Audio quality on the 2022 ORP?

[RobS10]

As I've gotten older, I find I'm less picky and would rather not have to upgrade the Head Unit of a new Off Road "Premium" 4R to be decent for music. How's the "Premium Audio" on the 2022 ORPs? I know it's not the same thing as the 70 speaker JBL + Subwoofer system you get on the LTD or Pro, but is it reasonably decent? I know, sound quality IS subjective :eyebrows:.

 

[ekinnee]

To me it seems rather muddy. There's not great highs, mids or even bass really. You can tweak the EQ but I've not found anything that sounds clear to me. I'm looking at speakers and an amp, but I've not settled on anything yet. The OEMaudioplus stuff, or is it oemplusaudio, is a popular option due to it being a package for our vehicles. I prefer to use crutchfield and do it myself though, and through crutchfield you can get all the harnesses to plug an play too.

 

[ads2539]

As I've gotten older, I find I'm less picky and would rather not have to upgrade the Head Unit of a new Off Road "Premium" 4R to be decent for music. How's the "Premium Audio" on the 2022 ORPs? I know it's not the same thing as the 70 speaker JBL + Subwoofer system you get on the LTD or Pro, but is it reasonably decent? I know, sound quality IS subjective :eyebrows:.

From an audiophile standpoint, at least in the 4th gen, even the JBL system stinks.

If you’re just looking for “decent”, you should be fine. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve also found myself to be less picky about sound quality, maybe because everything is digital now. My adult kids don’t seem to care about sound quality like people did back before cds existed.

 

[RobS10]

From an audiophile standpoint, at least in the 4th gen, even the JBL system stinks.

If you’re just looking for “decent”, you should be fine. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve also found myself to be less picky about sound quality, maybe because everything is digital now. My adult kids don’t seem to care about sound quality like people did back before cds existed.

What IS it with this new generation that doesn't seem to care about sound quality of music like I did when I was their age?? I guess all the Spotify has dumbed down expectations.

Guess I'll just have to wait and see how it sounds, and go from there.

 

[RobS10]

To me it seems rather muddy. There's not great highs, mids or even bass really. You can tweak the EQ but I've not found anything that sounds clear to me. I'm looking at speakers and an amp, but I've not settled on anything yet. The OEMaudioplus stuff, or is it oemplusaudio, is a popular option due to it being a package for our vehicles. I prefer to use crutchfield and do it myself though, and through crutchfield you can get all the harnesses to plug an play too.

If the highs are lacking, that might require at least speakers. My own "upper frequency response" has been degraded by too much Zeppelin, motorcycles, and loud machinery without ear protection. Hope that's all I would need.

 

[Whippersnapper02]

As I've gotten older, I find I'm less picky and would rather not have to upgrade the Head Unit of a new Off Road "Premium" 4R to be decent for music. How's the "Premium Audio" on the 2022 ORPs? I know it's not the same thing as the 70 speaker JBL + Subwoofer system you get on the LTD or Pro, but is it reasonably decent? I know, sound quality IS subjective :eyebrows:.

There's no difference in audio from the regular to premium. You gain built in navigation. The JBL is only available in the Limited and Pro Bro. I'd say it's lacking a lot on the regular and if the JBL is anything like my Tacoma, it's better but even minimal aftermarket is much better.

 

[John in NC]

Do the new, non JBL's have the "Party Mode" button? If not I hope they tuned the new systems to sound like it's on all the time, not off. When I have the party mode button off, there's no way I'd be happy with that. With the button on, it sounds good with the bass down 1 or neutral, and treble up 2 or 3, and 50/50 front back.
If you don't know, "Party Mode" boosts the sound all around, pumps up the lows, and sends some more volume to the rear liftgate speakers... but it also brightens up the sound and makes it sound less hollow and muddy. It can get loud with strong bass for what it is. 2011 SR5 for reference.

 

[johnnygraphic]

I really hate the way the audio sounds in my 2021 ORP. Muddy, tubby, flabby and lacks clarity and is not a clean sound at all. It’s not a volume thing either. I’ve tried to adjust EQ settings etc, but it’s just barely passable. I looked at just upgrading speakers, would like to avoid upgrading amp and head unit too. And, as I get older, the less important it is for me to have my tunes blasting in the car.


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[GG5thGen]

My age, combined with tinnitus and road noise makes a premium sound system wasted on me.

I do appreciate a high-quality sound system. Right now, volume is what I mostly need.

 

[ekinnee]

My age, combined with tinnitus and road noise makes a premium sound system wasted on me.

I do appreciate a high-quality sound system. Right now, volume is what I mostly need.

I have tinnitus also and have wondered before of the muddiness was it screwing with me at times. I swear there's some songs that actually sound better than others on Apple Music in the 4R.

