Will the Bass setting on the head unit affect the sub, or is it independent of the head unit?

I am worried about the interior speakers still distorting when you crank up the bass or when you install the sub, is bass cut to the interior speakers?

 

There is a setting on the back of the sub that you can adjust. the the way to get that that **** is to take the box out.

 

so that's a different setting than the one you access by simply taking off the sub's grill?

 

No - he used the wrong word. There is a gain **** on the front of the sub, underneath the grill. That can turn the sub up and down in relation to the rest of the stereo. There is nothing behind the sub except wires. After you set the gain ****, you adjust the bass in the sub and all the speakers with the bass settings on the head unit. I have my trebel set to 5 and the bass set to -2.

 

So you can adjust the sub?!??!

The test tC we drove had the sub installed. I thought it sucked so we didnt order it. :?

 

How does the mid and lows sound with he Bass set to -2?

Does the subwoofer make up for it?

 

I was a little disappointed when I got my sub because before it, the mid to low wasn't bad, but the sub was so loud on the very low that it unbalanced things. You can adjust just the sub with the gain **** under the grill on the sub. Since you can't get to it very easily, you pretty much just adjust it and leave it where it's at. It took me a while to get around to it, but I'm much happier with it now.

 

The lows are more than adequate. The trick is to put the gain **** on the sub low enough that you can still hear some mids out of the speakers without overpowering it with lows. The EQ on the deck could be way better, but with a little tweaking, you can make it sound really good.

Your job is a LOT easier, however, if you're a rap/hiphop fan, because there isn't much mid, and a LOT of low sounds good. If you listen to more "balanced" music, it's a little tricky to get the range to sound even, but it's totally doable. As an aside, if you like a lot of bass but you also listen to talk radio kind of stuff, you can wire up a switch to disable the sub. Sometimes it doesn't matter, but depending on the voice and the station, sometimes it can sound really bad with the sub. It was easy once I figured out that the wiring harness was labelled wrong

 

And I must say the difference is quite extraordinary! I like a lot of low-end OOMPH in my music, and the sub really delivers. Now I'm 100% satisfied with this car's sound system and couldn't think of a single thing to complain about on this car.

As for listening to talk radio and not liking the low-end punch of the subwoofer, you could use the SSP button to go to the NEUTRAL setting, that seems to cut out a lot of the highs AND lows of the audio.

I have to hand it to Pioneer - a lot of thought seems to have went into the design of this head unit. They really thought of everything it seems!

 

Anyone know if the TC is pre-wired for a sub. I have a 10" JBL Bazooka lying around.

 

No, I believe you have the run the wires yourself, unfortunately. Someone wrote an install for the sub on this forum.

 

d00d the sub is 500 bucks.. you know what kinda aftermarket you can get for that??

 

Don't buy it, if you all ready have it enjoy. I would replace it. As another person said you can buy a better aftermarket amp and sub for that kind of money.

 

The tC is not prewired for the sub. When you buy the Bazooka sub from scion, it comes with a wiring harness that plugs into the sub enclosure on one side, grounds to the metal under the back seat, and then plugs into the head unit on the other side. The sub FROM THE DEALER is like $450, which is a whole lot. The sub, from www.mcgeorgeparts.com is like $260 or something, which is a lot cheaper. Also, if you're a total audiophile or something, you can get better sound from a custom built enclosure with a good amp and sub, but for the price, you really can't beat it. Before you tell me I'm wrong, I'm talking about having a custom fit box that takes up almost no trunk space with a super clean install into the stock deck. It's not a bad value and it adds more low end than I wanted, so why I'd want something louder is beyond me.