Hello fellow Rav4 owners I joined this group several months ago in hopes of doing upgrades and utilizing this forum to ask questions. I appreciate the community and enjoy reading posts and getting ideas from everyone!
I bought a 2024 Rav4 Limited (gas) back in June
It was not my choice to buy a limited heck I really wanted a hybrid but here in my city you have to put your name on a list and it could be as early as 6 months to a year with no guarantee. I just so happened to be at the dealership looking at the Crown and was ready to buy the Crown when I saw a Rav4 in the showroom. I quickly asked the salesperson is that for sale? Long story short I ended up with the gas powered Rav4 limited.
It's a beautiful SUV with all the features. 360 Cam, Digital rearview mirror, power rear liftgate, Pano roof and what I call the dreaded JBL system lol
I honestly find the sound on the JBL system to be lacking and quite underwhelming. I have been spoiled in the past as every vehicle I have owned I overhauled the stereo system.
As cars integrate new technology it's getting harder to do these stereo upgrades especially if the model has the premium name brand sound systems. I normally would avoid the higher trims so that I don't have to worry about any issues (or as much) but as explained I didn't want to wait 6-12 months or longer
What I really want to do is keep the factory head unit(for now) and replace the factory speaker's, amp and add a sub. I also bought a custom sub box from SKAR that is designed specifically for the Rav4. In the past doing this upgrade was as easy as adding a line output converter but after researching people are telling me because of the JBL system it won't be.
I have talked to Crutchfield and attached a file what the salesperson told me. Your thoughts and suggestions or if anyone has experience with this JBL system is appreciated
I decided to just copy and paste what he said in case the file can't be opened ( I apologize for this long winded story)
Part 1
Mitch: So in modern amplified systems like this, there are generally two routes you can take. The first pick would be using a ready-made harness specific to your audio system that just plugs in and gets you the connections you need for a processor like the Optim6
Part 2
Mitch: Since that isn't an option here, the other way to go would be to take all of the wires that come out from the factory amp and feed them into a processor/line output converter that is capable of summing them all together into one full range signal
Part 3
Mitch: The reason that's necessary is because the factory amp has its own crossover settings - it only sends certain frequencies of sound to certain speakers in the vehicle. It's division of labor so the big speakers make your big bass and the little tweeters just focus on the highs
Part 4
Mitch: It wouldn't do you much good to replace everything but stick with the factory crossover points, so we essentially need to recombine that crossed over signal into full range so we can split it up ourselves to work best with the new gear
Part 5
Mitch: So that means whatever signal summing processor you use, it needs to be able to accept at least as many channels of input as the factory amp has in outputs
Part 6
Mitch: Otherwise a band of sound (say 100Hz to 300Hz) might get left out, so those tones just wouldn't play at all in the new setup
Part 7
Mitch: So the big sticking point is just figuring out how many channels of audio the factory amp uses so we know what kind of summing device will do the job
I bought a 2024 Rav4 Limited (gas) back in June
It was not my choice to buy a limited heck I really wanted a hybrid but here in my city you have to put your name on a list and it could be as early as 6 months to a year with no guarantee. I just so happened to be at the dealership looking at the Crown and was ready to buy the Crown when I saw a Rav4 in the showroom. I quickly asked the salesperson is that for sale? Long story short I ended up with the gas powered Rav4 limited.
It's a beautiful SUV with all the features. 360 Cam, Digital rearview mirror, power rear liftgate, Pano roof and what I call the dreaded JBL system lol
I honestly find the sound on the JBL system to be lacking and quite underwhelming. I have been spoiled in the past as every vehicle I have owned I overhauled the stereo system.
As cars integrate new technology it's getting harder to do these stereo upgrades especially if the model has the premium name brand sound systems. I normally would avoid the higher trims so that I don't have to worry about any issues (or as much) but as explained I didn't want to wait 6-12 months or longer
What I really want to do is keep the factory head unit(for now) and replace the factory speaker's, amp and add a sub. I also bought a custom sub box from SKAR that is designed specifically for the Rav4. In the past doing this upgrade was as easy as adding a line output converter but after researching people are telling me because of the JBL system it won't be.
I have talked to Crutchfield and attached a file what the salesperson told me. Your thoughts and suggestions or if anyone has experience with this JBL system is appreciated
I decided to just copy and paste what he said in case the file can't be opened ( I apologize for this long winded story)
Part 1
Mitch: So in modern amplified systems like this, there are generally two routes you can take. The first pick would be using a ready-made harness specific to your audio system that just plugs in and gets you the connections you need for a processor like the Optim6
Part 2
Mitch: Since that isn't an option here, the other way to go would be to take all of the wires that come out from the factory amp and feed them into a processor/line output converter that is capable of summing them all together into one full range signal
Part 3
Mitch: The reason that's necessary is because the factory amp has its own crossover settings - it only sends certain frequencies of sound to certain speakers in the vehicle. It's division of labor so the big speakers make your big bass and the little tweeters just focus on the highs
Part 4
Mitch: It wouldn't do you much good to replace everything but stick with the factory crossover points, so we essentially need to recombine that crossed over signal into full range so we can split it up ourselves to work best with the new gear
Part 5
Mitch: So that means whatever signal summing processor you use, it needs to be able to accept at least as many channels of input as the factory amp has in outputs
Part 6
Mitch: Otherwise a band of sound (say 100Hz to 300Hz) might get left out, so those tones just wouldn't play at all in the new setup
Part 7
Mitch: So the big sticking point is just figuring out how many channels of audio the factory amp uses so we know what kind of summing device will do the job
