Crazy Mondo Stereo DVD Nav BlueTooth Install!

[CA777]

I did this upgrade almost nine months ago for the long drives to and from the mountains to go skiing every weekend during the winter, but never got around to taking all the pictures for the post, so I'm finally getting to it now (that's some serious procrastination - d'oh!) The Bezel looked different to me for about two weeks (I think humans only really notice change, then they get used to whatever has changed and never think about it again) and now I'm so used to it I haven't thought about it once until I wrote this post just now, and I personally think it looks great (I wasn't sure about the big black plastic bezels so I went with vinyl wrapped wood) The touch screen and all the controls are AMAZING. Any little thing you want to drill down on, or adjust, you just touch it, and in you go. I went back and forth looking at Pioneer units, and Eclipse Units, but after an insane amount of research I settled on the Kenwood and I absolutely love it and would buy it again in a heartbeat.

The install includes:

Kenwood DNX8120 Head Unit with:
-Blue Tooth Kit
-Voice controls
-iPod Kit
-Factory Steering Wheel Controls Kit (awesome!)
-Sirius Satellite Kit
-Built in Garmin Nav
-DVD Video & Audio Player with Dolby Digital Surround, DTS and AAC
-USB Connector for Jump Drives and External Hard Drives
-Rear View Camera mounted on hitch
-It also does slide shows of photos and reads DivX video, and iPod video straight from the iPod

JL Audio Custom Stealth 10" Subwoofer
JL Audio Stealthbox Custom-fit fiberglass enclosure with 10" W1v2 subwoofer Fits 2000-2006 BMW X5 at Crutchfield Signature

MTX Amp to Power the Sub (mounted behind the Rockford amp, not visible in the pictures)

Rockford Fosgate Amp to power all the factory speakers (I think they sound great with this much power behind them. I figured they'd blow and then I'd replace them all with nicer speakers but so far after a year of pushing them hard they still sound great (to me and everyone else who gets in the car))

Three way crossovers for the front speakers (in dash, tweets & door speakers)

Two way crossovers for the rear speakers

Blue Tooth and Nav Antennas installed inside the Rear Wing (Thanks X5 world for the how to photos!)

Two Invision Industries Head Rest DVD Player units (Thanks Lawrence!) that still move up and down with the comfort seat electronic controls. Each has their own deadicated DVD player, wireless headphones, remote control, and external input (I hook up a WII to one and an old Atari 2600 (for shi*ts and giggles) to the other to pass the time during the long winter drives (back seat passengers only of course ;-) and each can be a master or a slave, or play what's being played on the in dash DVD player so all three screens show the same thing (had to buy a separate "Rev3" box for that.) It's awesome when a big rig jacknifes and they close the pass, and we sit there idling for 3 hours in Park. We throw on a Chris Rock stand up comedy HBO special or something, push it to all three monitors, and sit there laughing instead of scowling...ok fine there's still some scowling when it takes a full 9 hours to get back home on a Sunday night)

The Headrests also have security covers that match the factory leather so they're stealth unless their in use, and the sub and amps are all mounted in the original compartments so the payload in the rear is unaffected, and everything is hidden and tucked neatly away. The sub HITS (!) just as hard as a JL 15 I had in the trunk of an A4 (probably due to the open air factor with the sub inside the passenger compartment) and I have to turn it down to -5 while listening to Sirius b/c the signal has so much bass.

I had the install done professionally by a guy who had done it before, and thank God b/c it took him two weeks, and he did a phenomenal job.

I also especially like how I can see the tow hitch and back right up to the trailer and align the ball perfectly like I'm docking with a space station or something.

Anyway, I love this set up so much words can't do it justice, and I learned a ton while getting it all done, so I wanted to share it with the awesome crew here at X5 world. Now I have a system that's exactly what I wanted, and a pile of leftover factory stuff collecting dust.