Hi All,

Over the last couple weeks and several says in the audio shop, my install is pretty well done. Here is what I went with:

Head Unit: Kenwood DNX7100
Front Speakers: Polk Audio MoMo 6500 6.5" Components
Rear Speakers: JL Audio Stealthboxes configured as low mids
Subwoofer: JL Audio 10W7 Subwoofer
Main Amp: Alpine PDX4.150
Subwoofer Amp: Alpine PDX1.600

Click any of the images below for a BIG image.

I chose the Kenwood head unit mostly for the Garmin navigation. I prefer to appearance and usability of the Pioneer AVIC Z2, but the navigation sucks and the Ipod controls are not nearly as fast as the Kenwood.

The installer sanded and sprayed the adapter plate so that it matches the factory climate control plastic.





The head unit works great. It's Ipod controls are outstanding. It even plays Ipod video. I will likely never use it, but it is nice to know it is there.

The navigation is Garmin so you know it is good. It us running version 8 of their mapping software.

I also purchased the Bluetooth add-on. It works great for phone calls and has no issues linking with my Razr.


The speakers are mounted in standard locations with the Mids on the bottom and the Tweeters in the top location.



Polks tend to be pretty bright, but these sound great at -3 on the crossovers. They are mounted firing across the cabin at each other. Overall the Polk's are terrific.

I can't show you a picture of the amps because they are hidden in the cubby below the subwoofer. There is a small channel on the back of the custom sub enclosure to allow heat to escape. The Alpines run pretty cool so we chose not to put a fan in. If they get hot, we'll add one just to be sure they will be fine.

A week ago I ad installed the JL Audio stealth boxes. While they sounded OK, they just did not give me the bass I wanted with the top down, so I ended up adding a 10W7 to the system. I had originally planned to keep the Stealthboxes and set them to play lower than the mids, but higher than the sub. In the end, they are not doing much in the system so I am going to remove them and sell them (listed now in the F/S section) and replace them with some rears for fill.



Overall, the stealthboxes sounded great for songs that needed very tight bass. Being 8" subs, however, they cannot go as low as I want.


My favorite part of the system is the custom fiberglass enclosure the installer did for the JL Audio 10W7 subwoofer. He was able to get the required 1.25 cubic feet of space without eating a ton of trunk space. As I said above, the amps are mounted in the cubby hole below the sub. It enclosure is removable for access to the amps for tuning.







The color match on the carpet is perfect and the sub hits unbelievably hard. This is the same type of sub I had installed in my C5 and I am glad to get one back in the vette.

Overall, I am very happy with the install. Goose and Mikey at Cartoys in Tigard, Oregon do great work!

Now if only I could figure out how to get rid of all the rattles and squeaks.

Thanks,

Shan

 

looking good, gotta love the dbl din opening in the c6's

 

that looks great. nice and clean!

 

Very nice Shan, congrats and enjoy!

 

So ... does the head unit dim with the rest of the car?

 

do you have a 8" AND a 10" installed? If so I'm curious what the bass fill sounds like (frequency overlap etc)

 

Thanks for the comments guys. I really love the setup.

I am actually getting so much bass from the 10" sub that I have decided to remove the JL Stealthboxes. As a result, I have not really tuned the system with those...I am actually fading all audio to the front speakers so they are not even running. When the stereo shop had them running, they sounded good but you did not need them at all. They also had them crossed to to play a low mids rather than subwoofers, so they were not working too hard.

Shan

 

Yes, it does. Initially, they did not have it hooked up because the factory harness does not have an illumination wire in it. I took it back to them and had them run a wire from the illumination wire for the hazzard light button and it works great now.\

BTW, the head unit defaults to Off in the monitor setup. You need to change it to Sync to get the auto-dimming to work.

Shan

 

Yea, thanks. I just figured that out too. Great unit though!

 

You indicated your installer "sprayed" the bezel for the radio...

Can you tell us what he used? (I would like to do mine!!)

 

I think he just sanded it down and sprayed it with a flat gray paint that matched the color of the existing components. Nothing more special than that.