Removed almost all my equipment yesterday...

[Tempe]

My almost 12 year-old Kenwood head unit's time has come and gone. In recent times the preouts have been fading out during startup and sometimes fading in while driving. Usually the right side is louder than the left. I had to resort to rear stock speakers powered off the head unit.

I uninstalled the amps from under my seats, removed the seats, took the 44-pound subwoofer out of its enclosure, and dragged the enclosure out from the truck. Wow it was filthy back there! I will need to scrub / detail the hell out of the rear cab.

Currently running is the RE Audio component set in the doors off of the head unit power. Yes, it sucks to have no sub-bass and to have to stop turning up the volume when the head unit power gives out. I notice myself having to turn down the volume due to the distortion.

On the way is a Clarion DXZ785USB head unit. This will do processing for 2-way active plus subwoofer. Also it will do time alignment, and it has a equalizer. No more one set of RCAs being split by external processors. No more reaching to the back to adjust crossover settings or having to put the crossover up front in an undesirable location to aleviate that problem.

Last night I Paypaled a friend from Maryland, and his MA Audio 100x4 amp is on its way. It will power the two Dayton RS225-4s that have been sitting in the closet for almost two years. For the high end I will use the Seas tweeters also sitting around, or I will get some Tang Band ceramic domes to save on space.

I'll keep you guys in touch!

T

 

[4x4fun]

just take pics and good luck 12 years its about time for an upgrade

 

[AllanD]

I recently (finally) removed my own aging Sony CDX-M610 head unit, which had a couple of issues... the control circuitry for the motorized face was blown so I had wired an external 9v supply to the faceplate motor via a DPDT switch to control it manually, but that I could have lived with indefinatly...

what annoyed me more was the fact that the unit was too early (by a year)
to deal with either mp3 CD's or CD-RW's and was even twitchy about some
specific brands of CD-R's.
and the transport would occasionally refuse to play pressed CD's or
sometimes give them back with scratches (I stopped playing originals
when it scratched my brand new Three Days Grace "One X" CD)

but what REALLY torqued me off was the fact that it was a single model too
early to be able to display the id3 tags from my mp3 capable disc changer.

Yeah, I'm semi-old school, I have a CD-changer, but it does play mp3 CD's...

Anyway my "new" head unit is a (new, old stock) Sony CDX-M9905x

THE annoying thing about the new head unit with it's snazzy
"Teenager's wet dream" TFT display are that the "wallpaper"
images all have some BRIGHT spot that is annoying to share a
pickup cab with at night and you cannot dim the images sufficiently.

BUT I can upload my own "wallpaper" shots to the unit, unfortunatly
they give you no capability to do so with data discs (using a CD-R loaded
with .jpg files would be so much easier than capturing a video frame)

The other annoying thing about MOST modern units is that unlike my
recently retired CDX-M610 the track title is NOT the largest item on the display.

They waste space telling you in a large icon the source being used
and even the numerals that tell you it is disc 4 album 5, track 11
that I don't give a good godamn about are twice as large as the
Artist and Track titles.

I can read the display, but the 1/8" tall letters require that I actually LOOK
to see them, on my old head unit the 3/8" tall characters could be read
through my rearview mirror from the reflection off the back glass!

the disc/album/track information is twice the size of the text and there is no way to change it...


And if using my truck with the old radio as a "boombox" I could literally look from behind the truck and SEE what was playing...

why do stereo manufacturers think people CARE what disc/album/track NUMBER
is playing?

Rant mode off.

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[Ranger SVO]

ya, I finally did a few upgrades to mine last year. I finally replaced my Kenwood KDC X617 with an Alpine iDA X303. I also replaced a couple of amps. I no longer have four amps in the truck, I only have three.

Change is difficult, but it needs to be done.

I am no longer an installer, after 12 years, I gave it up. I desided to put my degree in mathematics to use.

Change is difficult, but it needs to be done

 

[rjppunk]

How do you like the Dayton brand? I see it getting pushed hard on partsexpress a lot but I usually stick with Vifa, Peerless, and Aurasound drivers.

 

[Tempe]

AllanD the display screen is gawd awful. Trying to read anything on that screen, especially while driving, is damned near impossible! It is a very nice unit otherwise. I have my RE Audio component set (original model) running active. The crossover point is about 4khz as opposed to the 2khz used on the passive crossovers. The highs are not nearly as harsh anymore. I wonder what they were thinking when choosing a 2khz crossover 2nd order crossover point with a 19 mm dome tweeter not using a rear chamber.

I have had some Dayton RS225-4s collecting dust for almost two years. Time to have some MDF rings made and glass them into my door panel along with some Seas aluminum / magnesium tweeters

T

 

[AllanD]

Which display, the 9905?

I can read the display even while driving but I have to actually "look"
at it whereas formerly a glance was sufficient.

But NONE of the current head units by ANY mfg show the track titles
larger than the track run time, disc/album/track number.

ALL the MFG's suffer under the bizarre dillusion that we know which of
a thousand or more tracks is playing instantly...

My CDX-M610 was great on CD-Text it would flash the artist
and disc title at the beginning of each track, then scroll the
track title ONCE then stop displaying whatever part of the
track title that would fit on the screen.

but it did it in 7/16" tall letters which were EASY to read....

All the newer units that can actually deal with mp3's
waste more display space telling me other information I don't necissarily want to see all the time.

I'm spoiled by the display on my Sirius receiver, it displays artist and sone title in letters big enought to see at a glance.


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