Audiophiles can rejoice in new Prius

[thecaretaker]

Just a heads up folks, I have a Prius Excel with the JBL premium sound system. By mistake, I forgot to convert some of my FLAC lossless recordings to mp3 and just loaded them to my USB stick. Way Hay!!! The system plays them perfectly. 192/24bit, 352/24bit, it plays the lot. So I've removed the mp3's and added all my music in FLAC format.

The handbook doesn't mention that the system can play FLAC files, but it does beautifully and the results are breath-taking. 

[kithmo]

What's FLAC ?

[Heidfirst]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLAC

[johalareewi]

Nice find.  I have found that more and more MP3 players also play FLAC these days (but don't mention it in the manual).  With my gen3 prius, there is zero sound insulation so the benefits of FLAC are lost and MP3 is fine. Hopefully the gen4 prius has more sound insualtion.  The one I test drove sounded as if it had.  There was less road noise entering the gen4 cabin compared to my gen3.

[posing]

I find the FM radio is really poor in Gen4 compared with friends Audi FM radio for example. DAB radio in Gen4 is much better but it sometimes cut off with a gurgle, especially driving along a high street with 2 storey buildings close to the road. Not sure if the FM radio is poor or the JBL Speakers are poor. FM was similarly poor in a Gen 2 with JBL. 

[johalareewi]

FM reception is poor in gen3 Prius as well.  Not helped by massive amounts of interference from the hybrid system. :(

The facelift gen3 prius has an extra FM aerial on the rear side window which helps a bit with FM reception.

 

[PeteB]

My last 2012 (facelifted) Prius T3 with Touch & Go Plus had fine FM reception, and to my admittedly unsophisticated ears good sound of my MP3s on a USB stick.

I don't understand the comments some make about the 3rd Gen Prius being noisy, but 15" wheels help, and they did make some improvements for the 2012 facelift (and some body stiffening too, apparently).  Only on very rough road surfaces was the road noise intrusive, but I've found the same on a £100,000 Lexus LS Hybrid (not mine!).  That said, I recall driving an early 2009 company T3 for a couple of weeks when I managed a fleet of Prius and commenting to my Fleet Engineer (with whom I car shared the commute) that it seemed quiet and refined (especially on the smooth asphalt sections of the M1 that formed part of the commute).

However, the Gen 4 is markedly quieter still (it claims to have a great deal more soundproofing, right down to a sound absorbing layer sandwiched between two very thin layers of glass for some windows!) though still noticeable on very rough roads (of which there are quite a few in this part of East Anglia).

With the same ears (!) the allegedly 10 speaker (not sure where all of them are) JBL system in my new Prius Excel sound awesome with my MP3s, and what little time I've spent listening to FM and DAB, reception has been quite good too (which is surprising for this backwater).

[Bowruss]

3 hours ago, PeteB said:

My last 2012 (facelifted) Prius T3 with Touch & Go Plus had fine FM reception, and to my admittedly unsophisticated ears good sound of my MP3s on a USB stick.

I don't understand the comments some make about the 3rd Gen Prius being noisy, but 15" wheels help, and they did make some improvements for the 2012 facelift (and some body stiffening too, apparently).  Only on very rough road surfaces was the road noise intrusive, but I've found the same on a £100,000 Lexus LS Hybrid (not mine!).  That said, I recall driving an early 2009 company T3 for a couple of weeks when I managed a fleet of Prius and commenting to my Fleet Engineer (with whom I car shared the commute) that it seemed quiet and refined (especially on the smooth asphalt sections of the M1 that formed part of the commute).

However, the Gen 4 is markedly quieter still (it claims to have a great deal more soundproofing, right down to a sound absorbing layer sandwiched between two very thin layers of glass for some windows!) though still noticeable on very rough roads (of which there are quite a few in this part of East Anglia).

With the same ears (!) the allegedly 10 speaker (not sure where all of them are) JBL system in my new Prius Excel sound awesome with my MP3s, and what little time I've spent listening to FM and DAB, reception has been quite good too (which is surprising for this backwater).

