I'm not thackstonns, so forgive me for speaking out of turn, but I would imagine he painted the ring around the head unit. Some of the Alpine rings come in black even when the units are silver.

Looks great, btw, thackstonns! Nice unit. I've been looking at the X100M marine unit we've talked about back and forth here for a while. Want that iPod interface. Doesn't seem like anybody's bought and installed one, though.