ratfink

If anyone was wondering, the Alpine DVA-9861 is compatible with the European KCE-865B dash control interface. I hooked up the interface today (minus instructions), and it works flawlessly, without any delays. Additionally, the dash mute button not only cuts the volume, it also pauses disk playback and displays "Interrupt" on the head unit.

The interface was not plug and play, however. It has three plastic connectors; one male to fit into the Honda harness, and two females that contain the speaker leads and head unit supply leads, respectively. I had to cut off the head unit supply connector, since it wasn't directly compatible with my head unit. I spliced those wires (power bus, ignition, etc.) into my head unit's harness, which eliminated the aftermarket harness I was using to plug into the car's harness. There are two other wires that come out of the interface; a blue remote turn-on, and a pink/black phone mute. Each of these has both a female and male round connector. As I found out the hard way, the pink/black wire needs to be plugged into the matching wire on the head unit harness, otherwise the dash mute function will not work. The blue remote turn on is plugged in, and everything works, so I'll leave it as it is.

I'm very satisfied, since I bought the interface for $25 total on eBay, which is much less than the Modifry unit. It lacks the options of the fancy Modifry, but that just makes it that much simpler to use. Thanks, Alpine!