Stereo system
 

Hello! I am a fairly new 86 owner. I love my little car, but the stereo is really sad. Does the factory screen have preamp outs that will allow upgrading the speaker system without replacing the screen in the dash? I sold high end audio equipment for many years, but head units were different back then. Not sure how all this screen stuff integrates, or IF it integrates.

I believe some of the early model FR-S's had head units with RCA outputs, but none of them have had them since.

Start here:
https://www.ft86club.com/forums/index.php

then scroll down to the Electronics | Audio | NAV | Infotainment section and tap that.

Then tap on the sticky thread named Audio Directory. Here's a shortcut to that thread:
https://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29027

Navigate your way around there for a while.

I'll tell you that there is a factory amplifier in the trunk underneath the floorboard covering the spare tire that powers the two door speakers that act as subwoofers. The dash speakers are sent a full-range signal and that same signal is sent to the amp in back to be amplified for the door speakers. The amplifier has an internal low-pass filter and no gain control, so integrating it into the system can be a hassle if you ever want to replace the head unit with one that provides RCA outputs.

One other note, some of those amplifiers were unplugged depending on which head unit you have and the dealers inadvertently forgot to install the bypass harness to allow the door speakers to operate. Make sure your door speakers work as a couple of people here had to fix that to improve the sound quality.

And with the 2020s even if you have the amp bypass plugged in the door speakers will still sound like crap. All it does is take the door woofers that are supposed to be amped and hook them in the same channel with the dash speakers.
I have been to a couple of car audio places and they say there is nothing they can do to make the existing head unit sound better. Something to do with not enough feeds or channels or something like that. Am looking at around $1,000 to change to something decent here.
I will qualify my statements with the fact I know less than nothing about modern car sound systems since the last thing I installed was an under dash 8 track and a 10 band equalizer! All my cars since 1991 had decent systems from the factory. Even the FRS one was 100 times better than the 2020.

Factory optional upgrade in the FRS had preamp outputs. Or just get aftermarket. I don't feel like replacing the head unit and rewiring all the speakers would be that hard. Add a little sub to the mix and you should be pretty well off

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Easy for you to say!
I would probably blow the welds on my manifold or something.
https://i.makeagif.com/media/6-20-2015/wBPR_I.gif

Speakers only have 2 wires each... Can't be that bad lol. Surely someone with your level of experience working on cars can figure out how to use youtube and a wire stripper. Maybe if there was like a big website where people posted all kinds of information and discussions that you could search through...

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Oh speakers are fine. It is the HU that worries me! Not sure why you would want to rewire the speakers in the first place though. They are not the issue.

To bypass the stock amp. As far as the head unit is concerned, you literally just follow the instructions included with it lol. Accessory, battery, ground, 2 wires per speaker. If you're not bypassing anything, just buy a wiring kit for your specific car model. I use these for all my wiring now https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C3L4N2J...ing=UTF8&psc=1

Makes it so clean and convenient

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You know what they say:

"Young people have problems dealing with old technology, and old people have problems dealing with new technology."

I believe in Tcoat! He can do it if he applies himself lol

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i don't get why people think the twins acoustics sound bad. I have been in plenty of more expensive cars that sound much worse especially with sounding tinny which is the worst..

imo the twins mainly suck at low freq sounds.. just get a 10 in sub, separate amp, couple harnesses and hook everything up to the stock harness/amp and you've got a decent music hall. if you want to take a step further, dynamat all the rattles out

I grabbed a cheap HU from seicane and it's been signfiicantly better in terms of audio quality vs stock.
Just need to grab a mini-sub and find a nice place to store it

Go find somebody with a 2020.
Sit down in the drivers seat and turn on the HU.
Listen to it from whatever source you want.
It is an atrocity!
The system bypasses the amp completely so low frequency sounds don't suck they simply don't exist
The system in the the FRS was a high fidelity audiophile's wet dream compared to the 2020.
My 58 Ford with it's Am only, tube powered, single paper speaker mounted in a solid steel dash sounded better!

Does this also apply to 2020 Subaru BRZ or is it specific to the 2020 Toyota 86?

I believe it is just the Toyota with the system that has Car Play and Android Auto.
To be specific it is Toyota Part Number: PT296-18190-20

https://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=139286

The biggest problem (as I see it) is that the amp is bypassed and the door woofers are just hooked up with the dash ones. Tis turns what are supposed to be amplified woofers into just plain speakers which are sharing signal with the dash ones.

Easy to check. If you have the jumper connector at the amp in the trunk then your door speakers are weaksauce.

https://www.ft86club.com/forums/atta...1&d=1584552409

Why not try removing the bypass plug and reinserting the plug back into the amp and reinstalling the fuse for the amp. There is still signal on the input wires since the signal is tapped into the car side of the harness behind the head unit, right? It can't hurt to try.