Wlist I have no experience of earlier Prii, I am really impressed with sound quality of my 2016 Excel's JBL setup - although I too can't quite find all the Speakers.  I spot eight.

The DAB radio is something special compared to my Mercedes' FM and I haven't, as yet, had any drop-outs.  I'm here in Preston, Lancs so that might be something to do with it.

I have also tried to follow up on an earlier post in this thread - the one about lossless quality.  I don't have any of these music files but I do have tons of MP3 stuff in my itunes and on my ipod which I've connected through the usb port rather than bluetooth.  (The latter often dropped for a milisec).  I was therefore able to directly compare a couple of cd's with their mp3 versions.  I used a Michael Nyman cd and a Moby one which has particularly powerful bass.  Both seem to be high quality recordings.  Switching between the MP3 version and the cd on individual tracks showed that the cd was clearer especially in the mid and bass frequency ranges.  Moby got the doors moving!  Going out to try Motorhead's Ace of S.  Bound to scare the horses!

Have fun!  Russ

[johalareewi]

18 hours ago, Bowruss said:

I have also tried to follow up on an earlier post in this thread - the one about lossless quality.  I don't have any of these music files but I do have tons of MP3 stuff in my itunes and on my ipod

Apple have their own lossless format (like Microsoft with lossless WMA) so itunes and ipod won't natively play FLAC.

Plenty of info online. For example

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lossless

[Bowruss]

1 hour ago, johalareewi said:

Apple have their own lossless format (like Microsoft with lossless WMA) so itunes and ipod won't natively play FLAC.

Plenty of info online. For example

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lossless

Thanks for this.  I'm not quite sure about this but I wonder if the lossless option is very intensive on file size.  It also might take while to convert my favourite songs, symphonies, etc. 

I suppose the other thing is that in a car, even the Prius, audio of even the best quality needs to compete with ambient sound/noise and the finer modulations of, for example, Brahms and Mahler may not be heard as they would at home.  I do find that I mostly listen to jazz and rock/pop in the cars along with those classical pieces that have a narrower range rather than plenty of piano then forte.

I hesitate here but my in-car classical listening tends to Bach suites, the Goldberg Variations and pieces of a similar nature.  It's hard to make this point and I do hope music addicts will forgive me.  I certainly don't want to start an audio war here!

With vast respect to everyone's taste and views - Russ

[PeteB]

I'm with you Russ.

I'm not overly concerned with the file sizes; my 4GB USB stick was relatively large when I bought it, but these days I could easily upgrade to a vastly larger capacity if needed.  However, my perception of sound quality is not that refined and I suspect a significant increase in quality over what I already regard as very good in the latest Prius would be lost on me.

My taste is quite varied to the extent I can't really describe it as being a particular type of music.

My collection includes such variations as pipe organ music (Toccata and Fugue in D minor being a particular favourite), military bands (Thunderbirds, Planets), brass bands, Bangles, Olivia Newton John, Abba, Razorlight, ELO, Petula Clark, Tal Bachman and The Verve.

BTW: I've had all versions of Prius (over 270,000 miles combined!) and mine all had relatively good sound systems (some others have reported problems).  The first generation Prius had a cassette player and single CD slot in the dash, and if you got the £2,500 extra DVD-based SatNav version they threw in a 6-CD changer under the front armrest as well.

[Bowruss]

2 minutes ago, PeteB said:

I'm with you Russ.

I'm not overly concerned with the file sizes; my 4GB USB stick was relatively large when I bought it, but these days I could easily upgrade to a vastly larger capacity if needed.  However, my perception of sound quality is not that refined and I suspect a significant increase in quality over what I already regard as very good in the latest Prius would be lost on me.

My taste is quite varied to the extent I can't really describe it as being a particular type of music.

My collection includes such variations as pipe organ music (Toccata and Fugue in D minor being a particular favourite), military bands (Thunderbirds, Planets), brass bands, Bangles, Olivia Newton John, Abba, Razorlight, ELO, Petula Clark, Tal Bachman and The Verve.

BTW: I've had all versions of Prius (over 270,000 miles combined!) and mine all had relatively good sound systems (some others have reported problems).  The first generation Prius had a cassette player and single CD slot in the dash, and if you got the £2,500 extra DVD-based SatNav version they threw in a 6-CD changer under the front armrest as well.

