Major JBL stereo upgrade but keeping stock HU

Member since 2013 but 1st post here. I have suffered with the stock sound system in my 2005 gen 2 Prius for over seven years but I will not be doing that with my "new to me" 2013 Prius. I will be doing a very detailed, post about my 2013 JBL stereo with Nav upgrade using the stock Head unit. My goal is to help others looking to keep the stock HU but still greatly enhance the sound of the system. I get it that some owners will say just rip out the stock radio but some of us like the many features of the stock Hu like the navigation or other integrated features. My other goal is to let others looking to do the upgrade know how I saved a few bucks on the system while still enhancing the sound. I will be leaving the JBL amp in place and tapping off the outgoing speaker wires with speed wire to the new Audiocontrol DM-608 Digital sound processor which is the one piece of equipment that will allow the stock HU to stay in place and really enhance and control the sound quality. There will be pictures and wiring diagrams showing this step in detail as I have not seen much about the process on the forum so far. Two Audiocontrol mini amps will feed the front and rear speakers and the New subwoofer. Front and rear speakers will be Focal PS165-V1 with the front sound stage adding 4" Focal mid woofers for a three way passive system.Yes 4" mid woofers will fit in the stock Swalker locations albeit with some modifications. The Subwoofer is a Kenwood 10"KFC-W2509 in a NVX Boost subwoofer box made for the Gen 3 Prius. I decided to go with the NVX prefab box instead of fabricating one myself. The NVX seems to be a very well constructed box and will save a lot of time and money over actually constructing one myself. The sub box comes with a NVX 10" sub already installed but I replaced mine with a more robust 10" Kenwood. A major part of the build will be the extensive soundproofing of the vehicle. The exterior door skins will be soundproofed with 50mil Killmat as will the roof panels. The roof will have additional soundproofing using Soundcoat 1/2" thick acoustic deadening foam applied right over the Killmat. The door interior panels as well as the floor and entire trunk area will be treated with Soundskins Pro. The soundproofing is likely to be the most time consuming part of the build. All wiring was purchased from Knukoncepts including speaker wire, amp kit, distribution blocks and RCA jacks. This is about my 10th audio build and I have been using Knuknocepts since about 2002 when I did my 2002 Dodge Dakota system. All of my supplies from Knuknocepts are always purchased by me and never free so I receive nothing from the company by mentioning their name. That also goes for all the Equipment mentioned in this build log. I will go thru the build and discuss the reasons for the equipment chosen and how I was able to purchase most of it for about 1/3 less than retail. Stay tuned for pictures and updates

 

