LondonRS4
08-15-2009, 11:35 AM
I got my 2007 RS4 in April as a CPO from Pfaff in Newmarket Ontario. The car might as well have been new it was so spotless.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1000550.jpg
After driving around for 3 months I realized that as an audiophile, the RNS-E with Bose left an awful lot to be desired. Poor sound quality, crappy navigation system, really crappy ipod options. The thing about the nav system that drove me nuts was the use of the dial to select everything. OMG, how 90's. Having had a Garmin Nuvi in my TT, I really missed that simplicity. So I started looking around at options, including reading this forum and other places like diymobile.com and eventually settled on a Kenwood DNX7140 with the satellite and ipod accessories. My wife bought me the 7140 as a 45th b'day present from Enfig, so that got me started on the project.
I still had to buy the Connects2 harness from Enfig (trials and tribulations detailed in a previous post) here http://www.audizine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=284507 and here http://www.audizine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=299527
I then bought two sets of Polk dB6501 speakers from Crutchfield here http://www.crutchfield.com/S-qAyW6jC3cI7/p_107DB6501/Polk-Audio-db6501.html and a sub-enclosure and JL 10W3v3 sub from here http://www.wickedcas.com/product.php?productid=33&cat=13&page=1
Very first thing I did was disconnect the battery. Next thing was to pull out the RNS-E, glovebox CD changer and stock sub under the rear parcel shelf. All very straight forward if you have the Audi Radio keys, which I also got from Enfig. Then you have to start digging more. I removed the left and right trunk liners. They are held on by spring clips at the rear and a pin in the middle. You need access behind the left trunk liner to put in the sub and run the power for the amps from the very convenient fuse box that the battery connects to. A 100 A MIDI fuse fits in the spare slot of this fuse box and makes a perfect way to get power to the amps. You need access behind the right trunk liner to install the amps, power connections and remove the Bose amplifier.
Then you really have to start digging. You have to remove the door panels if you are going to replace the speakers. Here's how to do the rears. http://www.tyresmoke.net/forum/audi-a4-s4-cabrio/119710-help-rear-door-panel-removal.html . Fronts are very similar. See here http://www.audizine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=109569 . You will very likely have to buy new door clips. They mostly break when you pull off the door panels. They are only 68 cents a piece in Canada and my dealer had 11, which is the number I broke !
Once I had the panels off, removing the tweeter and midrange in each door was easy. I left the connectors from the stock harness in the doors and just taped them out of the way with electrical tape. I then installed the tweeters in the stock locations. To do this with the Polks, you have to remove their grill and the Polk "surround". Then they fit nicely into the stock openings. I added a dab of epoxy in 3 places on each tweeter to keep them there. I followed this guide here http://www.audizine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=109569 to do the tweeters and mid ranges. I cut up the stock speaker mounts the same way. The Polks had mounting holes in just the right places to allow all this to be bolted back into the stock locations and seal nicely against the door panels. I didn't take pics since this is already well documented. Work in a clean well lit place and put blankets on the floor so you don't scratch your door panels.
Then came the *&%$&^ hardest part. Running speaker wires from the rear right side to each door. The front doors got wires for the tweeters and wires for the mids separately. I tossed the crossovers, leaving the Alpine PXE-H650 I was going to install to manage the crossovers. The rears got only 1 pair of wires each as I retained the stock Polk crossovers (with tweeter gain switch set to 0 dB). I epoxied those crossovers to the door panels just to the rear of the midrange speakers.
This pic shows threading the 2 pairs of wires on the front passenger side. To get the wires through you actually go right under the connector that is in the door frame. There is about 1/8 inch of space under that connector to be able to fish some speaker wire though. Because the speaker wire will be rubbing against a metal edge, i put some plastic strips in to insulate it. You have to pull the rubber bellows off and pull the wires from the inside first. Then you have to fish a rigid wire from inside of the door panel through the bellows where you can then hook it onto the speaker wire and pull them back through the bellows. This was the hardest part of the whole wire pulling operation.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010084.jpg
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010088.jpg
You will need to take the interior kick panels and trim out to run the speaker wires as well. I ran all the approximate runs from the rear right bay where the amps were to go and them did the fishing described above. Start from the rear passenger side and work your way to the front for the trim removal. This gives you access to a channel to run the wires from front to rear on both sides of the car. I crossed over the speaker wires from the drivers side in a channel that runs just under the front lip of the rear seat. Just pull the seat up to gain access (one clip on each of driver's and passenger's side).
