Another JBL Premium Subwoofer Question

[WilliamJ]

Guys,
I have read all the posts about problems with the JBL premium sound and agree about the lack of bass. I think I saw a couple of fixes that might not be too intensive. I don't want to replace the stereo/nav unit - just want to improve the bass/midrange a bit.

One solution I read about is replacing the rear 8" subwoofer with a shallow aftermarket model and then sealing the door and adding some insulation - Can anyone confirm that the stock JBL speaker is in fact a 2 ohm speaker? Anyone have any suggested speakers that are known to work and work better than the stock one? Not sure where I can even find a 2 ohm sub.

The other solution, and this might be the best is to just add a low profile powered sub under the drivers seat. My question on this one is this: Where exactly do I tap into the left/right channels of the stereo? Are the wires close by? I don't want to remove the stereo or anything but I can probably pop off a few covers if not too tricky. In a perfect world, I think I would need to connect it so that I don't have to adjust the volume of the sub as the volume of the stereo changes - it would want it to adjust automatically.

I guess I could take it to a stereo shop but I have had some bad experiences with those places - they can wreck your car.

Any help and suggestions are appreciated.

[sweeneyp]

Originally Posted by WilliamJ

Guys,
I have read all the posts about problems with the JBL premium sound and agree about the lack of bass. I think I saw a couple of fixes that might not be too intensive. I don't want to replace the stereo/nav unit - just want to improve the bass/midrange a bit.

One solution I read about is replacing the rear 8" subwoofer with a shallow aftermarket model and then sealing the door and adding some insulation - Can anyone confirm that the stock JBL speaker is in fact a 2 ohm speaker? Anyone have any suggested speakers that are known to work and work better than the stock one? Not sure where I can even find a 2 ohm sub.

The other solution, and this might be the best is to just add a low profile powered sub under the drivers seat. My question on this one is this: Where exactly do I tap into the left/right channels of the stereo? Are the wires close by? I don't want to remove the stereo or anything but I can probably pop off a few covers if not too tricky. In a perfect world, I think I would need to connect it so that I don't have to adjust the volume of the sub as the volume of the stereo changes - it would want it to adjust automatically.

I guess I could take it to a stereo shop but I have had some bad experiences with those places - they can wreck your car.

Any help and suggestions are appreciated.

For starters the 8" JBL sub is a DVC shallow mount. Each coil is at 2ohms. It appears to run at 55 watts at 2 ohm to each voice coil of the sub (for a total 110RMS for the sub). I had looked for a DVC coil shallow mount 2 ohm sub to replace the stock one. Unfortunatly nobody makes a shallow mount version, there is 1 regular apline 8" 2 ohm DVC and 3 kickers. But They probably won't fit (I never measured the max depth possible when I had the sub out. Though I do remember it was either right at 4" or a tad less.) Those regular subs run at about 200RMS so they wouldn't get enough power so just upgrading the sub won't help a whole lot.

I don't know much about those low profile sub's, I know aalot of them have had issues with their amp burning out quickly (the cheap ones at least).

You can probably build a spacer and fit a larger 8" sub in the tailgate, and then run a external amplifier to it, that way you get more power to the sub and therefore more bass, only downside of that is that you don't know the interior volume of the tailgate so you can't match that to the sub (for an 8" a sealed box to the right specifications (cuft) is crucial.)

Are you against having a sub and box in the trunk? I recently installed an additional 8" and found there to be plenty of bass now (it rattles the heck out of the car at max volume, pretty impressive for an 8") Take a look here to give you an idea of how big a box is for a 8" sub ('08 jbl sub replace).

A cheap solutions you can try is to seal the door frames and tailgate to ensure they are airtight so they are actually a sealed enclosure. I talked about it in that thread linked above. It definitly helped the bass given off by the front door 6x9's and tailgate sub. The sub wasn't sealed at all and for an 8" sub, a airtight enclosure is crucial.

