2008 Yaris sedan ‘S’ sound deadening project.

[Herbicidal]

New head unit arrives TODAY!!! Yaaaaay!!!!

I'm so done with my stock HU and my battery powered Blue Tooth unit for my cell phone . After a bunch of research, I've decided on a Kenwood Excelon KDC-X994 (>>>link<<<).


It has B.T and a rear USB port (which I want in the back, not in the front so I can throw a thumb drive on it and forget about it) and for the price, it has outstanding adjustability and control over the "sound stage". I wanted something more minimalist in appearance so as not to attract thieves.

Here's a quote from the product research team at Crutchfield, these are just some of the features that pulled me over to this unit:

Sound Excellence DSP: In order to optimize the sound quality, you can use the Sound Excellence DSP to set the type of vehicle and speaker sizes, locations, distances and x-over points. The DSP settings include the following:

Cabin Setting: Choose from Compact, Full Size Car, Station Wagon, Mini Van, SUV, Mini Van (Long), or Off
Speaker Setting: The speaker X'over is automatically set when the position and size of each speaker are select from the following items.
Front: Location (Door, On Dash, or Under Dash); Size: (6-1/2", 6-3/4", 7", 4"x6", 5"x7", 6"x8", 6"x9", 7"x10", OEM, 4", or 5"); Tweeter (None or Use)
Rear: Location (Door, Rear Deck, 2nd Row or 3rd Row; Size (6-1/2", 6-3/4", 7", 4"x6", 5"x7", 6"x8", 6"x9", 7"x10", OEM, 4", or 5")
Subwoofer: Size(10", 12", 15", None, 6-1/2" or 8")
Digital Time Alignment (DTA): Choose from 0.00 to 14.44 feet for the Front pair of speakers, Rear pair of speakers, and Subwoofer distances in reference to the distance between your listening positioning and the locations of the particular speakers.
X'Over: The Kenwood eXcelon headunit provides independent high-pass crossovers for the unit's front and rear speaker/preamp outputs, as well as a subwoofer low-pass crossover.
Front High Pass Filter: Frequency (30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80,90, 100, 120, 150, 180, 220, or 250Hz); Slope (-12, -18, or -24 dB per octave); or you can also select full-range
Rear High Pass Filter: Frequency (30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 120, 150, 180, 220, or 250Hz); Slope (-12, -18, or -24 dB per octave); you can also select full-range
Subwoofer Low Pass Filter: Frequency (30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 120, 150, 180, 220, or 250 Hz); Slope (-12, -18, or -24 dB per octave); Phase (Normal/Reverse); or you can also select full-range
Equalizer Control: Equalizer Control allows you to use one of the System Q presets, or set your own custom settings using the 5-band Equalizer. The EQ adjustments are as follows:

Preset EQ: You can select from Natural, Rock, Pops, Easy, Top 40, Jazz, Game, iPod (you can select from 22 EQ curve types), or User.
5-Band EQ: The User mode allows you to adjust the following 5-Band EQ (62.5Hz, 250Hz, 1kHz, 4kHz, 16kHz) settings.
Band Levels: Independent front and rear EQ level of -9dB to +9dB.
Bass Effect: Enhances the bass response of Band 1 (62.5Hz).
Position Control: For a better sound-stage you can select your optimal listening position. You can choose from All, Front Left, Front Right or Front. You can also select to manually fine tune the sound stage by selecting the distance for each individual speaker in the vehicle compared to your listening position. You can select between 0.00 to 5.58 feet for the Left Front Speaker, Right Front Speaker, Left Rear Speaker, Right Rear Speaker, Left Subwoofer and/or Right Subwoofer.

Plus: 24 Bit D/A Converter: The Kenwood eXcelon KDC-X994 utilizes a 24-bit digital to analog converter for superior CD sound quality.

Additionally, there is free sofware I can download from Kenwood for the USB device:

Music Editor Compatible: The Kenwood KDC-X994 supports the PC application, Kenwood Music Editor Lite (ver.l.0 or later). Kenwood Music Editor Lite is a desktop software that helps organize, manage and transfer AAC, MP3, and WMA music files to your USB devices from your PC. When you playback audio files that have been stored on your USB device using Kenwood Music Editor Lite (ver.l.0) through this unit, you can search a file by title, album, or artist name using the headunit's Music Search function.

This guy should really help all my other components shine! After install, I'm going to have to reset everything on the amps and re-tune the whole system. I'm actually looking forward to it! And I thought it sounded good with the stock HU!