Subaru accessory subwoofer
 

I just installed the OEM subwoofer from Subaru into my 2017 BRZ. I thought I would take a minute to share my thoughts.

I was honestly pretty disappointed in the sound of the stock sound system. To the point where I was not going to be happy listening to it. I knew that I was going to have to do something, but was unsure what. My decision was made easier once I received a $500 coupon from Subaru to spend on parts or service (different story), so without having to risk much "out-of-pocket" money, I got the OEM subwoofer (cost after coupon was $34).

The parts/service department wanted $440 to install it though. They said it was a 3.5 hour job. Again, since there wasn't a whole lot of information about this sub out there, and I wasn't sure what I believed anyway, I really wasn't interested in spending that kind of money without knowing I would be happy. So, I had them order it, and figured I would try to install it myself even though I was quite intimidated about doing so.

So I picked up the sub yesterday. I thought it was somewhat ironic that the cardboard box it came in wouldn't fit in the car, and thus had to ride shotgun just to get it home. This morning I set out to install the thing.

Installation was pretty straightforward. I had to grab the installation instructions online (from here) since they were not included in the box. The instructions are quite detailed and have pictures for each step. I did have, and would definitely recommend having, a set of nylon trim tools, but other than that, a 10mm wrench and a screwdriver (a short one too) are all that is required. Installation took me approximately 4 hours or so including several breaks. It is something that I think pretty much anyone could do.

Now to the important stuff... the sound. Night and day. Simple as that. Is it the best sounding system I have ever heard? Not by a longshot, but it is sooooo much better than it was. One of the reviews I had read about this system spoke about the crossovers and how just having the stock speakers no longer trying to output the bass, cleans up the sound all around. I couldn't agree more. I mean the stock speakers are still not fantastic speakers, but the crossovers help a lot.

The overall sound is now much more balanced than it was. One of the things I was reading in reviews is how the bass is overwhelming with the addition of the sub. I can certainly see where someone could think that. However, another review mentioned that the sub is associated with the front speakers, so fading to the rear speakers quiets it down some. This is true. I moved the fader 2 notches to the rear, and that helps. I also messed with the EQ some to adjust the sound to my liking, but leaving it flat actually sounds really good. Based on some reviews I have read, I was halfway expecting to have to fade the sound almost all the way to the rear and EQ all the bass out, but that is just not the way it is. I think that with minimal tweaking, one could adjust the sound to their liking with ease.

Based on the research I did, it seemed like there are basically three options for someone interested in upgrading the sound. The OEM subwoofer, the OEM+ kit, and full-on custom. I have heard plenty of full-on custom systems, and if you do it right, and spend the right money, it will probably be the best sounding of the options. That was not what I was interested in doing. That left the two "kits" for me to choose between.

Since I haven't heard the OEM+ system, I couldn't comment on the difference between that system and what the system sounds like with the addition of the OEM subwoofer. I would speculate that the OEM+ system sounds much better. I really don't see how it couldn't since it replaces all the stock speakers. That said, it is also twice as expensive. The choice between the two systems would have been more difficult for me had I not had the coupon from Subaru, and to be honest, I still contemplated going the OEM+ route anyway.

All in all, I'm glad I got the sub that I did. It gave the stock system exactly what it needed to make it a decent system. Mind blowingly amazing? No. It would be hard to say that it was even great (although I could see some saying it is). But I would say that it is good. Certainly better than acceptable, and also enough to where I'm done with it now. I have no more desire to upgrade. This will do just fine.

I hope that maybe this information helps someone make a decision that I know I was torn with. If anyone has questions, I'm happy to try to answer them.

Almost forgot... for reference, I listen to all sorts of different genres. Mostly jazz and jazz fusion, but I was also listening to pop, rock, metal, and classical today. It all sounded good.

This was very helpful! I just got my 2017 PP Limited BRZ and im very disappointed with the stock sound system.

Now my question is, how long after buying the car you got the $500 coupon? Im definitely going to move forward with the oem but would like to save some bucks also.

I didn't know about the fader trick, I will have to try it. There are times I love the way the oem sub sounds, and times it just gives me a headache.

That's a boat load of work to put that in. Too bad the car wasn't pre wired.
I think that's what's keeping me from doing it. To much to take apart. Not that it's intimidating, just don't have the time to get into it....
But thanks for sharing your thoughts!

and for the link. that's a helpful doc to have for disassembly of components for other reasons.

wow, I had no idea it was so much work to put that thing in. I don't know why but I had the impression that you just plugged it into the amp and it was good to go. I've always been kinda interested in this option and if I came across a good deal, I think I'd be all over it. Thanks for posting your experience.

@FlipperBizkut

I bought one of these a few months back for $250 used but never installed it cause lazy. Glad to get this review to add the rest of the limited info out there. Now I'll take a Saturday to put it in.