As to how to wire it up, the radio sends a the sound signal and volume over 5 wires to the amplifier (L+, L-, R+, R-, and volume wire). When i first installed my speakers/sub, I had tapped into those L+ and R+ wires and you get sound but no volume changes as that has it own dedicated line. So I tapped into the + line going to the rear door speakers (after the amplifier). The 6.5" mounted there gets the full range sound (front sound frequencies are split between the 6x9 and 2.5"). If you tap there the sub will change volume with the whole system. You can do that by taking off the trim panel (behind front seats seat belts). If you do that you can find the wire bundle going to the door and tap into the wires there. Then just set the filters on your amp to send only bass to a sub or higher frequencies to speakers.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Patrick

EDIT: I forgot this, with any powered sub you add you will have to run a power line through the firewall to the battery, and you would have to run the power line under the plastic trim panels around the doors on the floor. The plastic panel that goes up between the front and back doors is the one that needs to be removed to access the speaker + lines needed for an amplifiers high level input. To remove that panel, the 2 "footrest" plastic panels on the door edges need to be removed first. Just pull straight up on those. Then you have to peel back the rubber weather stripping away from that plastic panel you have to remove. Then pull the plastic panel toward the middle of the car and it will dis-engage the plastic clips. You could try to tap into the wires at the amplifier under the passenger seat, but there was about zero slack on the wires near the amp on my highlander and it was about 10x easier taping where I described.

[WilliamJ]

Thanks for the reply.

Here is one of the low profile ones I saw: http://www.crutchfield.com/p_113KSCS...10.html?tp=114 but based on your reply, it may require too much wire fishing and sorting for me to want to get involved with. I was hoping the wire bundle would be close by the driver's seat and I could just tap into that. Not sure I want to do much more than that.

I've read your other thread in depth again and it sounds like it may just be too much for me to tackle at this time.

I may just see about adding insulation to the doors as a first step and see what results. How much trouble is it to pull the door panels? Any special tools required?

[sweeneyp]

Originally Posted by WilliamJ

Thanks for the reply.

Here is one of the low profile ones I saw: http://www.crutchfield.com/p_113KSCS...10.html?tp=114 but based on your reply, it may require too much wire fishing and sorting for me to want to get involved with. I was hoping the wire bundle would be close by the driver's seat and I could just tap into that. Not sure I want to do much more than that.

I've read your other thread in depth again and it sounds like it may just be too much for me to tackle at this time.

I may just see about adding insulation to the doors as a first step and see what results. How much trouble is it to pull the door panels? Any special tools required?

I can't see a 38watt 5x7 speaker putting out much bass at all. That is is more of a midrange speaker. It will have far less bass than the door speakers that are already there. Something like this would be more ideal (http://www.crutchfield.com/p_777B8PT...PT.html?tp=114). Its an 8" at 125watts RMS. That's more than the stock Toyota JBL sub, don't expect it to hit real low due to the shallow and small design of it, but it would help WAY more than the kenwood one. Plus they are the same physical dimensions, I don't know the room under the seat, but if the kenwood would fit so would this. This is the one I was talking about that has bad reviews about its amp going out. (http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_...s-BASS900.html) There are several companies that put out this product (under different names), and they are sold at a lot of online retailers. If one looks like this stay away. In short if you see any 8" sub boasting 600watt RMS...well I'm calling huge BS.... Its really not difficult to get to the speaker wires its right here

I think I might have been confusing describing it. there are openings in the carpet under the seats where you can push wires to the edge of the car. That is what I did when I mounted the amp under the passenger seat. The hardest part is running the power-line and concealing the line, and if you have never done anything like this, it can be daunting so I understand that.