Thanks PeteB - but watch out.  We don't want to start a taste war here!!  Good music BTW!

Russ

[johalareewi]

22 hours ago, Bowruss said:

Thanks for this.  I'm not quite sure about this but I wonder if the lossless option is very intensive on file size.  It also might take while to convert my favourite songs, symphonies, etc. 

Lossless formats will produce large files but they are smaller than the original master file.  It is a handy way to preserve 100% of the original recording but using less disk space.  Lossy formats (like MP3) produce much smaller files because they throw away a lot of the recording.  It's a compromise, disk space vs audio quality.  If you have lots of disk space, just use the original recording.

BTW if you download music, the site www.bandcamp.com provides a wide range of download formats including FLAC and WAV.

 

[ExInsight]

Quote

 

For the attention of thecaretaker

Just taken delivery of my Toyota Excel 20/07/2016. I tried a USB stick with a flac  file but it is not recognized by the software. I cannot update the software to the latest version until I have clocked up 200 Km !. Can you confirm which software you had when you had success with yours?

Thanks.

Roger

[thecaretaker]

As far as I remember, it worked with the initial software as well as the (so called) newer map software 6.7.0H.

[ExInsight]

I have since upgraded my software from 4.3.0 to 6.70h and it now plays flac files. Now I have the job of converting all of my cd collection !

[johalareewi]

23 hours ago, ExInsight said:

Now I have the job of converting all of my cd collection !

If you want to rip your CDs to FLAC then Freeac (www.freeac.org) is pretty good freeware.  If you want perfect rips then DBpoweramp CD ripper is excellent (www.dbpoweramp.com) it isn't freeware but it does have a free trial period and doesn't cost much to purchase. (I use it a lot).

[ExInsight]

Further to my recent post I have discovered that not all usb  sticks are fat32, (the only format that the JBL head unit recognizes). Some of the higher capacity usb sticks (64 gb and above, I believe,come preformatted in exfat). If you try to reformat in your PC it only shows exfat or ntfs as reformat choices. After a lot of messing about on google trying to avoid dodgy looking downloads I settled on Easus Partition Master which reformatted the 128gb lexus usb stick I had previously bought in no time at all. Now back to converting my cd collection using DBpoweramp which I have found to be excellent, especially as you can include online or scanned cover art in the rip.

[johalareewi]

Have just acquired a plugin prius with touch and go plus and was keen to see if it would play FLAC files.  But no it doesn't.

Software version is 2.11.5H so will see if there is an update available.

[johalareewi]

So I downloaded the latest Touch and Go Toolkit, then let it update itself.  It alludes to a more recent version of the T&G1 software (2.12.5 or higher) but there is no option I can find to update the software.  The only download that is available is Map Of Europe.  Where can I find T&G1 updates?

[johalareewi]

Sussed it. In the Toyota toolbox the free map of europe update also includes the software update.  Takes an age to download and an age to install but I got there.

[PeteB]

1 hour ago, johalareewi said:

Sussed it. In the Toyota toolbox the free map of europe update also includes the software update.  Takes an age to download and an age to install but I got there.

SO, does it now play Flac?  I had assumed only the latest version of T&G2 could do this, but we know what assumption is the mother of...

[johalareewi]

22 hours ago, PeteB said:

SO, does it now play Flac? 

Unfortunately not.  It would appear that FLAC playing has not reached T&G1 :(

And if I plug my Sansa RockBox into the USB port T&G says USB device requires too much current. It has been disabled.

What kind of USB port is it? They are supposed to deliver 500mA.

[YarisHybrid2016]

Great!! I'll have to try it here!

As for radio interference from the Hybrid system - really?? I can even listen to MW in my Yaris with excellent results! I was very impressed at how well it works!

[johalareewi]

9 hours ago, YarisHybrid2016 said:

As for radio interference from the Hybrid system - really??

With the original gen3 Prius, yes.  The facelift gen3 Prius (2012+) features a second aerial in the small offside rear window to improve reception.