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- When you have a really great audio system,
you're able to sort of forget your daily stresses,
tune out of all the different commotion going on
and just experience this sanctuary-like space
inside the vehicle.
- JBL is one of the oldest audio brands in the world.
It was started by James B. Lansing,
hence the name JBL.
He started manufacturing speakers at a high level in 1946.
- Fast forward into the fifties,
within Capitol Records,
the JBL studio monitor became the standard
across all of their music studios.
And then fast forward into the nineties,
and JBL studio monitors
were in every major music studio in the world.
- In 1998, we launched on the Camry
in the US market.
And since then, we've just been growing our relationship,
both here and globally,
to today where we're essentially available
on every Toyota vehicle to some degree.
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- So what we're always trying to do
is take the core pillars of the JBL sound
and bring it to the consumers
inside the car cabin experience.
- So the four sound quality attributes we focus on in JBL
are spectral, balance of the bass,
the mid-range, and the treble.
Spatial is a very unique one,
I think that most people don't think about
is more where you see the instruments
in your favorite music.
Dynamics is something that's very, very special for JBL
and it's part of our heritage here.
Dynamics refers to not only the ability of the system
to play loud and clean,
but also to reproduce even the quietest sounds as well.
And then vehicle integrity
is something that we work with Toyota very closely on.
This is the actual structural build of the car itself,
where the speakers are placed,
how they are fastened into the vehicle,
the grills that go on top of those speakers as well,
and of course the wiring harnesses around those speakers.
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- A JBL audio system is comprised of various speakers
and a powerful DSP amplifier.
The amplifier in the DSL
is what powers the speakers.
We can start with the door woofers
and the door woofers create the punchy bass in the vehicle.
Moving on, we have the mid-range speakers.
So the mid-range speakers create the vocal sound.
It creates the depth in the vehicle.
And it also creates the mid-range frequencies.
Next, we have one of our key components,
and that's our iconic horn tweeter.
The horn tweeter creates the clarity
and the sharpness in the sound.
Last but not least,
we also have the subwoofer,
and the subwoofer is what creates
that deep, punchy, powerful bass
that is synonymous with JBL and branded premium audio.
In order to determine what is the appropriate sound system
for a Toyota vehicle,
we start with the first principles
and understanding what is the target for the vehicle.
If it's a smaller vehicle,
of course, we can use a lower number of speakers.
If it's a larger vehicle,
we certainly need a larger number of speakers.
On top of that though,
it's important to also understand
what type of features and sonic experience
is desired for this specific vehicle.
The entire development cycle for a next generation vehicle
can take upwards of five or six years,
depending on the vehicle.
We start with some simple brainstorming
and sketches going back and forth.
We identify some target architecture proposals.
We work through some of the different iterations
and pros and cons of those proposals.
Next, we will move on to the demo car
and proof of concept phases.
And then finally, we'll work on the actual vehicle
to try to bring the vehicle to life.
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- The science of sound at JBL
is something that's very, very special for us.
For over 20 years,
we've been conducting user studies on our audio systems.
That data is then analyzed by our local researcher
and then compared to all the vehicles
that are currently on the road today
so we can set sales performance targets to those metrics,
we can set engineering targets to those metrics as well.
It also just simply provides a checks and balance for us
to make sure that the consumer and the customer
is getting the sound experience that they sought to achieve.
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- One of the things that Toyota stands for
or continues to try to achieve
is a Kaizen process,
which is continuous improvement.
- Speaker technology has evolved a lot over the years.
Traditionally, speakers needed
to be really, really big and heavy
in order to deliver a premium experience.
JBL has worked extremely hard
on making low mass, high output speakers
that allows us to get really big sound out of speakers
that do not weigh as much.
One of our new subwoofer technologies is called ECS.
The ECS stands for an externally coupled subwoofer.
We are able to deliver a sonic experience
that is better than a sealed enclosure
in a smaller packaging space.
- Anybody who's considering JBL in their Toyota
should think of it as more than just the name
on the head unit or on a speaker grill.
I think the JBL sound experience
is designed and engineered
to easily provide the value that you're paying for.
- So if you spend a lot of time in your car
and you're a music lover,
I would really urge you to consider
upgrading to a JBL system
to get the most out of your music experience.
- If you're the kind of person
who likes to tune out the outside world
and sort of have your stresses melt away
while you commute on your everyday experience,
I'd highly recommend a JBL sound system.
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