Prius Speaker Replacement Guide by ~sparky~

Great step-by-step guide!!!

 

That is a great guide. I'll be attempting this shortly, and will re-submit my opinion afterwards.

 

I'd like to know if anyone thinks these speakers could improve the JBL "premium" system?

 

the JBL system needs new tweeters. If you use these speakers with the filters he purchased, it should improve it a good amount.

 

i unclipped the tweeters to check what each speaker did. the tweeters have this mid sound to them. Not what i would expect a jbl tweeter to sound like. they probably don't have any filter to them.. i don't really expect them to.

the mids are good, but designed for mids.

a sub would be wonderful.

so.. sub and tweeters.

 

Hey sparky,

Just curious where you placed the front door Component tweeter?

I'm hoping to take possession of my vehicle this weekend or early next week and have various ideas still for upgrading my base sound.

I'm currently kicking around the idea for front components, plus extra tweeter (fixed somewhere on dash maybe?) and mid-bass in the rear door (possibly a 2.25" depth kicker mid-bass). I'm looking to replace the radio with a Kenwood deck + XM receiver and adding either a 50w or 75wx4 amp.

And no I'm not doing the install cause I'd screw up the poor interior if I tried! hehe.. (will pay the premium as I opted for package #4 to reinvest the savings in mods)

BTW, sparky, what is your estimate as to the maximum depth of speaker the doors (f/r) can accept cleanly? (one choice was to opt for Image Dynamic brand, but these have mounting depth of 3" which might be a bit deep?)

Thanks for post and any reply~

 

hey HYACK. if you're looking for ideas about speaker placement, look at the Lexus configuration for speakers. It's about the same as a higher package with the JBL system.. but there are two more speakers on the dash. tucked up in the corner of each side under the windshield. soo.. in our cars, that would be in front of the small windows. The Lexus also has a sub. Good sytem if balanced right.

I'm thinking of adding two more speakers to the front of my system. I want to change out my center on my jbl.

For your tweeters, i would place them right where the jbl's tweeters are. you get good sound depth in that location. maybe forward more? I've had the chance to experiment with my system ( unclip the tweters and set them in a different spot. ) they sound good where they are.

 

Hi HYACK,

3" won't be a problem. There's nothing between the sheet metal of the inside panel and the sheet metal that makes up the outside panel of the door. The only limitation is the diameter of the rear of the speaker (the magnet). While the diameter of the hole is about 7" (I'm guessing on this one. I can't remember. Sparky, do you recall how big the hole is?) the limiting factor is that the window in the down position takes up some of this area.

As for the crossovers. There's tons of room inside the door. I was able to stick mine on the inside bottom of the door. I put Boston Acoustics SL60's in mine for reference.

Thanks again Sparky for the great write up. Good that you took the time to put this together since this is a common modification!

Cheers,

 

hey, thanks Bobc for reference. So just to verify your impression here.. you are estimating that 3" depth mounting wouldn't interfere with window operation or that this depth would simply fit into the hole? The opening is 7" btw, but I guess the installer would have to determine once the panel is off, whether the magnet, et al would actually fit with full window operation - hence my gamble on whether to go with a preferred but larger and heavier (3" depth) speaker model (i.e. an Image Dynamic) and chance the fit, or go with another brand which I am confident will fit.

Thanks for the insights guys.

oh, and just to gain any additional perspective without actually having the physical comparison before me...in anyone's opinion, would you feel adequate, well balanced/harmonized 40-350 hz lows (I don't want massively amped 10" subs) could be generated by a 50w amplified mid-bass set in the rear door for instance - enough to definitely distinguish and feel?

Understand I'd prefer not to have any sub-woofer box in my cargo area if I can get away with it, as I would often use this space for multi-use; although still want a full ranged sound stage - any thoughts?? Thanks much

 

One thing to note/remember: On the JBL system, the front speakers have a digitally filtered crossover in the amp. So, the fullrange speakers have the highs cut off their feed from the amp, and the tweeters have the lows cut off from their feed from the amp.

 

On the stock non-JBL system does it have any crossovers for the tweeters? Also, what kind of outputs are on the stock head unit?

 

Yes, they are passive, as in a high-pass capacitor in series with the tweeter.

LF+RF+LR+RR.

For JBL, the amp outputs are:
LFT+LFF+C+RFT+RFF+LR+RR
The rear tweeters tap into the rear fullrange output through a high-pass capacitor.

LFT=Left Front Tweeter
LFF=Left Front Fullrange

 

Where are those passive crossovers? Built into the HU? So no crossovers would be needed for the tweeters when replacing them.

This is the one thing I really hate about the Prius. I would like to be able to by an after market HU and still use the MFD. At least Toyota should offer up some after market options at the dealer.

My current plan is to go with a CarPC and output that to CoastalTechs Viewtech (when available early next decade) and then from the HU to an AMP for the 4 door speakers and a Kenwood amp/sub in the rear hidden storage. All new speakers too. I would still have MFD and steering control and added input from my PC. Can this work with the basic HU?

 

Ugh, just had this big post all done up and lost it....

In brief:

ScubaX, the crossovers are located on the tweeters, not in the head unit with the non-JBL system. Check out the photo. It's the li'l' black thing Dan is calling a capacitor. As for the type of outputs, I know nuthin' 'bout electronics but I believe that they're high level outputs in order to power the OEM speakers. Either that, I was told to buy line output converters in order for them to get more money out of me....

HYACK, (Are you from Nyack, NY? --I think of that town everytime I see your name...) I wouldn't worry about the speaker size too much. If the speakers interfere with the window, the installers can move the speaker about 1" away from the door (Towards the car interior). If you look at Sparky's photo, you can see that the OEM speaker is mounted to the door panel. Notice the gray foam on the top of the speaker. This sits against the door trim. After my install, there's about an 1" of space between the front of the speaker and the inside of the door trim. Here's a closer view of the OEM speaker to see this 1" lip around the speaker front.

Hopefully, GAGendel can chime in on thoughts about your speaker configuration for the back and how successful that arrangement would be...

Cheers,

 

Some call it a condensor, but it is a capacitor, probably a bipolar electrolytic.

 

... and 3.9 uF one at that.

 

Also as a little FYI... Based on that the speaker is a 4 ohm speaker I looked at the crosseover charts on the web and it turns out to have a cross over point of 10 kHz.