No Bass in JBL Rear Subwoofer & Rear Door Speakers

[6thGen1419]

I thought it was just a not so great stock sound system, despite being JBL and having a "sub" in the rear, same experience here, all low end comes from the front door speakers, rear doors and sub are pretty useless, very quiet, is it not supposed to be this way? lol following for sure, the fact that there is no separate volume or settings for the sub says a lot

I disagree. Sounds perfect to me.

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[JR_Ontario]

My preference is to set all the balance/fader controls to center/middle and all treble, bass controls to zero. Sounds the best to me and allows for the closest to the way the music was mixed and recorded. I get plenty of bass, highs and mids. Jazz and Bluegrass sound great.

Do you also set the Mid at zero?

 

[6thGen1419]

Do you also set the Mid at zero?

I set everything to zero/center. It makes for the most accurate representation of the originally mixed and balanced recording.

 

[Tarekith]

Agreed. Leaving everything stock is the most accurate compared to how it was recorded.

 

[ToYoDaMan]

Agreed. Leaving everything stock is the most accurate compared to how it was recorded.

Thanks for all the helpful information. I will leave the settings as is.

 

[The_Dark_Knight_Forever]

I thought it was just a not so great stock sound system, despite being JBL and having a "sub" in the rear, same experience here, all low end comes from the front door speakers, rear doors and sub are pretty useless, very quiet, is it not supposed to be this way? lol following for sure, the fact that there is no separate volume or settings for the sub says a lot

We're in agreement here. I've listened to & played with mine after reading that the sub is tied to the front speakers. Even with the fader set to default position (center) and the bass level increased by +3 the sub in the rear sounds quite anemic & the rear door speakers' bass is non-existant. IMO the default fader position makes it sound like all of the bass, mids & highs are coming solely from the front & I can't hear anything from the rear. The sub does work as I can see the cone & surround movement on the lowest of lows but the bass is extremely weak even for a small sub. I agree with a previous poster here about the "premium" system being in name only. My 2003 Tundra with regular factory speakers had no stock sub with 6.5" speakers in the front & access cab doors that pumped more bass out than the rear doors & sub does in this 2025 4Runner “premium” JBL system. Makes no sense to me & what I've always understood about how the soundstage should be set up in car audio...bass in the rear with mids & highs in the middle & front of the vehicle.

 

[6thGen1419]

We're in agreement here. I've listened to & played with mine after reading that the sub is tied to the front speakers. Even with the fader set to default position (center) and the bass level increased by +3 the sub in the rear sounds quite anemic & the rear door speakers' bass is non-existant. IMO the default fader position makes it sound like all of the bass, mids & highs are coming solely from the front & I can't hear anything from the rear. The sub does work as I can see the cone & surround movement on the lowest of lows but the bass is extremely weak even for a small sub. I agree with a previous poster here about the "premium" system being in name only. My 2003 Tundra with regular factory speakers had no stock sub with 6.5" speakers in the front & access cab doors that pumped more bass out than the rear doors & sub does in this 2025 4Runner “premium” JBL system. Makes no sense to me & what I've always understood about how the soundstage should be set up in car audio...bass in the rear with mids & highs in the middle & front of the vehicle.

I was just listening to Jazz and Bluegrass yesterday while driving. The JBL system sounds fantastic. Deep, clear bass from the subwoofer.

 

[JasonIsLost]

From reading this thread, I'm having the same issues as The Dark Knight. When I first bought the car, the bass was great. Now, for some reason the rear speakers and subwoofer are all but useless. I just got home from the dealership where I explained the issue, waited two hours, and got a call from them only to tell me "everything is working fine". When I got the car back, I demonstrated the problem for the service manager and his reply was "maybe that's just how it is" so I asked that the shop foreman come out so I could show him.

We went through the settings and played with the fade and levels etc and he then agreed that the subwoofer and rear speakers were not performing as they should be. He was honestly surprised and said he was going to submit a task case to Toyota. He said I should hear back from them in a day or two (it's a Friday so I don't expect anything until next week) so hopefully getting Toyota involved will help make some progress because I agree that this is certainly not a "premium" sounding system. I don't expect it to blow my mind, but having the bass just coming out of the front speakers is ridiculous.

