2023 Lexus LX 600 – Focal speakers to replace Mark Levinson

Our professionalism is always greatly appreciated when clients return to us. But it’s especially gratifying when they return after our top-tier projects, when we rival premium factory audio systems in car audio excellence.

In 2021, a new Lexus LX450 from Dnipro arrived at our Kyiv studio. The level of trust and responsibility involved in that project was off the charts – it was our first time working with such a car and our first time competing with a premium Mark Levinson. The new audio system easily outperformed the so-called premium sound system; in fact, our sound easily outperformed it!

Here’s about the previous project:

Well, now we can talk about a new project. A client from Dnipro called us again in 2023. He bought a new Lexus LX600 and decided to come back to us to remove the Mark Levinson again and make his life more enjoyable again, because without music, it’s not very easy.

So he entrusted us with the new Lexus model again, saying he was very pleased with the previous result. Since the previous system had completely satisfied the client, we didn’t reinvent the wheel and repeated almost the same process this time. “Almost” is the key word; we’ll explain why at the end of the article, so let’s take things in order.

Mark Levinson’s standard audio system in the Lexus LX600

A little about the Mark Levinson system in the new Lexus LX600:

The new Lexus LX600 claims to have greater total power (than the previous model), a huge number of speakers, and 16 amplification channels. In reality, there are not 25 speakers (as the official Lexus website claims), but 16 (in fact, that’s the only number we could find). The car has numerous full-range midrange/high-frequency speakers, which the manufacturer counts as two midrange and high-frequency speakers, but in reality, there’s only one. In short, as always, it’s a lot of marketing and not much music enjoyment.

Here, for example, are the standard factory speakers (midrange and tweeter), which are located in the front doors, in the dashboard under the windshield on the right, left, and center, in the rear doors, and in the trunk lid. They certainly make a good clicking sound (I’d like to insert a laughing smiley face here).

As for the woofers, they’re only in the front doors (and here’s where I feel like putting a surprised-indignant smiley face). Traditionally, Lexus and Toyota have 6×9-inch ovals. But the rear doors left us speechless – there’s room for a 16cm woofer in the rear doors, but instead, there’s a plastic plug… We’ve already seen something similar in the new Lexus NX. It’s surprising, of course, that they advertise a ton of speakers, but only two woofers. Perhaps the manufacturer had some idea, but we find this imbalance in the system completely unacceptable! Incidentally, this car is a four-seater, with two individual seats in the back, each with a wide range of adjustments, and a center console between them that extends all the way to the trunk.

The photo below shows the stock speakers in the front doors of a Lexus LX600. Can anyone tell the difference between the standard oval speakers found in any Toyota and the premium ones found in a top-of-the-line Mark Levinson audio system? We can’t!

And this, by the way, is what the front door looks like – under the trim there is a cheap speaker and an almost complete lack of vibration and noise insulation.

As we mentioned, we didn’t find any midbass speakers in the rear doors—they’re just blanks. The idea behind this is unclear—they could have added a midbass speaker, though—it costs a couple of dollars, and it certainly wouldn’t have affected the price of the car.

By the way, regarding soundproofing, in the photo below you can see EVERYTHING we removed from the doors and what was declared as factory vibration insulation…

We found the factory subwoofer in the trunk of the Lexus LX600 (located in the left wing of the trunk). The subwoofer is actually there, but its contribution to the factory audio system’s sound is unnoticeable. Simply put, the subwoofer is there, but it’s useless—there’s no bass. Why is that? We suspect the reason is the plastic enclosure housing the 8-inch speaker (the previous-generation LX, by the way, had a 10-inch subwoofer).

For such a large SUV, making such a ridiculously small subwoofer, especially in a plastic housing that resonates, vibrates, and is clearly unable to maintain powerful low frequencies, is an absurd decision from the manufacturer’s point of view.

What should a real subwoofer look like? It’s like the photo below, with the factory subwoofer in the foreground and the one we chose in the background. The stock subwoofer looks like, excuse me, a plastic douche.

The standard amplifier is still located under the driver’s seat and has also become significantly smaller in size.

That’s all there is to the Lexus LX600’s stock audio system. This is precisely the equipment package that the premium Mark Levinson system offers in a $150,000 car. It simply can’t sound right, and we’ve fixed it!

New Audio System for the Lexus LX600

What did the Lexus LX600 owner want? They expected us to deliver loud, high-quality, and punchy sound. We decided to use a proven speaker system. The front is a three-piece Focal ES 165 KX3 system, while the rear is a Focal ES 165 K2. Of course, the new audio system could only be a processor-based one!