STEREO COMPONANTS USED AND RETAIL PRICE vs PRICE PAID


SPEAKERS



2 Pair Focal PS165-V1 component speakers Retail $1,040 Paid $ 435

1 pair Focal 4" mid range speakers from ISN-100 $ 271 $112

1 NVX BOOST (BE-TOY-PRIG3 NWS 104V2) sub box $ 289 $249

1 Kenwood KFC-W2509 10" subwoofer $ 99 $50

1 pair Focal A3-XO 3 way passive crossovers $141 $129

TOTAL RETAIL $ 1,840.00 TOTAL PAID $ 975.00


EQUIPTMENT


1 Audiocontrol DM-608 DSP Retail $ 599 Paid $ 425

1 Audiocontrol ACM 4-300 4 channel amp $ 329 $ 223

1 Audiocontrol ACM 1-300 mono amp $279 $198

Total Retail $ 1,207.00 Total Paid $ 846.00

SOUNDPROOFING


4 rolls Soundskins Pro mega kit soundproofing Retail $399 Paid $ 295

50 sq.ft. Killmat 50 mil soundproofing mat $75 $59

20 sq ft Soundcoat acoustic deadening foam $ 60 $ 44

Total Retail $ 534.00 Total paid $ 398.00


WIRING AND MISC PARTS


Knukoncepts materials

Kolossus AK-8 complete amp kit 30 30

4 Krystal Cable 2 channel RCA cables 46 46

2 Bassik 4 ga power distribution blocks 16 16

1 Bassik 4 ga ground distribution block 5 5

120' Kord Ultraflex 14ga OFC speaker wire 43 43

10' Kord Ultraflex 12ga OFC sub speaker wire 5 5

5' Kolossus Flex 8ga OFC Black ground wire 3 3

3' Kolossus Flex 4ga OFC Blue power wire 5 5

3" Kolossus Flex 4ga OFC Black Ground wire 5 5

Ultimate Positive battery terminal 15 15

Battery terminal post adapter 3 3

4 mini ANL 30 amp fuses 6 6

$182.00 $ 182.00









ACCESSORIES



9 wire Speed wire for factory amp to DSP 22 10

Pink Noise test CD 26 17

165' Tessa tape 23 10

Audio Control ACR-3 remote for DM-608 45 30

Audio control ACR-1 remote for Bass control 43 28

1 pair Install Bay 6.5" speaker baffles 9 6

2 pair Stinger road kill speaker Fast Rings 45 40

50' x 1/4" speaker gasket tape 15 10

5' x 12 AWG red inline fuse holder for DM608 10 7

65 pc aluminum M3-M8 metric nutsert set 15 9

50 pc 10/24 wood inserts for amp rack 15 10

240 pc quick splice wire terminal set 20 12

328 pc heat shrink tubing kit 8 5

10 pack 8ga wire ferrules 8 5

10 pack 4ga wire ferrules 8 5

$ 312.00 $ 204.00



SPECIALTY TOOLS



Ferrile crimp tool comes with 800 connectors 25 17

Nutsert rivet gun with 65 nutserts 25 20

Leather punch hole set for soundproofing 25 15

Roller tool for sound deadening application 15 10

$90.00 $62.00


TOTALS Retail $ 4,165.00 Paid $ 2,667.00

 

Equipment choices and why ???
SPEAKERS

I have owned most of the popular speaker brands in the last 30 years including Pioneer, Kenwood, Alpine and in my last build a really nice set Boston Acoustic Pro Se. I went with the Focal PS165-V1's for this build after researching the specs and reading owner reviews. I almost went with The Morel’s but I prefer a lot of tweeter in my music and the Morel tweeters are a bit less “in your face”. I’m using two pair of the PS165-V1's with a Mid bass and a Tweeter for each rear door and a Mid bass in each front door with the front tweeters going on the A pillars in the supplied 45% angle cones. I will be setting up a 3 way sound stage for the front using a set of 4" Focal mid range speakers from a set of ISN-100 which will go in the original in dash tweeter locations, but will require some custom cutting and fabrication. I chose the Focal ISN-100 4" mids because they are made of the same Polyglass construction as the 6.5" Focals in the PS165-V1 speakers for a more cohesive sound. Passive crossovers will be used for all 4 channels even though the DSP in this system has built in active crossovers. The Focal ISN-100 speaker kit lists for $171.00 and comes with a pair of tweeters and two 2 way passive crossovers. Since the fronts will be a 3 way system I sold the 2 way included crossovers and Tweeters on E-Bay and that money covered the cost of the 3 way Focal A3-XO Crossovers needed for the front sound stage. Custom PVC speaker spacers will need to be fabricated for the 6.5" front and rear speakers as the Gen 3 Prius has a 6"x9" factory door cutout. Two pair of Stinger Road kill fast rings will be use on all four 6.5" door speakers to improve sound quality and direction of sound thru the door card.
Install Bay makes a waterproof 6.5" speaker baffle that will be cut in half and be used on top of all door speakers to keep water off the mid sub speakers.

SUBWOOFER

On this build I will be utilizing the NVX Boost BE-TOY -Prig NVX 104V2 pre fabricated Subwoofer box. Many people will fabricate their own Sub box out of fiberglass but this unit is very well build and actually less money and aggravation then building your own. Working with fiberglass can be time consuming, expensive and messy not to mention that the smell of resin stays in the car for several weeks after the mock up before it dissipates. The NVX box arrived from Sonic Electronics very well protected in the factory packaging. This sub box comes with a 10" NVX subwoofer already installed. I will be replacing it with a 10" Kenwood KFC-W2509 that I have left over from a previous build. I subsequently sold the NVX sub on E Bay which brought the over- all price of the sub box down to $250.00. Not a bad price for a good quality fiberglass sub box. After un boxing I removed the supplied electronics and wiring and taped up any openings. Water was used to calculate the total volume of the box. It measured out right at .7 cu feet which is just below the optimum recommender volume of .8 for the Kenwood Sub so if your looking at this sub box remember that .7 cubic foot number when matching it with another sub or just use the supplied NVX sub till it blows. The wiring connections that come with the box are decent quality maybe just needing some additional sound sealing to be applied. I measured the fiberglass thickness in several locations and it measured an average of between 1/4"-3/8" thick which is pretty respectable .Looks to be about 5- 7 layers of fiberglass with a nice smooth finish inside and out and matching grey carpeting on the outside of the box which matches my grey interior carpeting nicely.