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010086.jpg
Getting the wires to the rear doors is a pain too. You have to run them through the cable harness guide first as seen in this pic from the inside rear passenger side looking out. You do not want your speaker cables fouling the seatbelt retractors. SO do it right and don't use shortcuts to bypass all the cable management hardware.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010087.jpg
Next step was to mount the sub. The Wicked CAS box is designed for the B6 A4/S4 series. So I removed the frame that had the satellite radio tray and other cubbyholes and cut all that stuff out. I then screwed the frame that was remaining onto the sub box, wired it up and bolted the frame back in. Nice rigid fit with no vibrations or buzzing. The wire to the right side of the trunk ran under the trim piece at the very back of the trunk. To remove that you have to pull out the polystyrene tray that holds the air pump etc. and then remove two 10 mm nuts that bolt it to the back of the frame. Then pull up. There are 4 spring clips that hold it into the rear frame as well. Just to the right of the sub you can see the fusebox that you can get power for the amps from and where I put my 100A MIDI fuse. It's brilliantly located and nice of Audi to put some spare terminals in there.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010089.jpg
Now for some head unit wiring. The Connects2 harness http://enfigcarstereo.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/CONNECTS2_CTSAD002.html is way more complicated than you need. Since I used 2 heavily shielded Monster Cable RCA lines to run from the HU to the rear amp location, I was able to gut most of the wires. You only need 7 pins in the quadlock. Everything else can go.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010107.jpg
This is what the Connects2 looks like when I got it (MFSW box not attached)
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010111.jpg
and this is what I pared it down to (MFSW controller attached). Given the number of wires behind the HU, the simpler you can make things, the better. The Connects2 controller requires VAGCOM coding if you want to use your mode button to switch sources from the SW properly. See here http://www.audizine.com/forum/showthread.php?p=4026805
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010114.jpg
Then hook everything up per Kenwood's instructions. You will need a powered antenna lead. Like this http://enfigcarstereo.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/40_EU55.html It will plug into only one of the two ports on the diversity antenna plug that was on the RNS-E. The metal cage that the DNX7140 slides into is just visible in the opening in the dash. It's a nice tight force fit into the Metra fascia plate. Then bend some tabs and it's not coming out.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010165.jpg
I ran the ipod connector to the glovebox, but made sure I put a protective metal screen around the glovebox light. It gets hot !!! Don't want to melt the ipod adapter wire. Make sure you run the ipod usb line so that you can pull the DIN box out and add a thumb drive to the cable when you need to update things like your welcome screen. Much easier than pulling the radio ! Behind that mesh you can see the Sirius satellite box. It's velcro'd to part of the HVAC system vents. Both it and the nav antennas are mounted in under the hump which houses the 3rd brake light. Seems to work just fine. I get 10-12 satellites all the time for the nav.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010139.jpg
The dash fascia plate from Metra came with a DIN bin (The metra fascia kit 99-9102 also from Enfig has 2 DIN slots and you have to cut the bar between them to make it double DIN for the Kenwood unit).I used this bin in place of the glove box CD player and drilled a hole to get the ipod connector in from the back of it. I lined the DIN box so nothing would rattle in it.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010167.jpg
Wiring to the amps is now done in the right rear using a Monster wiring kit I got from Best Buy. You get 4 gauge cable that I ran from the fusebox I identified earlier to a distribution block and then I use 2 lines (one for each of my amps (blue lines) and 1 line that runs all the way back to the HU (the clear line). Ditto for the grounds. 2 to the amps, 1 to the HU. This is just good practice. Everything has a common ground. You can see the right side of the trunk without the liner. In the far top left of the picture you can see the RCA and speaker wires and remote turn on line from the HU coming in. Separated far from the power, also a good practice.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010211.jpg
