. Anything is an improvement, and I didn't want to start rewiring the car to drive the front speakers with the rear channel outputs, etc. I figure it's just a car, not my living room, so as long as I can get the sound quality up to an acceptable level, I'm happy.

By the way, the installers there thought they could easily install any 6-1/2" component speaker they sold in my Prius, front or rear.

 

Re: Looking to upgrade the JBL "premium" speakers.

Thanks for the infos! I'm going to get busy checking out the Infinity 6010CS systems and the Kappas now. Infinity seems to be the speakers of choice out of the variety out there. Figure with the Kenwood in the back, why not, eventually..

Now the 6010cs are 4ohm, and the Kappas are 2ohm, and it looks like the JBL has weird impedences of 2ohm in the front and 3 ohm in the back.. Would sticking 4 ohms front/back or 2ohm front/back speakers be okay?

And would the replacement tweeters fit in the same mounts as the OEM?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NuShrike\";p=\"104256)</div>

As long as the replacement speakers are the same impedance or higher, you have nothing to worry about.

Now for the front doors you need to look at the impedances of the individual replacement speakers, not the set. Since very little current is drawn by the tweeters, you could install lower impedance tweeters without overheating the amp, but depending on the replacement tweeters' efficiency the sound may not be balanced (too bright). In this case, a resistor can be placed in series with the tweeter to attenuate its output.

Now the rear is a different story. Because there is only one output for the rear with the tweets/woofs in parallel, you need to look at them as a unit.

Rear tweet = 6 ohms
Rear woof = 3 ohms

(6x3)/(6+3) = 18/9 = 2

So as a unit, the total load would be 2 ohms.

A passive crossover will change the load seen by the amp, but in this case there is just a cap on the tweeter to block low freqs so the effect would be negligible in the passband, and the load would be closer to the woofer's impedance below the tweeter's cutoff frequency. In plain english, the load that the rear speakers have on the amp would be between 2 and 3 ohms depending on the music.

So the replacement set for the rears could be as low as 2 ohms total.

Upon reflection, I suppose I could have just said "min. 2 ohms per set will be fine" :mrgreen:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NuShrike\";p=\"104256)</div>

Rear will most likely fit, front will most likely need to be modificated!

(edited for speeling and tepos :roll: )