xpertease,

first off...happy birthday!

second off...that is exactly what i thought. i am no audio buff/geek, but i know good sound when i hear it. IMO it is on the pricey side, but after the conversations i have had with the OEM guys i understood the high price....it was all of the custom research and fine tuning to make the sound at the best/optimal level for the tC2. i'm glad someone like you was able to find this thread and make a comment. i would not be able to explain the customness of their product in better terms.

as far as hearing it for urself. they will notify me of any upcoming events and i will be sure to let everyone here know on the forums

 

It is true that subjective opinion outweighs paper specs since it is your ear that determines what sounds good or not. However the fact remains that if the paper specs are lowend then the probability of what you hear in person will more than likely be just as bad.

This OEM AUDIO + system is nothing more than amps and speakers. They aren't selling you any services included in the price to fine tune anything, therefore you'll still need to adjust things according to your own preference. That's providing you can adjust the sensitivity on the amps at all. All real enthusiasts alter the sound to suit their personal taste.

I can name a ton of companies from McIntosh, Krell, Marantz, Niles, NAD that offer amplifiers that are well above 50w and cost below $10k. Typical home theater 8ohm speakers don't really need their own amplifier with the advancements of receivers these days unless we are talking very highend speakers which do require alot of power to be played loud.

For this scion TC2, I'd personally use a 2way 6.5" woofer combined with a 1" tweeter and a 2way 3.5" all in the front doors. For car audio, I've always been a fan of emphasizing high pitch tones all around the doors since it's a car after all and not a home theater room. This setup for a car would also require a sub-woofer or it will sound to tinny. I set the crossover for the subwoofer to handle a full range from 80hz on below. The door woofers at the front and the rear I set for 150hz on above. I also have duplicate copies of my mp3's for my car specifically so I can add reverberation effect to make it sound wider in the car instead of it sounding so enclosed since you are literally right next to the speakers. This is a much better process than relying on headunits to add reverb since they just can't mimic what you can do with an audio editor.

 

Oh so much to say on subjective opinion of car audio,
The kit is for some one who doesn't have the tools or skills to start trying to change the Factory set up. From what i read and see its a plug and play kit with the guess work taken out of it for the mass's who just want better than Factory and OEM have made this for them.
Car audio is that a car, ever changing with the road noise, the style of music being played and the ear that today might have wax in it compared to yesterday it didn't.
Is the system for me…….. no, for someone who lives in a condo and doing it in underground parking hell yes.
Adding rear tweeter alone will confuse the sound stage, is it a 4.1 system i don't know and don't see any thing saying so.
Changing the amp for the 6x9 to play full range make them pop below 60hz witch may be the lowest point, so a setting of 80hz would make them a very small band pass and thus a very pointed base source.
Change the 3 way to 2 way, you can if you like i like the 3 way with 8", 4", tweeter set up with the better part of the base up front.
Its so nice to have the stand up base in front of you not moving front to back because 90% of the 6.5" on the market won't go that low with the proper punch thats needed.

10$ or 10k on a amp only says how much money you have, 1 watt or 5k it depends on how it's rated! I have a couple of old Butler 25 watt tubs with over 10db of headroom and i have yet used them to 100% of there capacity and really have no intent to.
This is only my subjective opinion on whole thing!


Soap box is free!!

 

Yesterday I took out the 6x9 to replace with my 2way 6.5" and apparently the crossover in the pioneer amp under the driver seat does a good job at filtering high frequencies that nothing came out of the tweeter connected to the woofer. I'd still rather use this 6.5" 2way single woofer instead of a regular for its purpose mainly because it's cheaper and the fact that the bass will only go so far considering it's located in a metal door.

I'll say the 6.5" sounds a lot better than the stock 6x9 in many regards. The stock 6x9 completely overpowered the tweeter and 3.5" in midrange frequencies even though it's supposed to concentrate on low tones. The 6.5" plays loud sounding like an actual woofer with very little midrange tone and it doesn't drown out the tweeter and 3.5".

I disconnected the stock 3.5" since it sounds like a cheap PA speaker. It distorts using even the HU power when played loud which tells you even more on how bad it is. I currently have just the 6.5" woofer and 1" tweeter connected which sounds damn good as it is. I am in the market for a 3.5", but the space behind the 3.5" doesn't look promising to suit a wide selection of speakers.

 

I have the Scion Alpine Deck w/Nav it is pretty decent, always been an alpine fan

 

All I know is if I find a product that is easy to install, looks good, and offers great sound at a competitive price, I would buy it in a sec. With that being said.... LET ME HEAR IT!!!

 

I know if u got factory ur good.

if anyone has any other aftermarket radios, please let me know.

I am visiting OEM this friday and they will be testing their system on my aftermarket radio (a pioneer AVH-P4300DVD)! so if anyone wants to know how the system will work for ur specific headunit, let me know so i can ask them personally.

will update soon on what happens!

 

So I visited the guys at OEM Audio+ today...I meet a few of them before, but after meeting the whole team...WOW I'm impressed they are a bunch of cool guys that REALLY know their sound.