Another challenge. This cubby hole on the right side of the trunk was a nice storage place with a net. But nowhere near big enough to stash 2 amplifiers. So I cut the cubby hole out, lined the compartment but still couldn't fit the amps in. There were two problems. The siren horn and the vent that allows air to flow through the car and out the rear. I removed the bracket that held the siren and mounted the siren directly to the side of the compartment using the stock bolt on it (bottom right). You can see the hole where the vent used to fit next to it.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010189.jpg
I removed the vent and replaced it with two 12 cfm fans that are quiet and run off the remote start line from the HU. The fans draw very little current and start up when the amps do, which is very convenient. Keeps things cool back there.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010194.jpg
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010200.jpg
I used 2 DLS RA-40 amplifiers. Superb sound quality, build quality and Class AB. Power and speakers and remote turn on from HU come in the bottom, RCA inputs from the Alpine H650 processor go in the top. I built a simple rack using aluminium L brackets and some threaded bar so that the amps are nicely stacked, don't rattle around and have space for cooling between them.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010201.jpg
Fits like a glove. In the foreground you see the Alpine H650 mounted on a ventilated panel with the 2 RCAs from the HU coming in and the 7 RCAs going to the amps. Each DLS amp is 4 channels. I use 1 channel for each front tweeter, 1 for each front mid, 1 for each of the rear components and 2 (bridged) for the sub. Note I had to relocate the 12V convenience outlet over and up to get it out of the way of the amps.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010205.jpg
Showing the ventilated panel secured in place. I actually offset this from being flush with the indented grove in the trunk liner using some brass nuts so that I was sure there was plenty of air getting in and out. The mesh is nylon window screen mesh, two layers thick.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010208.jpg
And this is the panel that covers the sub. I have a grill on the sub, but to make things look clean, I put this panel on as well. It is also two layers of nylon window mesh stretched over a plywood frame. It's held on with velcro (just the hook side of the velcro which nicely grabs the trunk liner material.)
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010210.jpg
The H650 uses Audyssey MultEQ pro sound processing. You need to use a microphone to measure the test CHRP pulses. My variation on this was to do it with a dummy in the driver's seat. A big suitcase for the torso, my camera bag for a head and a blanket to get the sound absorption right.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010212.jpg
11 satellites visible for navigation even with the car in my north facing garage ! The Sirius antenna and the GPS antenna are both mounted in the rear parcel shelf underneath the hump that housed the middle brake light. Lots of signal clearly.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010137b.jpg
Start up screen, shows a pic I took of the front RS4 badge on the grill. Adds a nice custom touch. I also black out the shiny "Kenwood" badge on the front of the HU with a black marker, just to make it more restrained and Audi like. If you look at the button 2 over to the left from the hazard light button, you can see where I hid the mic for the phone integration. I drilled a hole in the blank button, mounted the Parrot mike in behind it and put a rubber grommet in the whole, again to add that Audi look. Works great. It's the most direct path you can get to the mic, as opposed to putting it up in overhead the light cluster.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010150.jpg
Ready to pull out of the garage. You can see my TT-S steering wheel I installed. The stitching matches my white seat piping. I do have a reversing camera installed as well. When you engage reverse, it automatically turns on, thanks to the Connects2 interface. The camera is mounted in the rear diffuser. I drilled a 5/8 inch hole and glued it in. You'd never know it was there unless you knew what to look for.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010172.jpg
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010213.jpg
So how does it sound ? Amazing. Exactly what a car of this stature should sound like. It's a front biased soundstage set up for the driver. Mellow sound from the amps and speakers. Beautiful imaging.
This whole process took close to 3 weeks of on and off again installation, waiting for parts etc. It looks completely stock. The DNX7140 trim plate fits perfectly into the Metra fascia plate, giving some nice reveal lines. The only give away is the 3 knurled brass knobs in the trunk which mount the amp compartment cover.
