Just Couldn't Say No To The Price

An acquaintance of mine runs a stereo installation shop.

Last Wednesday he asked me to verify that the rifle he was buying was worth the asking price, it was. While I was waiting around I asked him about the empty hole in his display. He said that he was going to throw that damn thing away, nobody wants to buy them. Mike's business centers around people who are currently being swept on the Alpine winds of fashion.

"That damn thing," turns out to be a Kenwood Excelon DNX-8120 head unit. I joke that if he's just going to throw it away, I'll take it! "Take it!" he says. I had to buy the parts to install it, but it was nothing compared to the price of the unit, MSRP is like $1,900.

All advertised features are working, and I would recommend this head unit to anyone who asks. Even the hands-free Bluetooth part works! That's better than the TomTom, which had massive buzzing.

Some pics of the various modes.

Garmin navigation:

FM Tuner:

XM Tuner:

iPod playing music:

iPod playing video (do you recognize it?):

Getting ready to insert a DVD:

Opening flash showing the on screen controls for a DVD:

DVD in play (Scene from Layer Cake):

XM Weather showing current conditions:

XM Weather showing current clouds and rain:

XM Traffic Map:

XM Traffic Summary:

Garmin Stocks (useless, but entertaining):

A pic during the install. Being a DIY hot-rodder means that I did the install.

Location of the Garmin/Kenwood GXM30 tuner/antenna. I removed the center speaker. You can see my helper, Brett, reflected in the windsheild:

The XM reception was cutting in and out a lot more than the OEM antenna. So I changed my mounting a bit to raise it a little higher.