I've heard a few OEMAudio+ systems and they sound phenomenal for the price but even the ones setup with more bass simply do not have the punch for Hip hop and Metal the way I like it. Dance tracks and Jazz sound great though. I think the OEM+ system runs into the physical limitations of air and an 8" driver. For that reason the 10" Kicker sub in the Subaru OEM system was appealing. Cheap, OEMish, and good enough quality for shitty streaming audio quality in a car with almost no sound deadening. I'm glad to hear that it can be toned down for other music styles while still being able to slap hard when needed. The front speakers can all be easily upgraded in time if my ears feel the need so this sounds like it should suit my needs perfectly.

Thanks for the review.


http://parts.cioccasubaru.com/images...ofer-shift.jpg

vs

http://oemaudioplus.com/wp-content/u...5/03/FRZ-2.jpg

It seems bizarre that the instructions have you remove the gauge cluster to run the wiring harness, this is not necessary.

Yeah, you can just route the wire harness through the bottom and up. I was wondering why they were removing the gauge cluster.

Did you replace your head unit at all? If so you may need to have the DSP amp recalibrated. I had to when I had my Kenwood installed and now it sounds phenomenal. I was able to go to OEM in person but they'll take the amp by mail and do it as well.

This is exactly how I feel. With my Perrin cat back (which isn't even all that loud) any music audio is pretty trashed anyway.

I had the Subaru OEM subwoofer installed when I purchased my Series.Yellow last month. I've been futzing with it ever since trying to get the boomy-ness to go away. On a trip recently I noticed less boom with luggage in the trunk and figured that the resonant frequency of the truck area led to some low frequencies overpowering everything else (i.e. boomy-ness).

I've spend a month, off and on, playing around with various settings of front-rear fader and equalizer and finally gave up and literally threw in the towel. I resorted to an old drummers trick to cut down on the low freq hum by folding a bath towel in half twice, then put that towel over the sub speaker and tucked it behind the sub to hold it in place temporarily. The size of the towel folded in half twice fits just about perfectly and covers the entire speaker opening.

The result? Much tighter bass and 90% of the resonant frequency buzz is gone! The subwoofer actually sounds really good like this. It’s tight, but not overpowering like it was, and you can still hear everything. It’s about as close to perfect as I think I’ll get without adding a variable resistor to the wiring harness to be able to adjust the overall sound volume of the sub alone. For the life of me I don’t know why they didn’t add an adjustment so we could set the loudness of the sub from the driver’s seat. They ran the wires right through there, would have made everything 100% better to do that.

Here are my settings for the equalizer. FYI, it’s not a true equalizer, if it was, turning the 5kHz setting up wouldn’t lower the base settings at all, but it does. It almost acts like an old school parametric equalizer where turning up one setting reduces the others as well.
60Hz: -3 (-4 for really thumpy music)
250Hz: +3 (which primarily reduces the low freq boom for some reason – like I said, it’s not a true equalizer)
820Hz: +2
1.6kHz: +2
5kHz: +2 (or +3, I can’t decide which I like better but I’m mostly sticking with +2)
16kHz: +4

Front/rear balance set to 1 rearward.

I have the bass expander setting turned OFF as it makes way more boomy-ness without actually making better sound. I also have the music restore/enhance setting turned off as well. All that seems to do is make the highs very harsh and tiring over time. I use the 16kHz +4 setting to compensate.

I use an old iphone in the glovebox as my mass storage. It works far better than a USB stick. I have it setup to connect to my current iphone when it has the personal hotspot turned on to steam Pandora. This way you get a wired connection for Pandora which sounds better and allows onscreen controls. Bluetooth sound is fine for podcasts, but isn’t as sharp as wired connections for music.

For the love of god Subaru, give us the ability to set the artist list view as default for ipods. The song default view is f’n useless!

i keep thinking of getting the OEM, but everywhere i look, it comes out as $750 for the 2017 model. :( I'd rather get an exhaust for that kind of money.

I've found there's an acoustic gap between what the sub does and what the front speakers do. When the sub is tamed it winds up cutting out some audio in the "woofer range." The whole package is a nice idea but I don't think anyone bothered to tune anything properly. One of these days I want to take it apart (I didn't install mine) and see what connectors they're using. Would be nice to make a kit that has an EQ and volume control for the sub that's plug and play.

Really excited to try the fader adjustment. First I've heard of that trick.

Upfront disclaimer: I don't not own one of these nor have I ever heard one in person.


A crossover gap is actually pretty common, it's useful for a couple of things including smoothing a large jump in dB between speakers, which is common in subwoofers as people (generally) like super loud bass that smoothly integrates with mid bass. Technically a full octave would in theory yield a straight response curve if the sub and the woofers are playing at the same dB from their respective amps, (edit: and the crossover slopes are the same). however with the OEM, IDK if its filtering the signal to the woofers as it sends signal to the sub, so take all this with a grain of salt.

3 Months Later...an update
 

Hello Everybody,

After 3 months and 8,250 miles I thought I'd post an update about the Subaru subwoofer.

I posted about this with my settings earlier in the thread. At that time the sub was very boomy and generally annoying at some frequencies. Over the past couple months the sub, and the car speakers as well, have loosed up a bit and forces me to completely retune the equalizer settings. This is a good thing since the equalizer makes the sound quite harsh and distorted at any setting over +2 in my car.

I have been able to remove the folded towel I had over the subwoofer to damp the boom now as well.