It cost about C$3 grand and I got just over half of that back selling my RNS-E, CD changer, subwoofer and Sirius tuner. Plus I didn't have to spend $200 to buy the new RNS-E DVD. So far nobody wants my Bose amp [:(]
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1000550.jpg
After driving around for 3 months I realized that as an audiophile, the RNS-E with Bose left an awful lot to be desired. Poor sound quality, crappy navigation system, really crappy ipod options. The thing about the nav system that drove me nuts was the use of the dial to select everything. OMG, how 90's. Having had a Garmin Nuvi in my TT, I really missed that simplicity. So I started looking around at options, including reading this forum and other places like diymobile.com and eventually settled on a Kenwood DNX7140 with the satellite and ipod accessories. My wife bought me the 7140 as a 45th b'day present from Enfig, so that got me started on the project.
I still had to buy the Connects2 harness from Enfig (trials and tribulations detailed in a previous post) here http://www.audizine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=284507 and here http://www.audizine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=299527
I then bought two sets of Polk dB6501 speakers from Crutchfield here http://www.crutchfield.com/S-qAyW6jC3cI7/p_107DB6501/Polk-Audio-db6501.html and a sub-enclosure and JL 10W3v3 sub from here http://www.wickedcas.com/product.php?productid=33&cat=13&page=1
Very first thing I did was disconnect the battery. Next thing was to pull out the RNS-E, glovebox CD changer and stock sub under the rear parcel shelf. All very straight forward if you have the Audi Radio keys, which I also got from Enfig. Then you have to start digging more. I removed the left and right trunk liners. They are held on by spring clips at the rear and a pin in the middle. You need access behind the left trunk liner to put in the sub and run the power for the amps from the very convenient fuse box that the battery connects to. A 100 A MIDI fuse fits in the spare slot of this fuse box and makes a perfect way to get power to the amps. You need access behind the right trunk liner to install the amps, power connections and remove the Bose amplifier.
Then you really have to start digging. You have to remove the door panels if you are going to replace the speakers. Here's how to do the rears. http://www.tyresmoke.net/forum/audi-a4-s4-cabrio/119710-help-rear-door-panel-removal.html . Fronts are very similar. See here http://www.audizine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=109569 . You will very likely have to buy new door clips. They mostly break when you pull off the door panels. They are only 68 cents a piece in Canada and my dealer had 11, which is the number I broke !
Once I had the panels off, removing the tweeter and midrange in each door was easy. I left the connectors from the stock harness in the doors and just taped them out of the way with electrical tape. I then installed the tweeters in the stock locations. To do this with the Polks, you have to remove their grill and the Polk "surround". Then they fit nicely into the stock openings. I added a dab of epoxy in 3 places on each tweeter to keep them there. I followed this guide here http://www.audizine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=109569 to do the tweeters and mid ranges. I cut up the stock speaker mounts the same way. The Polks had mounting holes in just the right places to allow all this to be bolted back into the stock locations and seal nicely against the door panels. I didn't take pics since this is already well documented. Work in a clean well lit place and put blankets on the floor so you don't scratch your door panels.
Then came the *&%$&^ hardest part. Running speaker wires from the rear right side to each door. The front doors got wires for the tweeters and wires for the mids separately. I tossed the crossovers, leaving the Alpine PXE-H650 I was going to install to manage the crossovers. The rears got only 1 pair of wires each as I retained the stock Polk crossovers (with tweeter gain switch set to 0 dB). I epoxied those crossovers to the door panels just to the rear of the midrange speakers.
This pic shows threading the 2 pairs of wires on the front passenger side. To get the wires through you actually go right under the connector that is in the door frame. There is about 1/8 inch of space under that connector to be able to fish some speaker wire though. Because the speaker wire will be rubbing against a metal edge, i put some plastic strips in to insulate it. You have to pull the rubber bellows off and pull the wires from the inside first. Then you have to fish a rigid wire from inside of the door panel through the bellows where you can then hook it onto the speaker wire and pull them back through the bellows. This was the hardest part of the whole wire pulling operation.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010084.jpg
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010088.jpg
You will need to take the interior kick panels and trim out to run the speaker wires as well. I ran all the approximate runs from the rear right bay where the amps were to go and them did the fishing described above. Start from the rear passenger side and work your way to the front for the trim removal. This gives you access to a channel to run the wires from front to rear on both sides of the car. I crossed over the speaker wires from the drivers side in a channel that runs just under the front lip of the rear seat. Just pull the seat up to gain access (one clip on each of driver's and passenger's side).