The most important thing is that we didn’t change anything in the car’s interior. All new Focal speakers were installed in the factory locations. The front tweeters are in the dashboard, under the windshield. The midrange speakers are installed in the doors under beautiful Mark Levinson grilles, and the midbass is also in its proper place. All speakers are securely mounted on our own custom-made spacers made of hard, durable plastic. All front speakers are wired channel by channel, just as they were in the factory setup.

TWEETER FOR LEXUS LX600

So, the factory tweeters were combined with the midrange speakers, and we changed that. We added separate tweeters to the front – we made custom spacers for them, placed them in the stock locations in the dashboard under the windshield, and gave each one its own amplifier channel.

LEXUS LX600 MIDRANGE SPEAKERS

We installed the midrange speaker from the Focal ES 165KX3 set (Elite series, the famous line with a Kevlar diffuser, which we love for its clean, clear, and incredibly powerful and musical sound) in the standard place in the front doors, made custom spacers, and gave each a separate amplification channel.

This is what truly elite acoustics should look like, and not your Mark Levinson!!

For comparison, on the left is the Focal midrange speaker, on the right is the standard speaker.

Midbass speakers for the Lexus LX600

Let’s start with the front midwoofers. As a reminder, the factory audio system had oval speakers, but we installed 16 cm midwoofers. Typically, if a new system doesn’t include a full-fledged subwoofer, we recommend maintaining the same size and upgrading from oval speakers to oval speakers. But when you have a powerful subwoofer (as in this case), you can safely downsize simply because there are many more options for truly great speakers in the 16 cm size!

So, using a reliable spacer ring made specifically for this car, we mounted the mid-bass speakers in the front doors in their original locations. Here’s what it looked like BEFORE and AFTER:

A quick comparison of the factory midwoofers and Focal midwoofers. These stock speakers are so pathetic—with their childish magnets and cardboard cones…

It turned out beautifully!

The rear doors finally have a midbass speaker, so rear passengers will now have a decent sound experience, too. Instead of a full-range speaker, there’s a tweeter, and instead of a muffler, there’s a powerful Focal midbass speaker. For the rear doors, the connection is via a crossover.

Our favorite “BEFORE and AFTER” section – in this case, the rear door of a Lexus LX600 with a factory NON-speaker (plastic plug) and a handsome Focal with a yellow Kevlar diffuser (not only a cool speaker was added, but there is also sound insulation, and as you can see in the original version of this premium car, the doors are completely “naked”)

Subwoofer for Lexus LX600

This time, our subwoofer is the Hertz MP 300 D2.3, a superb, powerful speaker. Taking into account the angle of the rear seatback in its lowest position, we designed the enclosure with a volume of 38 liters. The resulting bass is powerful and definitely adequate. If you have the space and the opportunity, we always recommend installing a 12-inch subwoofer.

You already saw what the factory subwoofer looked like at the beginning of the article, and here’s what it turned out like in the end:

There were many options for placing the subwoofer, but we chose the simplest, so to speak. For some, complete invisibility of the audio components is important, while for others, good music is more important than anything else.

Processor + amplifiers for Lexus LX600

So, we decided to mount all three devices together in one location. The new audio system has a dedicated processor with a built-in amplifier, and two separate amplifiers (one designed to drive the subwoofer, the other to amplify the four mid-bass speakers).

The car is large, but space for equipment is limited, so we chose a niche in the rear trunk wing to mount all three devices. The core of our system was a 12-channel Helix V TWELVE DSP MK2 processor amplifier, the subwoofer was connected to a GROUND ZERO GZHA MINI ONE-K subwoofer monoblock, and for the midbass, we chose a 4-channel GroundZero.

In order to securely fasten all the amplifiers, we made a podium, but first we made a prototype out of cardboard (and the finished result at the beginning):

The monoblock and four-channel amplifier (all from GroundZero, as a reminder) are located on the back of the podium. This compact amplifier setup really helps us maintain our concealed installation concept.

As for the signal, it was taken from the stock amplifier. This is the only drawback of this system; unfortunately, there is no technical way to remove it from the system. All three bands are cut on the stock amplifier and subwoofer: a total of nine channels (front, rear, and sub) are fed to the input.

RESULTS AND CUSTOMER REVIEW

We’re always nervous before returning a car, always waiting for the owner’s reaction, anticipating their joy, but always prepared for anything. This time, it was easier—we already knew the client’s preferences, so customizing the system was easier than when you’re doing it for the first time and don’t know exactly how to best suit a specific customer.

A Lexus LX600 owner says the difference with the new Mark Levinson sound is like night and day (here’s a dancing smiley face)!!! The subwoofer is powerful—it doesn’t just play, it rocks! The entire system sounds clean, loud, and distortion-free. What else could you expect from Focal and a processor?

Если интересно узнать больше про замену премиальных аудиосистем в других автомобилях, то можете посмотреть наше видео про Range Rover Velar, где мы заменили премиальный звук Meridian