In April I purchased a 2014 RAV4 Limited and for the first time I splurged for the "premium" JBL sound system. Obviously I was expecting an improvement in sound quality, but there was very little bass output while listening to FM radio, even after I adjusted the bass control all the way to the max. At first I thought this was a limitation of the hardware, but then I switched to XM radio and there was no comparison -- the bass boomed through loud and clear. The same with all other modes except FM (didn't try AM).
I brought my car back to the dealer and had them look at it for a day. They compared the car to another RAV4 on the lot, and told me the bass was the same in that car as well. I didn’t believe them, and asked them for a demonstration, which they accommodated. Sure enough, the other RAV4 sounded the same — very week bass response in FM, regardless of the slider setting.
Since then I have had a least 6 people in my car, several of them engineers, two of them musicians, and they have all told me the radio (or its design) is defective. I myself am a software engineer and it seems that this may just be a software issue, where the wrong coefficients were programmed in for the bass control setting in FM only (or something similar). Toyota says they know nothing about this problem, and JBL told me they only make the amp and speakers.
I was hoping that someone on this forum may have had a similar problem, or know something that could help. Thank you very much!
I brought my car back to the dealer and had them look at it for a day. They compared the car to another RAV4 on the lot, and told me the bass was the same in that car as well. I didn’t believe them, and asked them for a demonstration, which they accommodated. Sure enough, the other RAV4 sounded the same — very week bass response in FM, regardless of the slider setting.
Since then I have had a least 6 people in my car, several of them engineers, two of them musicians, and they have all told me the radio (or its design) is defective. I myself am a software engineer and it seems that this may just be a software issue, where the wrong coefficients were programmed in for the bass control setting in FM only (or something similar). Toyota says they know nothing about this problem, and JBL told me they only make the amp and speakers.
I was hoping that someone on this forum may have had a similar problem, or know something that could help. Thank you very much!