Current eq settings for a much more pleasant sound:

60Hz: -2 (-3 for really thumpy music on eq #2)
250Hz: +1
820Hz: +1
1.6kHz: +1
5kHz: 0
16kHz: 0

Front/rear balance set to 0.
All other sound 'enhancement' settings turned off.

Overall the sound is full, not harsh sounding, and not overpowering on the base side. For songs with tons of base I go to eq #2 with the 60hz turned down one more, all other settings the same. Since the sound isn't so harsh it's much easier to listen to for long periods.

The sound still isn't premium, but it's acceptable now that the speakers have relaxed. It's 100% better than when I got the car from the dealer and couldn't find any settings that sounded good.

Moral of the story, if you've had your car for some time and haven't played with the EQ settings since it was new, do youself a favor and zero it out and start over again. I think you'll find the system sounds much better after it settles in.

I've had the car just over 3 months and put 8,250 miles on it already. EVERYTHING is better in this car with a bit of breaking in! Seats, transmission, clutch, and engine are all much better now. The paint on the front bumper, not so much. Need a clear bar quick!

Enjoy.

Can anyone please tell me where I can buy a plug and play harness for this sub? I bought one used but the owner didn't include the harness that plugs into the sub/head unit. I drive a 2015 BRZ limited with a Fujitsu h/u. Thanks

anyone know where i can find a PDF of the installation instructions?

..in the first post.

Lol not sure how I missed that link.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I also asked this question in another thread. Does anyone know whether the 2018 or 2019 Toyota 86 is pre wired for this subwoofer? Do you guys someone installing on Toyota 86?
thanks

This worked quite well for me, but I didn't adjust the levels that far down. Everyone should do this to that sub. It still is an awful piece of trash, but this makes it less trashy.

Hey,

I tried the suggestions in this post but didn't get the sound I wanted in my '14 BRZ. After some trial and error, I eventually got it dialed in. I posted about it in the forum but thought I'd also reference it here.

In a nutshell, I came up with two solutions. One was to connect a DAC to the line-in AUX port (this is the route I went) and the other was to insert a passive 70 Hz Low Pass crossover between the radio and the sub.

Reach out if you have any questions. If you're not familiar with DAC's, here's some info.

https://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=138590

Craig

This is just as stupid as it was the first time you posted it.

Good thing no one listens to you.

his 'thanks' and 'mentions' would say quite the opposite...

Because some idiot selling garbage that literally no one in the actual car audio world would use has an audience. Go back to selling to headphone lovers and laptop people, they actually have a use for your product.


What's funny is they make products that go between the stock stereo and the amps and speakers that sound a million times better than what you are schlepping and are actually made to do the job.

He's trying to correct someone even though he doesn't know what he's talking about. People don't listen to people that do that.

It doesn't matter that you're not convinced that you're objectively wrong.

I'm going to keep mocking and ridiculing your stupidity. I dare you to try and push your drivel over on https://www.diymobileaudio.com/forums/ , you know the place where people that actually know what they are doing hang out. Oh and beware, more than a few people that have actually won national and international sq championships live there.

ok, please tell me, how in the world does a DAC fundamentally change the acoustic signature of the vehicles sound system?

i can answer that. it doesn't. what we have here is better known as 'the placebo effect'.

This scammer still trying to sell his bullshit?

apparently, if you put it in a pipe and smoke it, it's easy to believe anything!

New member here. Years late probably for this question. I bought this subwoofer like new (box opened only) from someone else for my 14' FRS. I've seen installs and I know that they work with FRS's, however, the one I bought came with an Impreza harness and does match up at all with the back of my pioneer system. Does anyone have any knowledge to where I could find the correct BRZ/FRS harness for this sub for under like $100? If this post needs to be deleted/moved to somewhere else please do so. Thanks!

according to others, the harness cannot be bought anywhere...

https://www.ft86club.com/forums/show...04&postcount=7

only way to get anything official is to buy the entire sub and harness right from subaru. Saying that a good audio shop should easily be able to make everything work.

Thank you soundman98 and why? for the info. I had figured I was going to have to take it to an audio shop to have them install, I was just holding out hope that someone somewhere knew about a harness. I'll update whenever I get it done and post how much it cost to do.

So took it to a local place to do the conversion and they had no idea at all how to work with the wiring I currently had. They said $200 to hardwire it in, and I want to be able to remove/unplug it for an autox day if needed and he said they could not set up a connector as it came with. I know there has to be someone out there who has access to just the harness portion. I really got screwed on this deal. Paid $300 for the BRZ sub with an Impreza harness...

what did the $200 cover? just basic wiring/time?

it sounds like you went to my local audio shop... i've had to train them on certain parts of their inventory on at least 2 occasions.

a simple plug shouldn't be a problem for any setup you want.

i'm short on time now, but can you post the connector you have currently? i'll try to look up the wiring diagram later on.

Sounds about right to me for a custom wiring job.

I don't think the shop was saying they couldn't, I think they were saying the connector end that comes on it would have to be replaced with a different one that they could match up to.

Here's a nice overload of pics for you guys :thumbsup: