Double Din 7" Screen En Route

[Planemo]

Just bought one of these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/400465840516?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

A panel to mount it in:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Toyota-Aygo-2005-on-Double-Din-Car-Stereo-Fitting-Kit-CT23TY23-/380747370527?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&fits=Model%3AAygo&hash=item58a64fd01f

And a sub to help out:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Pioneer-TS-WX110A-car-underseat-active-subwoofer-150w-/160887253226?pt=UK_In_Car_Technology&hash=item2575a0a8ea

I will let you know how the el cheapo chinese DIN works out. The reviews seem pretty good but I know it will never be on par with a Kenwood/Alpine.

[kevin65]

Looks sweet! Early Christmas present?

[Planemo]

Lol, not really mate. I bought the Aygo to replace my daily commute motorbike and as I like a reasonable bit of sound in any car I spend time in I thought I'd push the boat out. The dire sound of the factory setup drove me nuts after a day or so and the 4x Pioneer G1021i I have already fitted made precious little difference which sorta suggests the factory HU is pants!

[kevin65]

Agreed, that's why I got a Pioneer headunit.

[aygo_rory]

I bought one of them head units, well an xtrons one actually and it was a total waste of money because bit by bit parts stopped working and the customer service is non existant!

Mine got ripped out and is sat in a box gathering dust in the bodyshop, massive waste of money , pay a little bit more and get a branded one. one thing i found was that nobody will repair eonon or xtrons when they go wrong

[Planemo]

I hear what you are saying, I have read the odd horror story with Xtrons and Milion (both budget sister products of Eonon) but Eonon branded units use different processors and hardware so I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will hold out. We'll see what happens!

[Planemo]

Well I finally got round to installing the gear today, and have to
say I am over the moon with it. I went for a Focal iBus 20 active
sub in the end as I was having second thoughts about the Pioneer
110A in terms of it's ability and besides which it wasn't in stock. The
other option, the Vibe Optisound 8, was way too big for my liking.
Glad I went to a shop to have a nose in person because I very nearly
bought an Optisound on the web (in fact I nearly bought 2 used ones)
and I'm glad I didn't. The Optisound will of course fit, but the helpful salesman pulled
one out of the box to try anyway and we found it had to go lengthways
under the seat which means that it takes up around half the floor space of
the rear seat passenger. I just knew this would annoy me (and my
passengers). The Focal went in sideways which leaves pretty much all
the rear floorspace available. !Removed! expensive mind, at £190, but
it is a beautiful bit of kit. I couldn't believe how much it weighed
when the salesman handed it to me and in my experience heavy amps
usually mean heavy output. And I'm a sucker for anodised
aluminium and awesome build quality. The case reminds me of one of
those super-high end home hi-fi amps made by some weird german audio
group that no-ones ever heard of.

I took a 40A power feed for the amp from behind the dash (thanks to
a thread I found on this forum). I used an earth from a seat bolt
mount (after cleaning off some of the paint) and the trigger send
came off the HU. The amp has a nice remote gain knob which adjusts
the amps output from zero up to whatever the on-board pots have been
set at. It's also handy to hear in an instant just how much
difference it makes. I fixed this to to area at the back of the center
console. I used the RCA low-level inputs (although speaker level inputs can be
used) because I always feel that RCA's give a cleaner signal.

The HU was a bit more of a faff. Fitting it into the double DIN dash
panel was however no problem and I was surprised that I didn't have
to cut the hole in the panel a bit bigger as I have read stories of the Chinese
HU's being a bit bigger. However, there is a spacer plate that comes
in the kit which reduces the hole size and I assume suits the
branded units. The only way these double DIN's will fit the Aygo though is by
cutting a section of plastic away that bolts to the horizontal metal
crossmember behind the dash. I was worried that the plastic section
supported the area around the centre of the dash but after pulling
it around post-cutting it doesn't seem any different in strength.
The factory ISO connectors went straight into the HU, the only thing
I had to do was swop around the permanent and switched 12v feeds but
then that appears to be quite normal on these cars when fitting
aftermarket HU's. I then took a feed from the illumination wire on
the rev counter to connect the HU's dimming feature. After drilling
a small hole in the dash top to feed the GPS sensor wire it was good
to power up and test. Everything worked fine from the off.

Having full bluetooth A2DP/dialling/phone book access etc all
through the HU is really nice as I've never had a fancy new car with
all this in. The GPS works really well, as do all the other HU
functions. I have stuck a load of films and music on the 32Gb card too.

In all, the transformation from the stock unit even when using just
the Pioneer replacement Speakers is noticeably different. Adding
the Focal sub has added a huge amount of presence to the low end and
I will probably never know how Focal manage to do it with such a
small bit of kit. It doesn't even have a port so how it produces the
end result can only be down to pixie dust! Deffo a 10 out of 10 to
Focal.

So for around £430 in all I am happy. Quite a bit of money but I have all the

features and sound I need for now. Fingers crossed the Eonon holds out...

[Raistlin]

Nice job :)

[Planemo]

Cheers Raistlin.

Over the last week or so though I have however noticed that although the front end treble, mid and bass is fine, I felt that the spatial sound was lacking. The Pioneer single cones I fitted in the rear doors were not working too well - very little mid and zero treble, and no amount of playing with the fader sorted the problem.

I found a pair of nice Vibe Slick 6x9's, 480w which are tri-axial. I fitted them into the rear parcel shelf (having disconnected the rear door speakers) and they give an amazing sound. The soundstage is now truly 360 degrees and matches the treble and mid I was getting from the front. Best £45 I have spent!

[aygo_rory]

looking good so far! ii ordered one of them fitting fascia kits the other day to fit my pioneer in. is the fascia kit good? does it look original iin finish? hopefully mine arrives pretty soon

[Wobble46]

Is the head unit easy to fit or am I better to pay someone,not very good at that sort of thing,really wanting a double din touch screen pioneer x

[Planemo]

I would say that the fitting is relatively involved. You need to be handy with a multimeter, be able to solder and be prepared to do some digging for example my unit had a feed for dimming which I took from the sidelight circuit. You also need to cut a section of plastic from behind the unit as to my knowledge the double DINs are too large otherwise. You could always give it a go and see how you get on!

While I'm posting, I couldn't recommend the unit I bought (Eonon) as I was later hit with a £50 import duty charge. That took the cost to £250 which isn't enough of a saving over the usual Pioneer/Kenwood offerings. I saw both in my local Halfords the other day for £300 which although heavily discounted does show that they are available at a decent price. That said, I'm not sure if they come with Sat-Nav and that was a big buying point for mine because I use it quite a lot. Anyone considering a double DIN should have a look around at pricing and features though before going the Eonon route.

[Wobble46]

Thanks for that,I decided to stick with a single din,and ordered from eBay the same pioneer bluetooth single din I had in my van,really good at streaming music and calls are excellent and it comes with 2 USB sockets and comes with a pioneer USB extension lead :D

Happy days,just gotta decide where I want this cable to come out,do I get it to come out low, just above the drinks holder bit,or above the stereo,the leads black so will be hard to be seen. Thanks for any suggestions Ben x