 

EQUIPMENT - ELECTRONICS

DSP
For this build I will be using a DSP. I chose the Audiocontrol DM-608 for several reasons. Others on the chat have used different ways of getting a signal out of the stock HU including different Line output converters, the Kicker Front Row DSP, JL Audio Fix It sound processors or the Audison Bit 10 processors. All very good ways of getting the signal out of a stock HU .
I decided to go with the DM-608 for the following reasons. First I will be using two Audio Control Mini Amps for the system and it’s never a bad idea to stick with one brand ,both for compatibility and just good looks. The main reason though is because of the DM-608's ability to even out the signal coming from the head unit via the incoming and outgoing built in RTA’s to a nice flat EQ curve before readjusting the signal to send to the amplifiers. The signal coming out of the Stock JBL amplifier is wrought with pre-filtered and split signals and need to be adjusted before you can do anything with it. The DM-608 has channel summing capabilities which allows you to sum or put together a high frequency tweeter signal with a low frequency sub woofer frequency to create a full signal that can then be adjusted via the built in 30 band built in EQ and then send to the amps.

Second it has 6 inputs, which is enough for the Prius JBL system and 8 output channels which is enough for my 5 channel, 11 speaker system. If you system requires more than this Audiocontrol also has the DM 810 which has 8 inputs and 10 available output channels.

Third is this unit only uses 3 amps of power. Always a consideration when totaling up all the power that your aftermarket sound system will be pulling for the rather delicate Pruis electrical system.

Fourth this DSP will not add any additional noise to the system. It also has Accubass circuitry to improve the bass plus real time delay/alignment capabilities as well as a signal sensing remote turn on feature which means that you don’t have to hunt for a remote turn on power source. The DSP unit will sense power thru the speaker wires and automatically power up the DSP. It also has the ability to sent that signal to Amplifiers further on down the line.

Controls and adjustments on this DSP are done thru your laptop via the supplied USB connection or thru an available bluetooth connection and it has 4 memory slots to store the different custom settings. I purchased the optional ACS 3 wired remote to adjust and control the presets from the drivers seat.

To me this processor seems to be one of the best ways to access and correct the signal coming from the head unit and that’s why I chose this DSP. Of course detailed pictures will follow of the install and wiring of this unit once installation begins.

 

ELECTRONICS CONTINUED

AMPS
The 4 channel amp I chose to power the front and rear speakers is the Audiocontrol ACM-4.300 which puts out 50 watts x 4 at 4 Ohms which is what I will be using to push the Focals or 75 watts x 4 at 2 Ohms and can also be bridged to run at 150 watts x 2 if desired. There are many good reasons that I chose to use this little amp. The main focus of this build was to have a very clean sound and not necessarily something that would make the neighbors car alarms go off whenever I drove past. This amp has a signal to noise ratio of 102dB and a Total Harmonic Distortion of 0.01% making it one of the quietist amps on the market today while still supplying a decent amount of power but don't let these little amps fool you. Even though the measure it at only 9" wide x 1 3/4" tall x 3 1/2" deep they are packed with great features. Being a class "D" amp they are very efficient and only use a 30 amp fuse which is some thing to consider since the Prius has one of the weakest charging systems out there. It requires only an 8 ga power and ground wire which saves on wiring costs. It has two low pass frequency crossovers with 12 dB slope on a 3 position switch for 80Hz/120Hz and bypass, for each of the two channels built in. Also built in gain control LED's to help you visually set your amp gains. The Audiocontrol amps have the same Signal Sensing technology called " GTO " as the DSP which eliminate the requirement of a blue turn on lead wire from the Head Unit. It has both speaker level inputs as well as RCA inputs. So the size, features , low power consumption and low noise are the reasons that I chose this amp for my system.