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010086.jpg
Getting the wires to the rear doors is a pain too. You have to run them through the cable harness guide first as seen in this pic from the inside rear passenger side looking out. You do not want your speaker cables fouling the seatbelt retractors. SO do it right and don't use shortcuts to bypass all the cable management hardware.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010087.jpg
Next step was to mount the sub. The Wicked CAS box is designed for the B6 A4/S4 series. So I removed the frame that had the satellite radio tray and other cubbyholes and cut all that stuff out. I then screwed the frame that was remaining onto the sub box, wired it up and bolted the frame back in. Nice rigid fit with no vibrations or buzzing. The wire to the right side of the trunk ran under the trim piece at the very back of the trunk. To remove that you have to pull out the polystyrene tray that holds the air pump etc. and then remove two 10 mm nuts that bolt it to the back of the frame. Then pull up. There are 4 spring clips that hold it into the rear frame as well. Just to the right of the sub you can see the fusebox that you can get power for the amps from and where I put my 100A MIDI fuse. It's brilliantly located and nice of Audi to put some spare terminals in there.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010089.jpg
Now for some head unit wiring. The Connects2 harness http://enfigcarstereo.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/CONNECTS2_CTSAD002.html is way more complicated than you need. Since I used 2 heavily shielded Monster Cable RCA lines to run from the HU to the rear amp location, I was able to gut most of the wires. You only need 7 pins in the quadlock. Everything else can go.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010107.jpg
This is what the Connects2 looks like when I got it (MFSW box not attached)
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010111.jpg
and this is what I pared it down to (MFSW controller attached). Given the number of wires behind the HU, the simpler you can make things, the better. The Connects2 controller requires VAGCOM coding if you want to use your mode button to switch sources from the SW properly. See here http://www.audizine.com/forum/showthread.php?p=4026805
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010114.jpg
Then hook everything up per Kenwood's instructions. You will need a powered antenna lead. Like this http://enfigcarstereo.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/40_EU55.html It will plug into only one of the two ports on the diversity antenna plug that was on the RNS-E. The metal cage that the DNX7140 slides into is just visible in the opening in the dash. It's a nice tight force fit into the Metra fascia plate. Then bend some tabs and it's not coming out.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010165.jpg
I ran the ipod connector to the glovebox, but made sure I put a protective metal screen around the glovebox light. It gets hot !!! Don't want to melt the ipod adapter wire. Make sure you run the ipod usb line so that you can pull the DIN box out and add a thumb drive to the cable when you need to update things like your welcome screen. Much easier than pulling the radio ! Behind that mesh you can see the Sirius satellite box. It's velcro'd to part of the HVAC system vents. Both it and the nav antennas are mounted in under the hump which houses the 3rd brake light. Seems to work just fine. I get 10-12 satellites all the time for the nav.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010139.jpg
The dash fascia plate from Metra came with a DIN bin (The metra fascia kit 99-9102 also from Enfig has 2 DIN slots and you have to cut the bar between them to make it double DIN for the Kenwood unit).I used this bin in place of the glove box CD player and drilled a hole to get the ipod connector in from the back of it. I lined the DIN box so nothing would rattle in it.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010167.jpg
Wiring to the amps is now done in the right rear using a Monster wiring kit I got from Best Buy. You get 4 gauge cable that I ran from the fusebox I identified earlier to a distribution block and then I use 2 lines (one for each of my amps (blue lines) and 1 line that runs all the way back to the HU (the clear line). Ditto for the grounds. 2 to the amps, 1 to the HU. This is just good practice. Everything has a common ground. You can see the right side of the trunk without the liner. In the far top left of the picture you can see the RCA and speaker wires and remote turn on line from the HU coming in. Separated far from the power, also a good practice.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010211.jpg