Don't expect a massive difference when sealing the door panels and tailgate. It helps the sub more than the speakers as speakers are designed as free air, and the sub needs to be sealed. But for a few bucks at walmart and an hour of time, I thought it was worth it. If you look a the bottom of my post in the other thread I linked to the instructions on how to take the doors/tailgate apart. it is fairly simple. All four doors have 2 screws (phillips-head) under the trim piece on the handles. Then in the latch area there is a single screw (phillips-head) under a plastic cover. You have to take off the control panel for the window buttons. The rear doors just pop off at this point (pull away from the door), but the front you have to remove the small light at the bottom as well. Then they have a plastic panel right on the inside of the mirror. It has 2 clips holding it in place, it takes some force but it pops off. Then the door pops off. I used a very small screwdriver taped at the end (prevent scratches) to pop off the light on the front doors and the window button panels. Be careful putting the door panels back on, be sure to have the weather seal on the window sitting properly. The tailgate is almost all plastic clips. There is a single 10mm bolt where the "pull down" handle is, but the rest is all plastic clips that disengage when you pull away from the tailgate.
Good Luck with whatever you do
Patrick

[WilliamJ]

Originally Posted by sweeneyp

I can't see a 38watt 5x7 speaker putting out much bass at all. That is is more of a midrange speaker. It will have far less bass than the door speakers that are already there. Something like this would be more ideal (http://www.crutchfield.com/p_777B8PT...PT.html?tp=114). Its an 8" at 125watts RMS. That's more than the stock Toyota JBL sub, don't expect it to hit real low due to the shallow and small design of it, but it would help WAY more than the kenwood one. Plus they are the same physical dimensions, I don't know the room under the seat, but if the kenwood would fit so would this. This is the one I was talking about that has bad reviews about its amp going out. (http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_...s-BASS900.html) There are several companies that put out this product (under different names), and they are sold at a lot of online retailers. If one looks like this stay away. In short if you see any 8" sub boasting 600watt RMS...well I'm calling huge BS....

I had the link wrong on the sub.........The one I was looking at was in fact the one you suggested - the Sound-Ordnance-B-8PT.

So you only connected 3 wires for the sub woofer to the stereo itself? How can I identify the rear door speaker wire that you connected to or is this shown in your other post?

Thanks.

EDIT: I had a MB ML320 with the Bose and it had really good bass from an underseat small subwoofer - one of the best factory sound systems I have ever had. Just traded a Murano that had the Bose with a fairly large custom subwoofer molded into the spare tire and it had poor bass like the Highlander. Never did anything about it but I didn't have XM in it either.

[sweeneyp]

Originally Posted by WilliamJ

I had the link wrong on the sub.........The one I was looking at was in fact the one you suggested - the Sound-Ordnance-B-8PT.

So you only connected 3 wires for the sub woofer to the stereo itself? How can I identify the rear door speaker wire that you connected to or is this shown in your other post?

Thanks.

EDIT: I had a MB ML320 with the Bose and it had really good bass from an underseat small subwoofer - one of the best factory sound systems I have ever had. Just traded a Murano that had the Bose with a fairly large custom subwoofer molded into the spare tire and it had poor bass like the Highlander. Never did anything about it but I didn't have XM in it either.

there is more than 3 wires going into the powered sub. There will be a main power line, main ground, a REM wire (I'll explain in a second), a left channel +, and right channel +. Ignore the left and right channel - they are not needed. If you got this, you would need to get an amp wiring kit (probably an 8 gauge wire one). You will have to run the power line (with inline fuse) through the firewall to the battery. The ground will be around 18" long, and just attach it to any bolt going to the body of the car (there are plenty around the chair). The REM is a ignition activated power source. It tells the amp to turn on. The radio has one that runs to the JBL amplifier, but you would have to disassemble the dash to get to it (this is what I did for my 2 amps). OR you could run it to any ignition/ACC activated power source like the + line on any of the car's cigarette lighters. Then the speaker lines inputs. The way i wired it for my sub was I just used one door speaker + line to power both channels. There is no reason to have 2 channels for a mono sub. I ran a wire from the speaker wire + to the plus line on the input. Then wire tapped it to use the same signal for the other + input. Now identifying the wires is the very tough part. What year do you have? If its an 2008 your in luck because I have all the wire diagrams for that year. If not things get tricky. While you have the door panels off you can take the 6.5" speaker off and identify the + terminal. then look at the colors of the + and - wires. When you take the plastic panel off and see the wire bundles go into the vehicle wall (to the door), it makes identifying it easier. The speakers wires are the thickest wires in that bundle, and the + and - wires are spiraled together while all the other wires are separated. Identifying the REM would be tricky. I don't know if they change pins on connectors every year, but if they don't I can tell you the pin on the connector that is the REM wire, regardless of the wire color.

