I am going to pickup the Kenwood KVT 512 in dash DVD head unit tomorrow.

Bestbuy has them on sale from $699 down to$380.

Seems like to good of a deal to pass up.

I don't want to walk in and have them try to sell me a $100 worth of adapters.

Is the Schosche VW-01B the only thing I need to hook this up?

I have the factory infinity w/nav(will be up for sale).

Will this new head unit use its internal amp and my factory amp? or will the factory amp become obsolete?

Thanks,
Mike

 

HOW MUCH FOR YOUR RADIO WITH THE NAV.SYSTEM AND ALSO HOW MUCH FOR YOUR AMP. ???????????

 

The VW-01B is the plug you wire to the back of the head unit and plug into the factory harness plug.

You may need a Euro-to-US radio antenna adapter too - depends on the head unit.

The harness is going to have a reverse signal and speed signal because of your nav system. You will need to check to see if your head unit takes those inputs from the same pins or not.

If not you would want to connect the wires to correctly capture those signals or if the head unit does not use them, leave those wires from the VW-01B disconnected and taped over.

You may also want to check the phone mute lead spec and accomodate that accordingly.

The factory amp will continue to work. One thing you will find is that the head unit "rear" control will do nothing. That's because the rear speakers in the Crossfire are connected to the "front" leads at the back of the radio and get sorted inside the amp. I used the "rear" channels from the head unit directly out of the head unit wires and routed my own wires to additional rear speakers. It works very well.

Check also the wiring for the red and yellow wires (accessory and battery 12v respectively). You may have to check those leads on the car harness to make sure you connect them correctly when you wire the VW-01B to the head unit.

Make sure to get the trans-thermal, polar-shifting, parallel neutralizing graphite injection system - Best Buy will cut you a great discount if you buy it when you get the head unit but charges at least double later....

 

I have an older Kenwood KVT-815 (pics in the gallery), and I know RMADERMAN has a simiilar Kenwood to yours..you will need the Scosche adapter if you don't want to splice your wires on your factory harness (which i'm sure you don't)..

I'm pretty sure it uses the factory amp, I really don't know how to tell.. it sounds much better then the stock head unit whatever it uses though..

You will also need an antenna adapter.

Credits go to ppro for the image..

Anything else they try to sell you is just extra.. if they try to sell you the Kenwood GNA-510 for a good price, i'd take it! That's the Kenwood navigation module, it's 100% Garmin so it's TOP NOTCH. I absolutely love it. If you have the money I highly recommend it.

 

My Best Buy has them for 699$ on sale for 670$ wats up wit dat!!

 

Thanks for all the feedback.

One more question.

How do I bypass the parking brake sensor to enable the use of the dvd system while moving?

I know this is a safety hazard, I do not plan on driving and viewing movies, I just don't want to have to pull the e-brake every time.

Thanks,
Mike

 

Nice unit. Yes, I have a very simular unit and includes a GPS and built in Sirius. It was bought and installed by BransMart. I would pay the extra bucks and have them do the install.

I also had the the speakers changed and had a different amplifier installed. The system cost about $2200 but the sound is awesome. I can even hear the radio with the top down at 100 mph and Led Zeppelin sounds incredible aaaaaaand I can drowned out most any latin or hip hop crap that pulls up next to me with their windows rolled down. LOL I just smile as I drive away.

Options I could still put in...rear camera

 

You do NOT want to buy the one above. It will work for FM but shoddy at best unless you're really close to the station and AM is gone completely with it.

What you want is the Metra 40-EU55 and it can be had for $12 shipped here. FYI, I have no affiliation with the seller. Picture below for reference.

E8.jpg

 

I think you just have to set the unit up with the parking brake wire installed, drive a bit to calibrate everything, then just pull the parking brake wire and ground it. Pretty sure that's all you need to do. I have one of these, btw, on my 300. Absolutely despise it. Lot of reasons.

1. The maps can't be updated. Call Navteq, they send you to JVC. Call JVC, they send you to Navteq. The maps are circa 2006 or so, and even farther out of date here in Canada. There are local stores and streets from 2003 that aren't on these maps. The nav is also really particular about locations. So if you're in a big city, for instance, and are looking for a mall, it might not show up if you're in the wrong borough. In Ottawa, I was trying to get directions to Bayshore the other week, and it wouldn't come up because I had the nav set on Ottawa proper, but Bayshore is actually in the Nepean borough. So to get this mall, I had to pull over, change the nav to Nepean, then plug in the search again. I have a Garmin 350 and a TomTom One that just blow this thing away in terms of basic functionality.

2. The interface is awful, especially with an iPod. I just hate using it. All you can really do is load up a playlist and let it run. Try to find an album or a song, and god help you. It's better with just the HD. But, well, read below...

3. The built-in HD interface blows as well. You have to rip actual CDs in real time. It records as the CD plays. Idiotic. And you also have to rip albums individually even from big compilation discs. So you can load up a DVD full of albums, say, but you then have to put them on the HD one directory at a time. Each album takes about a minute to rip. So, good times. I spent about five hours in my car last summer ripping DVD comps before I finally came to my senses and bailed on the whole thing. Bought an iPod to use the built-in interface instead and well, read the above for how well that's worked out.

Anyhow, you may love it. I hope you do. But for me, JVC took an awesome idea with an amazing amount of way-cool features and wrecked it with crap controls and really stupid design decisions. There are very good reasons why these units are on sale all over the place.

 

I think you two are talking about different units.

I had a Kenwood KVT-512 and loved everything about it other than it blocked my climate controls. Ended up selling it and buying a DNX-5120 which is for all things nothing more than a KVT-512 built into a double DIN housing and integrated nav. It's in Jonny's car now since I've been more focused on performance and other peoples projects than my own A/V stuff. You can't go wrong with this head unit as you can change the illumination to match the rest of the cars interior lighting, and at that price, it's a steal.

 

Ah, jeez. I'm totally wrong. Sorry. I was referring to the JVC KD-NX5000. Sorry. I spent time looking at both units but went for the JVC because it was single DIN non pop-up screen, and still get the numbers confused when I see them. Also, teach me for posting here while I'm supposed to be working.

But anyone considering the JVC KD-NX5000, don't.

 

I picked this up on fleabay last week for $6 delivered, and it came lightening fast. Worked like a champ.

 

I had no problem with the antenna in the first picture. FM and AM work fine. In fact, HD works very well too, and that's including the splitter that I added. From the description, it sounds like the antenna cable being described was broken.

 

That is odd because both my car and Jonny's had the exact same thing happen with the AM. The bad antenna wire is exactly what I thought happened the first time around but it wasn't the case. Question for you, coupe or convertible? Maybe the external antenna doesn't need it. We both have coupes so no way to test that theory.

 

2004 Coupe

 

That's really odd since Jonny's is an '05 coupe and mine is an '07 coupe. You can get AM stations no problem huh?

 

bringing this back from the dead because my fm stations suck with my new London mp48 i am returning it very soon mostly because of the lack of i pod controls but the radio sucks ***** too.