I'm not sure how much I am able to say from what I heard/learned today (I was kind of in the middle of a few business meetings they had while testing my aftermarket pioneer with the system)...but here is a quick run down

1. you really have to hear it to know it, they understand that and will pass along as much info to me to spread to you guys (if they dont spread it already themselves)
   • with that said, they will soon have their setup to as many car meets as they can (maybe a different one ever week)
   • also they told me if anyone has any requested car meet locations to let me know so I can pass it along to them...they are more than happy to take request and try to make it out
2. their system will minimize (or almost eliminate) the DOOR RATTLE PROBLEM!
   • the problem with the door rattle is on the stock setup, the woofers in the doors are too much for the door to handle, hence the rattle
   • with the OEM setup, they basically spread the bass (high-mid-low) throughout the new door speakers, new rear speakers, and the 8" sub
3. it REALLY is plug and play, i saw them pop in and pop out the sub as quick as a few seconds...also it comes with basically everything (wires, most tools, rivets, etc)
4. the system is LIGHT...appox 30lbs. total...im comparison to the new JL stealth sub enclosure for the tC2..its about 25 pounds and u still dont have the sub or the amp or any other speakers in
5. they made (i saw it) a special sub in High Voltage for the RS!...and they are only making a LIMITED quantity of the High Voltage version of their system
   • they also might make colored sub enclosures to match the other tC2 colors
6. if anyone saw my post of their car back at the Encore car meet....the carbon fiber dash.....well it will be available via OptomizeScion soon
7. There was A LOT more...but its hard to recap it all and put it down in words.. haha any questions and i will surely pass it along to them

 

I never had door rattle from the stock 6x9 even with the full door panel off. The only thing that rattled was the cover for the window control. That was an easy fix by just using clear silicon underneath so it wouldn't shake.

Overall it may appear to be a nice setup, however the high price simply doesn't justify the means. The only thing again that is nice and unique is the 8" subwoofer since that fits contour to the sidewall within the hatch space. Other than that, you can go somewhere to have them install a custom setup all around the car at a much smaller price than $1.3k

I do everything myself just for the record.

 

yes a person that "wants to do everything them and fine tune it specifically"...they told me this is not the system for them

this is a system for someone that does not want to go through the process of finding all the various components and fine tuning them

also, each speaker is designed uniquely...getting different components while cheaper might not get the best sound...sure it might sound good (clear, loud, bass, whatever) but it is not at its optimal level

trust me, its worth it...the sound of ur music is so amazing...its pricey even for me i get it...its not in my budget right now, but it is definately worth it. ive been in other cars, including my first car...i just got whatever random components just because it was the cheapest...damn i thought it sounded great, especially from stock, but i just thought hey a speaker is a speaker...but after hearing the OEM setup...i know now a speaker is not the same as another speaker. u can really hear how the amps, the speakers, tweeters, and sub is working together

as far as price...the JL stealth subox enclosure they are making it (not yet released) is estimating the MSRP is almost half the price of the OEM total setup...and that does not include wires, speakers, or even the amp

so yes, u can get a cheaper setup if u just want to get the cheapest things in ur car just to make sound come out

but if u want the perfect sound with the speakers working together in harmony and dont want to take deal with the tasks of finding and fine tuning it to urself...this is the system for u. its like a set it and forget it

anyways like i said...i can only say so much. u have to hear it to believe it. and this system is not for everyone...they know that...

so oblivionlord u might not just be part of their target audience. nothing bad about it...just there are different people with different interest that want different things...so each their own

 

[QUOTE=oblivionlord;3896372]I never had door rattle from the stock 6x9 even with the full door panel off. The only thing that rattled was the cover for the window control. That was an easy fix by just using clear silicon underneath so it wouldn't shake.

I have been told by a few Gen 2 TC owners and can confidently state that when the SSP is set to FEEL and cranked wide open, w/o boosting the bass control, door rattles do occur - as does in mine. It is also music dependent so it won't happen with soft rock or top 40 tunes but get some hard hitting hip-hop, then it does become a nuisance. Fixing it with silicone is not for everybody to tackle since it may be more than one thing that is rattling, its a job better left for the dealer since the car is still under warranty.

BTW, the rattle I am referring to is sound system related so if you remove the door panel, there shouldn't be any rattle because there is no back pressure from the 6x9 to cause it. That's what's causing the rattle - not vibrations.

 

[*] their system will minimize (or almost eliminate) the DOOR RATTLE PROBLEM![LIST][*] the problem with the door rattle is on the stock setup, the woofers in the doors are too much for the door to handle, hence the rattle

I just posted a comment to Oblivionlord on his door rattle comments and I suspect you also have this problem KidJustin as I and many other owners do.

I am curious - did the OEM Audio peeps explain how they cured the problem? I suspect and as mentioned in their website (http://www.oemaudioplus.com/science.html) they did allot of testing and probably limited some of the lower bass coming out of the 6x9 door woofer and used the 8-inch sub to supplement and reproduce sub bass. This is similar to what car audio competitors used to do when they were tuning for sound quality many years ago. The result sounds like a good home audio system which is life-like and as if the bass is so together with the rest of the speakers and not coming only from a sub in the trunk.

You mentioned they would do demos at car meets - please let me know if they do one in So. California - it would be worth the drive to hear what you are describing.

 

As far as I understood that is how they fixed the rattle problem...distributing th bass levels at the front rear and subs.
Once they get thier schedule up I will post here the next meet they will be at, they are mainly in socal anyways. u guys can always request them at any meet u hear about and I can let them know so they can try to make it