Ok to simply it between the radio and amplifier the only wire I tapped was the stock JBL REM wire. Then I tapped into the + line on the rear speakers AFTER the amplifier. So now it just depends on what year you have.

[WilliamJ]

I emailed Crutchfield and they also recommended that same sub so it sounds pretty straightforward if I can summon the desire to actually do it myself.

Thanks.

[CPSDarren]

Originally Posted by WilliamJ

One solution I read about is replacing the rear 8" subwoofer with a shallow aftermarket model and then sealing the door and adding some insulation

Changing drivers and sealing the enclosure may not always have the desired effect. There's always a tradeoff with low bass response, total sound pressure level output and power handling as you change the enclosure. Even the best quality shallow driver may not perform well in a very small, sealed enclosure. You may well improve the sound and not notice anything that was lost, and if it's something you can easily undo and/or return, there's no harm in trying! On the other hand, you could grab a pair of pricey 6.5" component speakers and mod the doors only to find you lost a ton of volume and low bass response, too. That often happens because some quality component speakers are quite inefficient compared to OEMs that are often optimized to provide very boomy bass at the cost of overall sound quality. Without a good return policy, you could be out some big bucks or be forced to add a pricey amp to compensate.

Originally Posted by WilliamJ

I had the link wrong on the sub.........The one I was looking at was in fact the one you suggested - the Sound-Ordnance-B-8PT.

I put that unit under my driver's seat. It's decent, but perhaps not much better than the factory JBL (I don't have a factory sub so I can't compare). It plays down to about 60Hz. I found by measuring with a meter that the OEM 6x9 door speakers actually had response at 50Hz and some at 40Hz, though somewhat boomy. I swapped them and the OEM dash cone tweeters for some 6.5" components that were much better in midrange and highs, but only had decent response to 100Hz with a little left at 80Hz. I was hoping the Sound Ordnance would fill that in, and it did, but not as much as I wanted.

hooking up a subwoofer and amp

I currently still have the Sound Ordnance under the driver seat. It provided decent fill up front and adds some "feel" to the seat in the mid bass. The Kicker sub is perfect for what I want, but with a separate amp, I can always get a bigger box to pump out more low bass. A 10" driver in a much larger box would be considerably more efficient, easily making it sound like a factor of four (or more) greater amplifier power. Problem is, that would really take up all the room behind one half of the third row seat. If you don't mind taking up some cargo space, there are a lot of better options.

Of all the smaller, low profile boxes, this is perhaps the nicest one I found but it is pricey:

http://mobile.jlaudio.com/products_e...10&prod_id=580


Anyway, Crutchfield has a good return policy, so not much harm in trying the B-8PT, but I would be surprised if you find that it really plays much lower or louder than the OEM sub, if only because of the tiny enclosure made to fit under seats. The one possible advantage is that you gain a separate volume control and some additional controls like gain and crossoever frequency. It does have auto turn-on that would prevent you from having to run an accessory 12V turn-on wire, but I found it didn't work well. Plan on running that extra wire, then you'll have it if you opt to put a standard amp there.

[CPSDarren]

Originally Posted by sweeneyp

There is no reason to have 2 channels for a mono sub.

That's probably true for 95% of music, though I prefer to have both channels run. Many mono amps have inputs for left and right and essentially sum them. For most music, the bass is pretty evenly spread between left and right and you would never notice the difference. There are some songs where the bass is predominantly on one channel or is phased or delayed from one channel to the other. The classic example is perhaps "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by the Beatles where drum and bass were mixed on one side only.