The single channel Subwoofer amp I chose is the matching 1 channel Audiocontrol ACM1-300 at 175 watts x1 at 4 Ohms which is the way mine will be set up to power the Kenwood 10" sub or it can be configured to run at 300x1 at 2 Ohms. This class "D" amp has the same 30amp fuse rating, the same 3 position low pass filters the same GTO signal sensing and uses the same 8 Ga wiring as the 4 channel amp. It also has both speaker level and RCA inputs and the case is the same exact size as the 4 channel amp. One notable difference from the 4 channel amp is the addition of an adjustable AccuBass processing which improves bass performance which is usually lacking from the factory HU. There is an optional port on the back of the amp for an ACR-1 wired remote which I purchased to adjust the bass from the drivers seat. Both amps come with removeable speaker level connectors that accept up to 12 Ga speaker wire. The big benefit of easily removeable speaker connectors is that while tuning the system, the speakers can easily be disconnected by simply unplugging the terminal which means you don't have to unscrew each speaker wire individually saving time and effort.

 

SOUND TREATMENT

One of the big advantages of planning ahead for your sound system upgrade is the ability to wait and watch for sales on your equipment. Quite a bit of cash can be saved by using this method. Take the sound deadening portion of this project for an example. I was able to save almost $150.00 on soundproofing alone by watching for deals. I decided to use the 50 square foot kit of 50 mil Killmat for the outer door skins and roof panels instead of Dynamat extreme. The Killmat kit was $59.00 on sale normally $75.00 and the 44 Mil Dynamat costs $170.00 for only 36 square feet. The roof section will have 1/2" acoustic foam applied right over the Killmat. I decided to go with Soundcoat brand for the project. 18 Sq. Ft. cost me $44 on sale while the comparable 1/2" Dynaliner goes for $80.00 for only 12 Sq. Ft. My floors, trunk area and interior door skins will have Soundskins Pro applied. Their Mega kit went on sale for $295 for 44 Sq.Ft. usually $ 399 for the Mega kit.
While very time consuming the soundproofing part of this build will likely be one of the biggest improvements to the overall system. Check back for pics of the headliner removal and reinstall as well as the sound treatment pictures.

 

I wanted to be half way thru this install by now but the New York weather and COVID have halted any progress. Full install starting with sound treatment will have to wait until the spring. Stay tuned

 

Well.....Covid is FINALLY on it's way out and the weather has been cooperation so I got around to starting the Prius project. Started with strip down and sound treating the roof first.

 

C Ceiling stripped of headliner ready for killmat

 

20 pieces of killmat applied to ceiling panel after wiping down with alcohol

 

Front of vehicle ceiling with killmat applied. I found the Killmat extremely easy to work with but watch where you stick it. Once it sticks it does not come off easily. Great adhesive properties.

 

A couple of pics of the ceiling before start of sound treatment

 

Quick note about removing the headliner from the gen 3 Prius. The removal is pretty straight forward but the reinstall is somewhat tricky. When reinstalling the grab handles , first assemble the entire handle including the catches and covers then just push the entire assembly into the ceiling holes until it clicks. Reinstall the front sun visors the same way BUT be careful not to push the clips into the recess of the ceiling or you will be fishing them back out with a magnetic pick up tool.. Ask me how I know that !!!

Also there is a wiring harness that goes from the headliner down the drivers side front pillar and into a harness under the dash pad.
I found it extremely difficult to access the clips with the dash pad still in place so I simply removed the entire dash pad. This also made it much easier to enlarge the holes in the dash for the 4" mid range speakers that I used to replace the stock Dash tweeters.
see attached pics Also a VERY important note*** Remove the negative terminal from the 12 volt small starter battery in the passenger side trunk area BEFORE removing the headliner or any of the panels and seats of the vehicle. You can see in the pictures that the side curtain airbags run the entire length of the roof from front to back and you definitely do not want to set one of these off while working on the car.

 

Acoustic foam applied directly over the Killmat

 

Here's the wiring harness that runs from the headliner down to the connection under the dash, AFTER being sound treated

 

Similar wiring on the passenger side of the vehicle. Both sides wrapped in foam and Tessa tape to prevent noise since they are pretty close to the mid range dash speakers and the new tweeters

 

Removal was relative simple. Re-installing was a little slower and tedious. Just plug the electrical connections back in under the front dash and use the door weatherstripping to hold the headliner in place temporarily until you can get the grab bars installed back in place. I did this alone but it would be helpful to have a second pair of hands for sure !!!