Our returning customer came back to us with a car he just bought. He already has some audio goodies from his previous car and wanted to get it installed in this car instead of letting it go to waste in his store room.
The head unit is the Pioneer AVH-X8850BT from a few years back. It still works great and sounds amazing like a Pioneer head unit always does. Having Apple CarPlay and Android Auto really adds a lot to the day to day convenience as the factory Mazda head unit does not have it.
Installation for the head unit is not a big issue provided you have the right dash kit to fit the double din. Steering wheel controls pretty much just needs to be wired up on the harness. The only challenge you may face is retaining the factory reverse camera. Some testing was needed to identify the location of the pins. This shouldn’t bee too difficult if you have some wiring experience.
Next up was the amplifier and subwoofer. The amplifier installed is the Alpine S-A60M which is a Class-D amplifier. The size is pretty compact and fits easily under the passenger seat. The JL Audio subwoofer in the trunk just needed to be hooked up and we were good to go. From what we can see, the pairing of these two are pretty good and it looks like there are no power issues. Very satisfied with the low end from this JL Audio.
Overall, a pretty satisfying install. Nice to see his investment didn’t go to waste. We are pretty sure his daily drive will be way more satisfying now.
