Thanks for the review! I guess the main question I have is how does it compare to the Helix at almost twice the price. I think you said you haven't personally heard the helix though, we need to find a forum member in your area to compare lol.
Can you tell me about the sub? Is it ported? Sounds like its pretty good for acoustic instruments ( tight punchy kick drums) How is it handling bass-heavy hip-hop? I know it's not going to boom like a ported 12 or something but does it sound like it's going crackle and break?
Do you feel a desire to replace the rear speakers or tweeters or pretty content with this system as is? did you ever get the infotainment fader to work?
All great questions! Unfortunately I can't compare to the Helix, only the stock system as well as systems I've installed in my other vehicles. So far, it's outshown all of them due to the highly-adjustable DSP.
The sub is a ported 10" in a box that takes up about half of the underfloor area. It actually surprised me how well it sounded at the lower RMS wattage the amplifier feeds it. I'm not sure what frequency the box is tuned for but it sounds like it's fairly low for a 10". The preset has the rolloff set on the low end at 20 hertz, and there is a slight boost around 60 hertz, which would make sense for a box tuned around 38-40 hertz.
Running at 130 watts RMS it's not going to win any competitions, but I was surprised how well it handled lower bass notes. I made sure to test with the classic 'Jeezy - Put On' as well as 'Wiz - On My Level'. It's plenty volume to make the rearview mirror completely unusable when you turn up the volume and was a lot louder than I expected it to be for a shallow-mounted 10". I'm currently running an Orion XTR 10" in a ported box tuned for 36 hertz at 600 watts RMS in my 4runner (previously had 2 sealed 12"s), so I'm able to compare that pretty well. The sub it comes with is actually capable of 300 watts RMS/900 watts max if you ever want to upgrade and run another dedicated subwoofer amplifier. The Audison AP8.9 bit has a dedicated subwoofer RCA out so you can dial in the tuning on that if you want to run another amp.
I've got no desire to replace the rear speakers at this time, I prefer to have upgraded components up front so you have that "concert" experience of the audio sounding like it's coming primarily from in front of the vehicle.
I'm content with the tweeters right now due to all of the tuning they have done with the stock tweeters, but they would be first on the list if I get the bug to upgrade further. I would say, if you end up deciding you would liketo run this kit, definitely look into buying tweeters. You've got to do all the work of taking out the A-pillars anyways to run the wiring, so it's a good time to upgrade them anyways. They sound great, but I prefer the Rockford-Fosgate tweeters in my 4runner.
Unfortunately I was not able to get the fader working. I'm not sure if it's my headunit or what but it doesn't appear to be the wiring/amplifier. The tuning of the DSP has not been affected thankfully so I'm not too concerned, but it is odd considering the system comes with a module that provides the proper resistance on amplifier startup that is supposed to eliminate that.
EDIT: apologies for any run-on sentences, it's been a long day at work.