A client from Raleigh, NC, brought his gorgeous 2013 Lexus ES350 to Adrenaline Autosound to get our opinion on his stereo system. The client was tight-lipped about why he wanted us to listen to the system, but we were happy to oblige. We listened for a few minutes before we commented that there seemed to be something wrong with the factory system and that it sounded like he added a small subwoofer. We went back to the store, where the client explained that there was a full aftermarket audio system in the vehicle, including high-end speakers and subwoofers, a five-channel amplifier, and a stand-alone digital signal processor. We knew the client needed help to make his Lexus ES350 audio system sound right.
Signal Integration
We started by evaluating where and how the audio signal had been extracted from the factory source unit. Unsurprisingly, the system was only using the factory subwoofer signal and the midrange speaker signal. The factory midrange speakers have a bandpass crossover on them, which means that no high-frequency information went to the new system.
Speaker Mounting
We pulled the door panels off to check the speaker installation. The previous shop had created wooden adapter rings to mount the speakers. We tossed those in the trash and made a set of HDPE plastic adapters that won’t be damaged if they get wet. Some sound-deadening had been applied to the front doors that was going to help. On the passenger side rear door, a large piece of damping material had been applied to the factory vapor barrier. We aren’t sure what that was supposed to do. We also removed the passive crossovers from the doors so they would buzz and rattle.
Wiring Reparations
Interconnects and power wires just dangled from the Mosconi processor attached to the rear of the subwoofer enclosure. A remote wire ran from the fuse box in the kick panel along the door sill with no zip ties or any tape. They used twisted 18-gauge primary as speaker wire in the doors.
We removed the wiring and ran new cable and wires as required. We secured the new wiring to factory wiring within dedicated channels and protected everything with Tesa cloth tape.
Lexus ES350 Stereo System Tuning
Once we wired and configured the system properly, we tuned it with our acoustic analyzer and the Mosconi DSP. You can see that the frequency response is nice and smooth. The system now sounds awesome and has great imaging. Check out this video to see more!
If your system does not sound the way you want it to, feel free to drop into Adrenaline Audio in Clayton, NC. We would be happy to help make it sound awesome!
You are kept very helpful share about subwoofer, it is also demantable post for who want to upgrade their old subwoofer. Thanks for the post.