 

[The_Dark_Knight_Forever]

From reading this thread, I'm having the same issues as The Dark Knight. When I first bought the car, the bass was great. Now, for some reason the rear speakers and subwoofer are all but useless. I just got home from the dealership where I explained the issue, waited two hours, and got a call from them only to tell me "everything is working fine". When I got the car back, I demonstrated the problem for the service manager and his reply was "maybe that's just how it is" so I asked that the shop foreman come out so I could show him.

We went through the settings and played with the fade and levels etc and he then agreed that the subwoofer and rear speakers were not performing as they should be. He was honestly surprised and said he was going to submit a task case to Toyota. He said I should hear back from them in a day or two (it's a Friday so I don't expect anything until next week) so hopefully getting Toyota involved will help make some progress because I agree that this is certainly not a "premium" sounding system. I don't expect it to blow my mind, but having the bass just coming out of the front speakers is ridiculous.

I've been busy & haven't posted in a while to this thread but I've been monitoring it. I haven't been able to get to a dealership just yet to discuss & demo my (our) problem to the appropriate people. Thank you for sharing your experience with us here. I appreciate the vindication when I see others describing the same exact I'm having with my $57,500 vehicle. There's no way that it should have been designed to be this way by professional car audio experts. For those who are satisfied with their systems that's great...but I know that my system & apparently others are having a problem that should be resolved by Toyota & JBL.

 

[6thGen1419]

I've been busy & haven't posted in a while to this thread but I've been monitoring it. I haven't been able to get to a dealership just yet to discuss & demo my (our) problem to the appropriate people. Thank you for sharing your experience with us here. I appreciate the vindication when I see others describing the same exact I'm having with my $57,500 vehicle. There's no way that it should have been designed to be this way by professional car audio experts. For those who are satisfied with their systems that's great...but I know that my system & apparently others are having a problem that should be resolved by Toyota & JBL.

Frankly, you are confused about how the subwoofer in this sound system works.

 

[gvan1998]

Frankly, you are confused about how the subwoofer in this sound system works.

Agreed

 

[gvan1998]

I've been busy & haven't posted in a while to this thread but I've been monitoring it. I haven't been able to get to a dealership just yet to discuss & demo my (our) problem to the appropriate people. Thank you for sharing your experience with us here. I appreciate the vindication when I see others describing the same exact I'm having with my $57,500 vehicle. There's no way that it should have been designed to be this way by professional car audio experts. For those who are satisfied with their systems that's great...but I know that my system & apparently others are having a problem that should be resolved by Toyota & JBL.

$57k is not an expensive vehicle these days. 50k is the median new-car price.

 

[Archer]

$57k is not an expensive vehicle these days. 50k is the median new-car price.

I just paid more for a new ProMaster 2500 which is basically a box and 2 seats.

And might I add, an extremely thin box, I think saying it is as thin as paper is being generous.
.

 

[The_Dark_Knight_Forever]

Frankly, you are confused about how the subwoofer in this sound system works.

Respectfully, you're entitled to your opinion & I appreciate a contrasting opinion as you might be correct but it is evident based on others posting here that I'm not the only one with the same circumstances, experience & opinion concerning the sound system & it's performance.

If, and I repeat IF, the sound system is designed & working as it should then it's my opinion that I don't like how it was designed. It is also my opinion that I don't like not having precise control of where the bass is coming from & an independant volume control for the subwoofer itself with crossover options. With only a standard fader control & very basic 3 EQ setting adjustments I'd hardly call the system “premium” in my opinion.

Those with differing opinions are entitled to them & if they enjoy their “premium” systems then that's great...but consider the following from Grok A.I.:
Bass frequencies should come from the rear-like a subwoofer in the trunk or behind the back seat-for deep, clean low-end without messing up the front speakers' mids and highs. Angle it toward the cabin for punch. Subwoofers handle twenty to eighty hertz for that deep, rumbling bass, but you can tweak the crossover to about eighty hertz to blend cleanly with midrange speakers. Keep it low to avoid muddying higher frequencies.

 

[The_Dark_Knight_Forever]

$57k is not an expensive vehicle these days. 50k is the median new-car price.

I agree that $50k is the new median for new vehicles in these times thanks to inflation, government forced requirements & manufacturers stuffing vechicles with more & more technology that may not necessarily be wanted by buyers but are eventually forced to pay for. With that said, this thread is not about the cost of vechicles or a debate of what is generally considered expensive or not which is subjective & such opinions vary primarily based on income & financial standing.

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