Percy

Richw,

There is indeed plenty of cost cutting going on with the Lexus cars, especially in the audio department. What they would consider "audiophile" grade is just a plain insult. A deaf person with cotton in their ears could have tuned the car better.

As you've found out, the choice of materials for their speakers is quite poor. Build quality seems to be "let's make the system last just until the warranty is over". Dispersion, accuracy and fidelity of the stock lexus speakers (yes, including their ultimate insult, their Mark Levinson system) leaves much to be desired, despite all of the flowery (overpaid) reviews.

Once when you get used to the Focals, I would suggest swapping them out for Dynaudio speakers. That's if you're really into fidelity and music of course!

Richw

I just replaced the front speakers and added the BA amp, installed in the trunk. The original sub remains as it was. The new speakers are placed exactly where the old speakers were, so other than the amp in the trunk, the upgrade is invisible, which is really what I wanted. I didn't want to invite attention to the Focals from potential thieves so I had them replace the original grills. All in all I'm very satisfied and probably won't do anything else.

The original sub woofer remains - not great, but the front 6.5s are what's carrying the brunt of the mid-bass and they do it well. The factory head unit EQ is clearly not perfect, so it's possible in the future I may want to add a unit to get this just right, and even replace the rear speakers, but I've got what I was looking for - far better clarity, separation, sound stage and great definition across the frequencies without having to constantly tweak the high, mid and low EQ and plenty of distortion-free power.

tigmd99

The magnet is probably NEODYMIUM. Neodymium magnets are much smaller than the big ones that you see. Actually, more and more top-end aftermarket speakers are using neodymium because packaging is a lot better and i believe that neodymium is more efficient as well.

rajeev6

I recently traded in my 2001 Camry for HS250h. I had paid around 25k for the Camry and it came with a decent JBL system . Paid 42k for this HS250h and it came with Lexus' own audio system (someone trying to save money) and despite 6 speakers and a sub, the quality of the sound is MEDIOCRE at best . I'm disgusted by greed that these companies have - 42k and I still have to spend more to get a decent sound!

I checked out Crutchfield but they don't have specs for the HS250h yet.
1. I gather from some other posts that it may be 6.5 inch speakers on both front and rear doors - is that right?
2. Did you change tweeters on the dash (near windshield) also?
3. What size are these and is changing these a hassle?
4. The sub doesn't seem to have any oomph either - what size is that?
5. Any advice on factory equalizer (eg JL Audio Cleansweep) - or should I go with just an external amp?

Thanks in advance for any insight.

Percy

The magnetic flux of the neo magnets are usually better. But, beware that there are different grades of neo magnets. Many speaker companies will market neo magnets in their advertising slicks/website but will never tell you the grade of the neo magnet.

tigmd99

Ahhh, good point.

tigmd99

Isn't it sad that the JBL system in the Camry is better?? My parent's 2010 ES350 stock system is also similarly underwhelming. Shouldn't the Lexus stock system be at least just as good as the best Toyota system in the equivalent vehicle? The Avalon's JBL system is so much better than my parent's ES.

My Prius JBL is superb! I feel that it is a bargain!

rajeev6

I bought a 880GB small portable USB drive and after struggling with it for 3 days now, I've found that even though the sound system will play m4a (apple lossless) format files from my iPhone, it refuses to recognize them on a USB drive

So, even though the system is capable of decoding and playing lossless m4a files, the programmers of the system have managed to disable that as soon as it recognizes that the equipment plugged into USB is not an iPod/iPhone.

I even downloaded Diskaid and recreated the folder structure of iPhone on the USB drive but that also didn't help

Not only I don't want the inferior quality of mp3/wma, I don't really want to have to convert all my rips into mp3/wma.

Any insight?
Thanks.

acheparev

Try a test, rename the .m4a files to .mp4. Also what file format are you using, HSF (apple) or Fat32?

rajeev6

Okay - tried renaming the files to mp4 - didn't work. It doesn't even list the folder. ( It was listing the folder when it had lossless .wma files, even though it wouldn't go inside the folder though).

I'm using FAT32 format for the drive.

rajeev6

It occurred to me that when attached, it may be the iPhone (iPod) playing the music (just like it does on my JBL Radial dock or iPod Bridge dock on my Receiver) thru the USB connection and not the car audio system. That's the reason, even when I copied the entire contents of my iPhone on the USB drive, it refused to recognize the .m4a files.
In this case, I probably can't expect anything more from the sound system than what I've already seen.

orateam

The problem i believe has to do with the USB drive drivers. Most of the USB's allowed with car audio assume the flash drive type driver.

As for speakers. Agree 100% and am also looking to change things up here. Probably will be replacing the fronts, rears and the mini sub in the back. IF i find out exactly what size they are, will print it out here for all to see.

rajeev6

Orateam - what car do you have?
I had tough time last year finding any details on 2010 HS250h. I finally found Toyota's Technical Information System website - paid $15 for 2 day subscription and downloaded a ton of details.
However, at the time of speaker replacement, found that the factory speakers were highly customized. Any aftermarket replacement wouldn't have been exact fit. The tech was able to do custom install and I'm satisfied with the sound now.

orateam

Care to share with us the techincal details of the car? I'm debating do the install myself, but need the guide to removing the door panels, getting access to the subwoofer and it's amp along with the dash speakers.

As to how i got the details, there is a custom auto shop here in Orlando that pays megabucks for a subscription to a detailed speaker listing. He looked it up and saw it was 6 1/2 in all doors. tweeters in the back door and the dashboard of 2 inches and a 8 inch sub. he has all the depts but won't give em to me unless i do the work with him, which i don't want to.

But since you're telling me about the customization, i'm worried about getting in deeper than i want to.

rajeev6

Please see this thread for specifications.
I've sent you a PM too.