Does not work. You just end up with no door speakers at all. There simply is no separate feed for them from the head unit.

Are your door speakers not working at all currently?

Oh!!!

There's no turn-on lead from the new head unit to the amp anymore. That's the problem. There's signal but no turn-on. I'll bet if you can get that amp to turn on, it will help tremendously.

Generally turning things on helps them operate. Just tap into the signal for the stereo. Turn em both on at once

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My door speakers are on the bypass pigtail as set up by the factory instructions

It is not as simple as turning on the amp.
There is only one feed for the dash and doors. Now you would have the dash speaker amped when they are not supposed to be. No doubt that would not sound good at all!
There is no simple plug and play corrective action for this.

Has anyone unearthed the 2020 factory wiring schematics yet?

There's ALWAYS only been one feed for the dash and door speakers.

You, yourself said further up this thread that you ".....know less than nothing about modern car sound systems....." You still have both mid-range speakers and tweeters in the dash, right?

Trust me on this, the wiring in the car hasn't changed. There is still a full-range signal sent from the head unit to the amp in back since your door speakers are still operating.....only now, since there is a bypass harness connected, they're running at full-range instead of through the low-pass filtering inside your amp as the system was designed originally.

Removing the bypass plug and reconnecting it to the factory amp will NOT amplify your dash speakers as you suspect they will, since those dash speakers are on the SIGNAL side of the amp, not the SPEAKER OUTPUT side. I installed car audio and other mobile electronics professionally back in the late 90's and am now getting back into it with my new build on this current car, and have gotten to know it pretty well. Trust me. It won't hurt to try this simple experiment:

1) Remove the bypass plug at the factory amp location, plug the harness back into your factory amp.

2) Reinstall the fuse that was pulled out in the fuse panel that was removed when the new "upgraded" head unit was installed by the dealer.

3) Jumper the +12 volt amp power supply lead (which now has +12 volts on it there at the amp harness which was non-existent previously due to the fuse being removed) to the amplifier turn-on lead to get the amp to turn on.

4) Turn on your head unit and take a listen.

You should now have a full range signal input to the factory amp again and a low-pass filtered speaker output to your doors.

Let us know how it sounds.

If I recall correctly the "Harmon Base Audio" head unit was not installed at the factory but at the port of entry or the dealership. If the Harmon head unit worked correctly with the trunk amp, why did Toyota go to all the trouble to produce a technical document and parts kit to facilitate bypassing the amp as part of the Harmon install? There must be some sort of incompatibilty between the HU and trunk amp. Perhaps the speaker level signal from the Harmon is too large for the input of the amp? If using the Harmon/trunk amp combo worked correctly it would have been far less expensive to just go with it rather than bypass it.

Of course, the solution they arrived at doesn't work that well either.

I would suspect that the "incompatibility" is Harmon convincing someone at Toyota that their head unit "is so much better than your factory-supplied Pioneer unit that you won't need an amp anymore for those door speakers".

The Harmon deck couldn't be MUCH more powerful than the Pioneer deck or else people would be complaining that the dash speakers are too loud or they're blowing tweeters on twins with the Harmon head unit.

The factory amp should be able to utilize that speaker-level signal without much, if any issues.

But until someone tries my experiment (since I can't, or else I would) we won't know for sure. It should only take a few minutes once you identify the two wires, and I believe there are schematics and plug diagrams posted somewhere on this forum.....

And yes, obviously, according to @Tcoat their "solution" didn't work well. So again, I would like to nominate Tcoat to help us all out and confirm for us what I suspect (and help himself out in the process.)

The incompatibility is probably that the Harmon unit has an amp internally and the stock one doesn't. Double amp sounds dicey

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If the factory head unit (or any head unit for that matter) can operate speakers directly, then it has internal amplification.

Every factory head unit in these cars was capable of powering speakers. They have ALL been able to run the front mid-range drivers and tweeters as well as rear speakers. None of these head units were strictly pre-amp only.

It should work as I described.

I'm trying to get a 2019/2020 Navi/Android Auto HU to work in my 2013 BRZ. I've got all functions working except that door speakers (no low end/bass). I figured the AMP lead from the HU is not making it to the AMP. I thought just getting the AMP powered would solve the issue, but I've searched the wiring diagrams and can't seem to find the wiring diagram for the amp to determine which lead is the lead to turn it on. Is it as simple as a 12v power supply??

If you are installing a new aftermarket head unit to replace an existing factory head unit AND the door speakers were working with the factory head unit, then read this thread:

https://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=141915

If the system has already been modified by a previous owner, you may need to take some extra troubleshooting steps to figure out what is going on.