Page 1 - Overview

Page 2 - Audio System

Audio System

So far, this is the biggest change I've made to the Camry. There's a lot of changes here, so I'll go through what I did in order of when I did it.

First thing I did, after a couple of months of just listening to good old Triple J radio, is buy a brand-new head unit. The US Audio multimedia player I got is, oddly enough, only available in Australia. It cost me $200 AU, but can play most file formats, including most codecs for WMA, MP3, WAV, AVI and WMV, will take CDs, DVDs, USB flash drives and SD memory cards. As an added bonus, it will also play both AM and FM radio. Amazing.

Sarcasm aside, it is a really good head unit, if somewhat unreliable, which is why I'm soon going to be upgrading to a Clarion version. Unfortunately, the current range of head units they have on offer don't come close to offering the range of features I currently have, not in my price range anyway. They also offer a wide range of features that are completely useless for me, such as Bluetooth hands-free. So, pretty soon I'm going to have to bite the bullet and throw out the warranty-chewing US Audio player and install a much less useful Clarion unit. Oh well.

Couple of pictures of the current head unit:

You should probably note that the remote control, unlike the rest of the product, works perfectly. It is also always in the place you are least likely to look for it - it's turned up in a wide range of places ranging from the boot to the engine bay. I only ever found it in the engine bay because the bonnet refused to close, and as for how it got there - who knows? Also, the front panel of the head unit flips down to reveal the disc bay.

Next upgrade was, logically, the speakers. Just to give you a feel for what a month of punishment from my music-loving personality, a family of moths and nearly fifteen years on the road can do to those good old stock speakers:

Surprisingly, they were still working when I took them out. Sort of, anyway.

So, I bought a set of Clarion 6.5" Three-Way speakers for the front, and a set of Clarion 6x9" Four-Ways for the back, with 280W Peak 60W RMS (estimated) and 350W Peak 70W RMS respectively. They're really good quality, and I've seen those rears pump out more bass than a set of 10" subwoofers. At roughly $300 AU for the lot, they were a real good buy.

I've left the stock grills on for a couple of reasons, one being that I wanted to keep the car looking as stock as possible, the second being to take the rear grill off I would have to remove the rear seats, which are held down by countless screws, nuts and bolts. Then you have to remove the parcel shelf, and then you can finally get those damned grills off. So, needless to say, I put that time to better use by getting drunk. Pictures of the speakers:

Obviously these photos were taken before the subwoofer installation. You should probably note just how much more space I have without them, but it's worth it.

Of course, all this is just building up to the main attraction - three twelve-inch Clarion SW1251 subwoofers, each one pushing out 800W Peak and 400W RMS. That sort of power, as it turns out, is more than enough to break anything else you happen to be transporting in your boot, such as a plastic container. Anyone asking me to transport alcohol in the boot is often subjected to long, calculating stares and a back-hander, occasionally followed by the sound of running footsteps as I realise that slapping some who is six foot four and weighs two hundred and fifty pounds is not a life-enhancing move.

Anyway, these bad boys are powered by a 2000W Power Acoustik PS1-2000D D-Class Mono Block amplifier, situated just behind the rear seats where I can easily access it. Next door is an 840W Power Acoustik PS4-840 Four-Channel amplifier, which I installed at the same time to boost the power output of the aforementioned Clarion speakers. The combination of these two amplifiers means I now have a 0-gauge ground wire, which looks quite impressive when you pop the hood. Of course, the subwoofer wiring has to be 0-gauge anyway, so I had plenty of said wiring to spare.

The installation was basically done by sealing off a section of the boot with a couple of pieces of MDF of varying thicknesses, one at the front and one at the back. The subwoofers are mounted in the front piece of MDF facing outwards, a look I personally prefer to the whole reverse-mounting thing. The back piece of MDF, which pretty much just puts in a barrier between the subwoofers and the passenger seats, has little section cut out at the bottom so that I can get to the amplifiers and tune them without having to open the whole thing up. It's all carpeted and the brackets are even colour-coded to fit the rest of the car.

But enough talk, you obviously want to see the finished result. So, without further ado, here they are! Subwoofers first:

I actually had more pictures of the subwoofers, but CarDomain seems to have deleted them. Oh well, here's the amplifiers, which you can see with the back seats down:

Page 1 - Overview

Page 2 - Audio System