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Finally got around to install the Kenwood KMM-BT322U:
Radio door closes just fine
Here it is at night time. (The dash was lit up by street lights where I parked the car)
The bottom row of buttons is considered as "Zone 2", and you can set them to a different color. This orange and red combination matches the rest of the car.
Here is a close up of the red "Zone 2" bottom row. Sorry it's a little hard to see with my phone.
I actually prefer the purple bottom row. There are many color combinations to choose from.
This headunit is definitely allowing my speakers to do things they could NEVER do before. I am very pleased with the functions and the sound output. There are still a good amount of features I need to sort through, but 30minutes after the installation. I am very very pleased.
Thank you @shrykhar and everyone for all of your recommendations!
I put a KTP-445U in my 2015 STi and honestly it didn't do much for me either. Granted it's a little larger of a car and it was going to 4 channels....It's a cheap amplifier and I wasn't expecting the world from it but while making things louder than they'd normally be it distorted very quickly no matter how much I played with various gain settings. I was planning on adding one to my s2000 but I really don't want to go pulling apart more plastic panels than I need to....I already broke the access panel on my AP1 that everyone likes to place the amp behind when I was doing the top-down mod and installing the SCV wire.
Mind you, I'm far from a gorilla, and very meticulous when it comes to taking things apart. But when other people say this thing is in there tight they're not kidding. I'm not sure if some WD-40 sprayed under and behind that portion of the dash before trying to dis-engage the clips would help at all. I spent 10 or so minutes fiddling with it trying to get the clips to disengage and once I started to see the plastic crack I just ripped it out. The clips are on there so tight they actually start to tear the plastic before letting go.
In short I don't think the KTP-445U is worth the hassle of trying to install in this car or really any for the matter.....I've never had good luck with sound systems...and I'm no audiophile...I've just never been satisfied by upgrades. Sound is subjective, and I've read about various setups and have done my research before just throwing parts at a car....I spent a lot of money for the OEM Audio + setup for my STi (standalone amp, mixer, enclosed sub) and it still did not impress me at all for what I paid.
I installed the Alpine UTE-73BT with the modifry adapter and SCV and I'm happy with the results. I'm just trying to keep things simple and be satisfied with the ability to have BT and stream music from my phone. Plus most single dins look really wonky, luckily the Alpine unit is very modest in terms of weirdly shaped buttons and what not. It has enough volume to listen to my music top-down on the highway. That's plenty for me considering this car is a seasonal pleasure vehicle; driving it is the treat for me, so the radio is rarely on. Just be careful with your damn panel if you have an AP1....a red or blue replacement is difficult to find!
About the KTP-445U ... are you using line-level or speaker-level outputs from the head unit? If you have the head unit speaker-level inputs connected but set the amp dip switches to line-level, you might get a lot of clipping (i.e distortion).
That passenger side panel really is tricky the first time around. I finally got mine off with nylon pry bars from Harbor Freight (the one on the far right) and once it comes out once the clips loosen up a bit so next time (hopefully never) it's easier to remove. For anyone else reading, the clips come out horizontally -- you want the panel to come out directly at you, not downward.
Originally Posted by Say Chi Sin Lo
Finally got around to install the Kenwood KMM-BT322U: Radio door closes just fine
Here it is at night time. (The dash was lit up by street lights where I parked the car)
The bottom row of buttons is considered as "Zone 2", and you can set them to a different color. This orange and red combination matches the rest of the car.
Here is a close up of the red "Zone 2" bottom row. Sorry it's a little hard to see with my phone.
I actually prefer the purple bottom row. There are many color combinations to choose from.
This headunit is definitely allowing my speakers to do things they could NEVER do before. I am very pleased with the functions and the sound output. There are still a good amount of features I need to sort through, but 30minutes after the installation. I am very very pleased.
Thank you @shrykhar and everyone for all of your recommendations!
Awesome, glad you found a good setup that works! I had my eye on that head unit for a long time but my current one is wired to my backup camera which I didn't want to give up.
About the KTP-445U ... are you using line-level or speaker-level outputs from the head unit? If you have the head unit speaker-level inputs connected but set the amp dip switches to line-level, you might get a lot of clipping (i.e distortion).
That passenger side panel really is tricky the first time around. I finally got mine off with nylon pry bars from Harbor Freight (the one on the far right) and once it comes out once the clips loosen up a bit so next time (hopefully never) it's easier to remove. For anyone else reading, the clips come out horizontally -- you want the panel to come out directly at you, not downward.
If I recall I had everything setup properly. I even made a custom harness coming from my headunit to adapt the inputs to RCA for the KTP-445U. I spent a ton of time on the thing; even made a sweet little mounting bracket behind my glove box so it was almost factory, and made a full plug and play harness setup to integrate it into my car. Again, I don't know if I just expect way too much from these things, because even the OEM audio + system I installed which was full plug and play and preset to my specific vehicle from the manufacturer was still not very impressive to me. I'd just get a ton of clipping in the higher ranges from the subwoofer.
