I find it very tedious to perform a simple adjustment on the sound tune such as bass

If you like to adjust your bass on the fly, you're out of luck. It seems to be a one-for-all setting.
I got a nice Sony head unit when my stereo died on my Gen 3.

 

The migration to completely unusable controls is relentless. If I’m driving somone else’s car, I don’t even entertain using the “entertainment system”.

Heat/vent controls, that a couple of decades back could be adjusted easily, without ever taking your eyes off the road, are now a dangerously distracting mess.

 

I hate the current trend away from giving the customer what they want. The new radio in the Prius seems geared to feeding you what they want. It takes an unreasonable number of steps just to get to the radio station you want to listen to.

 

Yeah turning a tuning dial is passe.

I appreciate it is digital behind the scenes, but I believe it is possible still, to employ a tuning dial that emulates the old school tuner.

Our 06 civic hybrid, attached:

 

Doubt it will happen any time soon. You could use an equalizer on your phone , the 3 band eq in the car menus is next to useless.

 

when the spirit moves us or just sitting in the driveway with the volume up, the tedium is reduced enough to be not that noticeable and the sound comes through load and clear no matter what system is being used. When we get access to true discrete spatial sound systems we'll all wonder what we've been kept in the dark about the real power of sound entering our ears.

 

My VW gives you several convenient ways to tune a station. Including a full tuning dial on the visual display, and a dedicated tuning knob.

Nothing like that on my Prius. You can refresh a list of stations in each area, then you can assign them to a limited set or "favorites." There is a way to enter a station manually, but unless you know the exact frequency, it's useless. Very inconvenient.

I'd be surprised if there were a third party alternative that didn't sacrifice some of the Toyota utilities.

 

Still Love the F8F avatar!

NORMALLY I would consider using a service like Crutchfield to replace the 'head unit..."

However (COMMA!!!!) for YOUR car it might already be too late!
We grew up in a wonderful time where you could pay some grad school dropout to graft a double-DIN head unit into your car for under a thousand bucks and you'd be all set.....

My first car didn't even HAVE a radio.....




Soon and very soon - an infotainment system malfunction may disable the whole car!!!

 

We replaced an otherwise functional kitchen range, due to failed touch-screen. Next one’s touch-screen also failed, after a few years, I DIY’d replaced. Said replacement was partially defective out of the box, managed to use it, by transferring a portion of the old one over. Supplied photo evidence to seller of the screen, ended up getting it for free.

 

Same thing happened to me.....

 

The new paradigm is to find someone on the internet to do the modifications for you.

 

I see this problem as not limited to the radio controls. While Toyota is great at controlling the hardware, the user interfaces are all very limited, including both the paper and electronic versions of the User Guide.

 

Toyota would never give you guys the simplicity you're looking for.

Meanwhile, the best option which also improves your listening experience is to add a powered subwoofer (all in one unit that has the internal amplifier exposed to the outside for heat dissipation), have pulling signal from the front feed, not the rear, and then install a gain knob (bass knob) on your dash in the blank panel behind the wiper controls. Set it at about 100hz crossover on the subwoofer's amp.