 

[RobS10]

There's no difference in audio from the regular to premium. You gain built in navigation. The JBL is only available in the Limited and Pro Bro. I'd say it's lacking a lot on the regular and if the JBL is anything like my Tacoma, it's better but even minimal aftermarket is much better.

They call the audio "Premium" in the ORP on Toyota's website, which is confusing because it makes it almost sound like the JBL that's on the LE and Pro. I assume you went after market, and if so, did you try swapping speakers first or do head unit and speakers all at once?

 

[Charles Bronson]

I'm not an audiophile, but I can firmly say the 2020+ TRD ORP stereo is one of the worst sounding late model stereos I've heard and I rent tons of cars and trucks for work.

For my wife's 2020 TRD ORP, I upgraded all the speakers with the plug and play kit from OEM Audio Plus. It's quite a bit better and acceptable now. The stock speakers I pulled from the 4Runner were equal to what my 1986 Accord came with. The 2020 4Runner head unit is pretty good seems to have decent power to run the aftermarket speakers without an amp. An amp would certainly help give more depth and clarity but for my wife, it's fine as is.

 

[RobS10]

I'm not an audiophile, but I can firmly say the 2020+ TRD ORP stereo is one of the worst sounding late model stereos I've heard and I rent tons of cars and trucks for work.

For my wife's 2020 TRD ORP, I upgraded all the speakers with the plug and play kit from OEM Audio Plus. It's quite a bit better and acceptable now. The stock speakers I pulled from the 4Runner were equal to what my 1986 Accord came with. The 2020 4Runner head unit is pretty good seems to have decent power to run the aftermarket speakers without an amp. An amp would certainly help give more depth and clarity but for my wife, it's fine as is.

Good to hear. Probably what we'll do.

 

[Whippersnapper02]

They call the audio "Premium" in the ORP on Toyota's website, which is confusing because it makes it almost sound like the JBL that's on the LE and Pro. I assume you went after market, and if so, did you try swapping speakers first or do head unit and speakers all at once?

Toyota is confused with their own options.

I went aftermarket headunit first which helped with more power. Better but still weak. Then I went OEM Audio+ but the amp wasn't working so I temporarily bypassed it and ran their speakers with my aftermarket headunit which was still much better than the OEM speakers.

 

[Mr_Bingley]

I find the sound quality on my 21 ORP to be light years better than it was on my 2011 Forester, so I'm very pleased lol ymmv

 

[T4RandTacos]

Like most of the other commenters, pretty disappointed in what came stock in my 21 ORP. While I'm still planning to add more to it, I picked up some 3 way 6x9 Kickers for the front door and 6.5s Kickers for the back doors a couple of days after I brought it home. Out the door under $275 from Crutchfield with mounting brackets/plug and play adapters included - super budget friendly. Felt like it made a huge difference in terms of music quality and clarity, especially messing around with the EQ settings after install, for "just cruisin' music."

 

[GearJunkie88]

Consider what source your music comes from. If you’re listening Sirius XM, streaming music over some app, or mp3s, the music quality isn’t going to be great because your source is already degraded. Decide for yourself... how many thousands of dollars do you want to spend to listen to degraded audio sources? I spent a few hundred and upgrade speakers to get my audio experience to “acceptable”.


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[nyvram]

i have the non-jbl system as well. i'm going with full speaker replacement plus sound deadening in the doors for roughly $500 total from taco tunes.

that may be all i need but can always add an amp and sub later on if i decide its still crummy. i wont have to replace anything i installed; just add their amp & sub to the factory head unit.

 

[nyvram]

Consider what source your music comes from. If you’re listening Sirius XM, streaming music over some app, or mp3s, the music quality isn’t going to be great because your source is already degraded. Decide for yourself... how many thousands of dollars do you want to spend to listen to degraded audio sources? I spent a few hundred and upgrade speakers to get my audio experience to “acceptable”.

agree but i am a DIY-er who grabs uncompressed (FLAC) recordings and stream it from my Plex server at my house which means I can select the transcode quality when on the road. as you can see, the music below is playing uncompressed but the weak link is pushing this to my head unit via bluetooth which degrades the quality.

a good head unit with android apps built in would eliminate that weak link and i've found setting my remote/streaming to 320bps provides excellent quality without having to push it out uncompressed.

 

[Charles Bronson]

Consider what source your music comes from. If you’re listening Sirius XM, streaming music over some app, or mp3s, the music quality isn’t going to be great because your source is already degraded. Decide for yourself... how many thousands of dollars do you want to spend to listen to degraded audio sources? I spent a few hundred and upgrade speakers to get my audio experience to “acceptable”.

In a perfect world we'd have a 10M count CD library in our vehicles. You definitely improve sound quality with good sources like uncompressed files, but the second you push them over BlueTooth, quality is degraded rather significantly. You can run through aux cable, but then you lose the convenience of the head unit and steering controls.

Most folks aren't going to notice on a big sound change running uncompressed files through an aux cable compared to just using a premium HIFI streaming service like Tidal.