Songs like that are more of a rare exception and may not be worth the hassle if you are doing it yourself. On the other hand, if a shop does it for you, make sure they run both!

[sweeneyp]

Originally Posted by WilliamJ

I emailed Crutchfield and they also recommended that same sub so it sounds pretty straightforward if I can summon the desire to actually do it myself.

Thanks.

hahaha well good luck with the install if you do it. Here is the wire diagram for the 08, if you have another year the wire colors will probably be different, but the pins on the connectors will probably be the same. It will help identifying the REM more than anything. The wire you want is the 'ACC' wire. Its pin 16 on connector E14. There is a diagram at teh bottom of the pdf to identify connectors at the back of the radio.

Wire diagram http://www.mediafire.com/?wunogwhnfkrwmw3

good luck

[vsansal]

I know this subject depends on personal taste little bit but, my stock premium JBL system with the NAV unit has plenty of BASS. I don't think it is fair to say it lacks BASS on a system like this. I understand some of you might like having some more BASS, I feel you and if it wasn't too much of an hassle I would go on that route myself but for me the current system is enough for my needs. If I am alone I increase the volume level to 40s which at that point I have plenty of bass but when there is someone with me in the car I usually dont even exceeed 20s.

[WilliamJ]

Originally Posted by sweeneyp

hahaha well good luck with the install if you do it. Here is the wire diagram for the 08, if you have another year the wire colors will probably be different, but the pins on the connectors will probably be the same. It will help identifying the REM more than anything. The wire you want is the 'ACC' wire. Its pin 16 on connector E14. There is a diagram at teh bottom of the pdf to identify connectors at the back of the radio.

Wire diagram http://www.mediafire.com/?wunogwhnfkrwmw3

good luck

Mine is a 2011 LTD with the nav

Originally Posted by vsansal

I know this subject depends on personal taste little bit but, my stock premium JBL system with the NAV unit has plenty of BASS. I don't think it is fair to say it lacks BASS on a system like this. I understand some of you might like having some more BASS, I feel you and if it wasn't too much of an hassle I would go on that route myself but for me the current system is enough for my needs. If I am alone I increase the volume level to 40s which at that point I have plenty of bass but when there is someone with me in the car I usually dont even exceeed 20s.

I have a pretty sophisticated home theater/listening room at home and I can tell you from firsthand experience that subwoofers, and in particular powered subwoofers, can make a huge difference. I have 2 of them in my home setup and I cannot imagine listening to anything without them. In my opinion, the JBL system in my Highlander has almost no bass. If I can spend a couple hundred bucks to get a little bit of bass boost it will be worth it. I don't listen to hip hop or any of that but I do listen to a lot of talk radio and some of the classic rock XM channels and adding some bass will probably make it so that I can actually stand to listen to it at lower volumes.

[vsansal]

Originally Posted by WilliamJ

I have a pretty sophisticated home theater/listening room at home and I can tell you from firsthand experience that subwoofers, and in particular powered subwoofers, can make a huge difference. I have 2 of them in my home setup and I cannot imagine listening to anything without them. In my opinion, the JBL system in my Highlander has almost no bass. If I can spend a couple hundred bucks to get a little bit of bass boost it will be worth it. I don't listen to hip hop or any of that but I do listen to a lot of talk radio and some of the classic rock XM channels and adding some bass will probably make it so that I can actually stand to listen to it at lower volumes.

I see your point and I agree with you but then it would be better if you say something like it lacks bass compared to your pretty sophisticated home theater system. What I am saying is, it is still above the average compared to other systems that comes with a vehicle. So i think it is worth it.

That being said, I've been in cars that when the bass hit the windshield viper blades would jump. So there is no limit to that when you get into it. For me, it is an alright system above the average but I agree that it can def be improved.

[WilliamJ]

Can anyone confirm the wiring would be the same for the 2011? I'd hate to rip everything open and find the wires are totally different.