Another challenge. This cubby hole on the right side of the trunk was a nice storage place with a net. But nowhere near big enough to stash 2 amplifiers. So I cut the cubby hole out, lined the compartment but still couldn't fit the amps in. There were two problems. The siren horn and the vent that allows air to flow through the car and out the rear. I removed the bracket that held the siren and mounted the siren directly to the side of the compartment using the stock bolt on it (bottom right). You can see the hole where the vent used to fit next to it.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010189.jpg
I removed the vent and replaced it with two 12 cfm fans that are quiet and run off the remote start line from the HU. The fans draw very little current and start up when the amps do, which is very convenient. Keeps things cool back there.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010194.jpg
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010200.jpg
I used 2 DLS RA-40 amplifiers. Superb sound quality, build quality and Class AB. Power and speakers and remote turn on from HU come in the bottom, RCA inputs from the Alpine H650 processor go in the top. I built a simple rack using aluminium L brackets and some threaded bar so that the amps are nicely stacked, don't rattle around and have space for cooling between them.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010201.jpg
Fits like a glove. In the foreground you see the Alpine H650 mounted on a ventilated panel with the 2 RCAs from the HU coming in and the 7 RCAs going to the amps. Each DLS amp is 4 channels. I use 1 channel for each front tweeter, 1 for each front mid, 1 for each of the rear components and 2 (bridged) for the sub. Note I had to relocate the 12V convenience outlet over and up to get it out of the way of the amps.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010205.jpg
Showing the ventilated panel secured in place. I actually offset this from being flush with the indented grove in the trunk liner using some brass nuts so that I was sure there was plenty of air getting in and out. The mesh is nylon window screen mesh, two layers thick.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010208.jpg
And this is the panel that covers the sub. I have a grill on the sub, but to make things look clean, I put this panel on as well. It is also two layers of nylon window mesh stretched over a plywood frame. It's held on with velcro (just the hook side of the velcro which nicely grabs the trunk liner material.)
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010210.jpg
The H650 uses Audyssey MultEQ pro sound processing. You need to use a microphone to measure the test CHRP pulses. My variation on this was to do it with a dummy in the driver's seat. A big suitcase for the torso, my camera bag for a head and a blanket to get the sound absorption right.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010212.jpg
11 satellites visible for navigation even with the car in my north facing garage ! The Sirius antenna and the GPS antenna are both mounted in the rear parcel shelf underneath the hump that housed the middle brake light. Lots of signal clearly.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010137b.jpg
Start up screen, shows a pic I took of the front RS4 badge on the grill. Adds a nice custom touch. I also black out the shiny "Kenwood" badge on the front of the HU with a black marker, just to make it more restrained and Audi like. If you look at the button 2 over to the left from the hazard light button, you can see where I hid the mic for the phone integration. I drilled a hole in the blank button, mounted the Parrot mike in behind it and put a rubber grommet in the whole, again to add that Audi look. Works great. It's the most direct path you can get to the mic, as opposed to putting it up in overhead the light cluster.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010150.jpg
Ready to pull out of the garage. You can see my TT-S steering wheel I installed. The stitching matches my white seat piping. I do have a reversing camera installed as well. When you engage reverse, it automatically turns on, thanks to the Connects2 interface. The camera is mounted in the rear diffuser. I drilled a 5/8 inch hole and glued it in. You'd never know it was there unless you knew what to look for.
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010172.jpg
http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/L1010213.jpg
So how does it sound ? Amazing. Exactly what a car of this stature should sound like. It's a front biased soundstage set up for the driver. Mellow sound from the amps and speakers. Beautiful imaging.
This whole process took close to 3 weeks of on and off again installation, waiting for parts etc. It looks completely stock. The DNX7140 trim plate fits perfectly into the Metra fascia plate, giving some nice reveal lines. The only give away is the 3 knurled brass knobs in the trunk which mount the amp compartment cover.
It cost about C$3 grand and I got just over half of that back selling my RNS-E, CD changer, subwoofer and Sirius tuner. Plus I didn't have to spend $200 to buy the new RNS-E DVD. So far nobody wants my Bose amp [:(]