Not trying to hijack the thread or anything, but I installed my new JVC deck and Soundstorm EQ today and man, it sounds great! That EQ has really good tone control and for only $25.00 it makes my system sound 10 times better. I was a bit worried because it was so cheap. I took the top off of it before I installed it and it looks to be very well made, with good quality parts. It actually is kind of heavy for a passive EQ, it does not feel like it is cheaply made at all. The slides and fader **** all move firmly and it has gold plated inputs and outputs.

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I mounted the EQ in the glove box, in that slot that is supposed to hold the owners manual, here it is with my Ipod in the glove box too:

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Here is a pic of my new deck:

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The deck is really good, has great sound, is pretty easy to operate and the rear USB is good too. It is good to be able to have my Ipod in the truck without any hanging cables going to a front mounted USB port. My Ipod has over 4,000 songs on it and the deck only took a few seconds to recognize it and start playing. The deck is on sale at Crutchfield, regular price is $149.00, sale price is $139.00, I used an online coupon and paid $119.00.

That Soundstorm Eq is awesome. I can't believe the sound quality it has for only 25 bucks. The only down side to it is there are no lights on the slides. But I have it in the glove box, so that does not matter much to me anyway. I set it the way I like it and have not had to change it much once I got the sound how I wanted it. I would definitely recommend one of these Soundstorm S7EQ's if you need to improve your system.

Jimmy

 

Here's an update...I had that JVC deck almost 2 months and recently started to not like it very much. The sound was not as clean or clear as I like and I really noticed a bad problem with the display. You can not see it in daylight. If the sun is shining it really washes out the display. I had a real bad problem with that when driving and trying to read the clock on the display this past weekend. I finally got tired of it and yanked the JVC and reinstalled my Kenwood KDC-X395, I had been trying to sell it on EBay and here on DF too, and I sure am I glad no one bought it. The main reason I had taken the Kenwood out was it did not have a rear USB for my Ipod and I did not want Ipod cords hanging out of my dash, so I was using these little flash drives with 128 kbps MP3's on them. They sounded like crap, not even close to Itunes AAC files' quality. That was my main reason for buying that JVC, was the rear USB. The JVC turned out to have other problems and I did not want to be buying any more new decks.

I wanted to somehow do a clean install and be able to use my Ipod with the single front USB port on the Kenwood deck. The front USB really was the only problem I had with the Kenwood. Other than that it worked great and sounded great too. I can also see its display very easily no matter what time it is or what the sun is doing.

So I thought up a way to keep the dash cleaner with no Ipod cords hanging down or strung through my truck. I used this small diameter round file:

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I filed a small u-shaped round notch, in my dash installation kit, between the inside edge of the radio opening and the outer edge of the trim ring on the deck. Then I just routed the Ipod cord in that u-shaped notch, installed the deck into the kit and looped the cord back neatly into the notch, so there is no excess cord showing or hanging from the dash now:

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My Ipod cord is actually smaller in diameter than what the pics show. I just bought a cheap black Ipod sync cable at Best Buy for $15.00, it is about the same diameter as the white cord that Apple ships with the Ipod. I did not want a white cord in my dash.

The Kenwood 395 and Soundstorm eq sound AWESOME together! The sound quality is 1000 times better and I now have highs that will rip your head off, the mids and midbass are clear and defined and my sub hits harder and sounds better now than it ever has. I did change the system a bit and connected the RCA cord that go to the subwoofer channels of my amp back to the Kenwood deck. I did that so I can just easily adjust the sub from the deck, instead of trying to use the bass tone control or worse yet, adjust the sub on the EQ in the glove box while sitting at a red light or stop sign. The sub really is the only thing I tweak while driving anyway, I pretty much can just set and forget the mids and highs on the EQ. I can use the mids and treble adjustments on the deck to change the mids and highs if needed. I am finally done with changing out components to get the sound and volume I wanted. The system is clear as a bell, it plays good and loud and the Kenwood deck looks great and is easy to use and the Ipod USB cord gimmick that I came up with really is no more intrusive than one of the little 2GB flash drives I was using last year. I don't much notice the Ipod cord being there now and it is great to still have my Ipod in the glove box. I shipped that JVC deck back to Crutchfield today, they will refund me all but $7.00 of what I paid. The $7.00 is only to cover the shipping, which is fair. Crutchfield was very cool about the return today on the phone too.

I know this is probably nothing very special, but it was a big problem for me and my sound system and I am glad to have finally solved it. Good car audio is in my blood, and is still very important to me even though I am 47 years old now. I just wanted to post this here and say maybe if any one else has a front USB jack with cords getting in the way or hanging from the dash, maybe try filing the dash kit a little and see how it works for you.

Jimmy