Basic Stereo Settings

[Colorado]

I've read many of the threads about replacing speakers, adding sound insulation, worrying about crossovers (whatever that is) and adding a high-end stereo components to get the stereo experience you want. This is NOT intended to be a thread about that.

All I want to do is get the best sound out of the stereo that came with the car. In other words, where do I position the few stereo settings that come with the basic Toyota sound system to get the best sound it's capable of (and never end a sentence with a preposition). Most of the music I listen to would be considered "oldies" and the recording quality wasn't that good to begin with. (Dang it, why do I always do that?)

Any help from people who know about that stuff would be appreciated.

[Okay, I might be willing to replace a speaker or two, but only if it's a plug-and-play operation and will make a noticable improvement.]

 

[chancellor]

Which stereo do you have (1958, LC base 10 speaker, Premium/FE JBL 14 speaker)?

A lot of it comes down to personal preferences, like what type of music you listen to and how good your hearing is. There are not a lot of controls for the sound, the only ones I have found are balance (front/rear, left/right), sound levels (bass, midrange, treble), and the "surround sound" toggle. There isn't really a one setting is the best

In my base LC trim model with the 10 speaker system, the default settings with all the sliders at 0, I found it over-emphasized the lower frequencies (the deep boom like sounds) a lot, which led to "muddy" bass (where one note bleeds into the next). If you listen to primarily hip-hop/electronic music this isnt as noticeable, but for rock it caused distortion. It sounds like you might enjoy the sound with the bass dropped by a point or 2.

Best thing to do is just experiment with it yourself, find a section of a song you like and know well and play over and over it with various settings changes, bump one slider up 1 or 2, listen, if you like that, bump it more, if it sounds worse, move it the other direction.

 

[Doggman1525]

TL;DR The stock stereo is not as bad as you think, try a wireless Carplay/Android Auto adapter as an easy, inexpensive workaround to feed the head unit a better audio signal before you start tearing into the vehicle and making mods (unless that's your thing, in that case have at it!)

Here's 2 cents worth of advice which only applies to the LCLC trim 10 speaker stereo as that is what I have. If your goal is to spend Saturday nights in the mall parking lot battling subwoofers with the Fast and Furious crowd this ain't the stereo for you. If you are an audiophile who spends more on a turntable needle than I make in a month this ain't the stereo for you. That said I have found the quality of the stock system to be very source dependent and if you feed it properly you can actually get really decent, and loud sound from it.

The head unit has limited built-in tools to fine tune the output particularly with satellite and FM radio - just the fader, 3-d processing and the three sliders for treble, mids and bass, right? - so keep your expectations relatively low for those sources.

The native carplay and android auto interface also sound a bit flat out of the box and are not any more tweakable than the radio (I have a Samsung phone, my wife has Apple so I've used both). There is also a lack of function by design wherein when connected in wireless mode directly to the head unit the phones don't recognize that they are feeding full range speakers and rather think the music is coming from the phone speakers. As a result the low frequencies (63hz and 125 hz in particular - this is well documented around the web with regards to the Android, not sure about Apple) are disabled and the overall output level is capped..

Bear with me, I'm getting to the point -

So there are two work arounds for this. First, you can use a wired connection for Carplay/Android auto. This gets the phone to recognize that the sound is not coming from the phone speakers and lets you fully adjust the built in equalizer to adjust the signal going to the head unit which gives you fair control over the sound to fine tune to taste though the line level of the signal is still relatively quiet.

The next level solution is to insert a wireless Carplay/AA adapter in between your phone and the head unit. The benefits of this are that you can then load third party equalizer, DSP and pre-amp software that can further boost, modulate and max out the signal that will ultimately come out of the speakers.

I use a Binzie box (https://a.co/d/5LhdT9W), 99 bucks, plugs into the leftmost USB port under the HVAC controls, tucks in behind the shift lever, very inconspicuous, learning curve is very mild. There are many other options to found. Only downside I have with it is it adds a minute to two to the bootup process (the box has to connect then the phone has to connect to the box) but we're usually rockin' by the time we've backed out of the garage and are rolling down the street. Otherwise it has been plug and play.

I've loaded an app called Wavelet onto the box which gives me a parametric equalizer and 6db gain on the signal before the head unit. Your phone's built in equalizer also can work in series with the box to further adjust frequencies to taste. Because everything remains digital until the speaker outputs I haven't notice any background hissing or static from this as you would have from boosting an anologue signal in this way.

The "oldies" we listen to range from the Chili Peppers to New Order, 90's shoegazer and back to the Eagles, Queen and Pink Floyd style classic rock so not EDM or hip hop but not bass or volume shy either. With this set up there is no problem getting plenty enough volume to drown out the wind noise at 85mph, to get clear highs, good spatial definition and put the rear view mirror vibrating to the bass (enough you can see clearly) when the volume is at 40. The equalizer easily tames the mid-low frequencies that can make things sound muddy and you can still use the native head unit sliders and surround sound processing if you want to make quick overall adjustments. This has been tested and works streaming from YouTube Music, Spotify, Pandora, Tidal, the Sirius app and FLAC files downloaded to both of our phones.

 

[Colorado]

Thanks guys, that's way more information than I was expecting but some really great ideas.

Here's the specifics for me:
I have an LC base with the 10-speaker stereo.
I have about 2,000 songs loaded on my iPod Touch and my iPhone.
Music is 80% 1960s rock, 15% 70s - 90s rock, and some classical.
The iPod is plugged into a USB-C port but connects via Bluetooth.
I have some hearing loss from my time in the Army.

Thanks again, Larry