It goes completely against common sensation but I feel as I've gotten much better consistency (disappointment lol) from factory audio. Every time I've tried upgrading them it ends up falling short of my expectations and can't give me the volume I'm looking for without some form of muddy distortion. It's probably just me. I pride myself in my wiring; I typically make custom harnesses for everything I put in my cars. I rarely ever solder; I just source the proper pins and connectors to make T-harnesses etc, kinda like Metra/Scosche etc, but just one step further in that it's pinned and has connectors on both ends for seamless integration.
Yeah that panel was a bitch. I was pulling straight towards me for some time with a nylon pry tool (I have like a 15 piece kit....). I tried pushing from behind with my hand too and honestly could not get the thing to budge. It seems to be a common problem. It doesn't help that this was also essentially 16-17 year old plastic that's seen tons of thermal cycling in its lifetime. Luckily it's a cheap part if you can source them.
S2kys - I generally agree with your view re oem and disappointing aftermarket audio stuff. But, not in the case of the s2k. The aftermarket headunits are all kind of weird and its very difficult to keep in your head how to use all the features etc. I agree. But, in my opinion the oem headunits in the S are not adequate. I agree the quality of the end result is subjective. But, I have found that the installation of a good aftermarket headunit and small amp (KTP 445U bridged) improves sound quality significantly over oem and also adds important functionality, mostly the ability to run music into the system from an iphone or ipod with usb or bluetooth. The additional functionality of the usb and bluetooth could be added to the oem headunit. But, given the hassle and cost involved I think the better approach is to install a good aftermarket headunit with these features built in and then add a small amp like the alpine we are talking about. If installed properly, this will give you a much improved sound system in my subjective opinion without a lot of expense. I concluded that I don't have the experience to do a really good clean install, so I had a local installer who has worked on the S a lot do it for me. Great results. I'm happy with the sound quality and functionality of my current system. BTW, I still have the oem speakers in the doors. I htink they sound pretty good with my current HU and Amp.
S2kys - I generally agree with your view re oem and disappointing aftermarket audio stuff. But, not in the case of the s2k. The aftermarket headunits are all kind of weird and its very difficult to keep in your head how to use all the features etc. I agree. But, in my opinion the oem headunits in the S are not adequate. I agree the quality of the end result is subjective. But, I have found that the installation of a good aftermarket headunit and small amp (KTP 445U bridged) improves sound quality significantly over oem and also adds important functionality, mostly the ability to run music into the system from an iphone or ipod with usb or bluetooth. The additional functionality of the usb and bluetooth could be added to the oem headunit. But, given the hassle and cost involved I think the better approach is to install a good aftermarket headunit with these features built in and then add a small amp like the alpine we are talking about. If installed properly, this will give you a much improved sound system in my subjective opinion without a lot of expense. I concluded that I don't have the experience to do a really good clean install, so I had a local installer who has worked on the S a lot do it for me. Great results. I'm happy with the sound quality and functionality of my current system. BTW, I still have the oem speakers in the doors. I htink they sound pretty good with my current HU and Amp.
100% with you on the headunit. The OEM one sucks, this is a known fact. A headunit swap is almost mandatory and remedies a majority of the issues of missing features and improves overall sound quality. I’ll have to revisit potentially using the KTP-445U. I’ll have to figure out how I’d wire the speakers. Admittedly I don’t have as much experience with bridging and splicing things together on the speaker end to install this without more research. I guess you could say I’m good at wiring so long as I know how it needs to be wired.
100% with you on the headunit. The OEM one sucks, this is a known fact. A headunit swap is almost mandatory and remedies a majority of the issues of missing features and improves overall sound quality. I’ll have to revisit potentially using the KTP-445U. I’ll have to figure out how I’d wire the speakers. Admittedly I don’t have as much experience with bridging and splicing things together on the speaker end to install this without more research. I guess you could say I’m good at wiring so long as I know how it needs to be wired.
I'd check the amp's input settings first - to me that's the most likely culprit messing up the sound quality.
Bridging the amp isn't any more complicated than what you've done already, it's just connecting different wires than what you have currently and setting a dip switch on the amp to let it know what you did. That's really just gravy though; if you don't figure out what's causing your system to distort bridging won't improve the situation.
I will try to take some better picture of how my Kenwood KMM-BT322U with my dSLR. And how the different colors combination meshes with the rest of the interior.
Quite pleased with this unit. Especially for the price.
Are you running just the two door speakers? Or are you running additional speakers?
Just the door speakers. I’m assuming the tweeter and mid speakers share the same channel. I really don’t want to get involved with tearing into door panels and removing tweeters, installing crossovers, etc. I’ve done all that and have been unhappy ultimately.
The thing that bothers me the most is at this point in time now my car is 16-17 years old. I say that a lot. Cars from different backgrounds etc and climates may not have the same durability remaining in their plastics. I’m very weary about digging too deep into my essentially mint red interior as a majority of the parts are discontinued and very difficult to locate. Breaking that plastic panel (apparently very common) and almost not being able to replace it was very eye-opening to me. Most of the cars I’ve modded were newer vehicles where I didn’t have to worry about parts availability. Now there’s people hoarding anything and everything they can because availability is dropping off of dealer lists like crazy. That’s a scary thing if you love your car; especially if something just happens beyond your control and you can no longer find a replacement for what broke
11-10-2018, 03:31 AM
