Suggestion For Stereo Upgrade/speakers In Rav4 2002

[Karlaug]

Hi,

I have changed the booooring original Toyota stereo (with fuel useage) to a Pioneer FH-P80BT stereo. A large improvement of the sound - even from the original car Speakers - and in addition this stereo has a lot of nice phone/iPhone facilities... (just needed a spacer on each side to fill the holes on the sides from the old stereo) I have also ordered new Infinity Speakers to replace the door Speakers. But - 6,5" in the doors does not really give state-of-the-art sound, as neither door speakers I have experienced do. I am not a subwoofer fan, but are thinking about doing something with the removable hat shelf (I put a pair of JBL 6x9 in the hat shelf of my old Corolla sedan - some job to cut the holes in the metal, but it was definitely worth the effort!!!). Does anyone have any good advices how to do this - any recommendations? I would like to do as little damage as possible on the har shelf. I would also like to keep the door speakers as they now are - how do I do it with the stereo if I would like to set up 3rd pair of speakers for the hat shelf? Can I use a 2 channel amp, and use e.g. the rear line output, connect to a 2 channel amp and use this to power the hat shelf speakers? I am quite new in the car stereo game, and would be greatful for any good advices.

Thanks and regards,

Karlaug, Norway

[dave.m]

Hi and welcome to TOC, I would not rule out a subwoofer if I were you. When I changed to Mazda last year, I bought a model with the Bose sound system installed.

Not the only reason I bought the car but I have long been a fan of the Bose, and this subwoofer based system sounds great. It takes up little space as it sits in the

spare wheel.

[Uncle_P]

Ah.. a boot full of subs. It makes me misty eyed for my boy racer days!

I remember asking an electrician at work if he had any 70amp fuses as I'd blown the one in my Primera GT.. It did raise an eyebrow!

As for Speakers, Infinity are top quality stuff (I had reference series in my Primera). Up front, it will make a world of difference if you have seperate tweeters and mids. Angle tweeters to your ears, as high frequencies are very directional. In the rear doors, mount as big a speaker as you can and use passive crossover filters to only allow mid/low frequency to pass. There are plenty of 6.5" subs out there that will run directly from your head unit and some of them have inbuilt crossovers. Beware of mounting depths as even these small subs have big magnets. Before nailing the speaker into the door, stick a piece of dynamat or other sound deadening insulation to the inside of the door skin, this'll stop any buzzing or rattling when you've got the volume cranked.

If you go down the route of having seperate amplifiers running a big boxed sub in the boot, the wiring can be a bit of a minefield. You'll need to remove all bits of trim and carpet and they often don't go back quite right. Remember to run the power supply cables down one side of the car, and your line cable from your head unit down the other. If you put them next to each other you'll get interference. Also don't put the line cable next to any existing wiring. Don't bother trying to use the car's fusebox.. just run a cable from the Battery, inline fuse under the bonnet somewhere and feed it through to the amp. Earth the amp with a big screw to the bodywork.

If you get a four channel amplifier, you can use two channels to run a pair of hefty 6x9's on the shelf and the other two channels bridged to run a 10 or 12 inch subwoofer. I'd replace the rear parcel shelf with a piece of mdf to support the extra weight, mount the Speakers to the underside of it and then stretch grey acoustic cloth over the whole lot so that the scallies can't see what you've got.

Big stereos in cars are time consuming and expensive, but everyone who heard the system that I had was blown away with the quality (and the bowel loosening bass). Ah happy days..

Have a look at this forum for more ideas: http://www.talkaudio.co.uk/ipb/index.php/forum/13-faq-tutorials/

I think your best option is to replace all your door Speakers with the best you can afford and live with it for a while. If this still isn't good enough, then add an amplifier and 6x9s/sunwoofer at a later date. Car audio can be a black hole for money, my old system cost around £2500 and that was ten years ago! (that did include a lot of amps and subs though!)