Opps, I tripped and fell over a stereo upgrade for my 2000 XJ8. New in dash Alpine do everything including make coffee head unit (aux, USB, Blue Tooth, disc, xm radio).....interfaced everything including steering wheel controls and power atenea. Added a 500 Watt amp for a 12" sub woofer and a 4 x 85 watt amp to feed new 6.25 co ax door speakers all around. I love ear bleeding stereo's in cars that do not look like they should have them! May need to add another amp and sub for fun!

 

Tell me more, I want to upgrade my 1999 XJR ... where you get the face plates and model numbers? I didn't think a double din radio would fit in a XJ8 ?

 

 

Pictures or it didn't happen!

 

Pretty much!

And I would know :P

I'm guessing this is a single din unit with the adaptor plate, as per most of the recent discussions about stereos.
Interesting that you went for co-ax in the doors. Are you still running the factory tweeters as well, or did you run new wire to the doors and are running only these?

 

Photos or it didn't happen!

I'd be very curious as mine is about to get a similar update and any insight would be great before delving into it. I'd like to know more about how you did this and see what all you did

 

Hey sorry for being away. I will get pictures. New to this forum and not all that picture savy, but I will figure it out. I did have my sound guy (of 25 plus years) do the work and he said it was very challenging. Apparently the gas tank is up behind the seat and there is a fire wall between it and trunk area making it difficult to get wring harnesses through.

I did get an adaptor plate for the deck, off of ebay. Its the one with the leaping Jaguar on it. I saw some I love/I hate opinions on this in some previous posts-me I like how it looks. I went with a complete Alpine system. The head unit is CDE-SXM-145BT and has one of those removable face plates. MRV-M500 mono amp for the SWS-12D4 sub woofer. The interior speakers are powered by a PDR-M65 4 channel power amp. Originally just the front speakers were to be upgraded and were going to be split between the door and pillar with a cross over and the rears were to remain stock. An on the fly decision was made when instead of the speakers being 5.25" (which is what we had ordered in), they turned out to be 6.5". So four SPR-60 6.5" co-axials were installed. Although I did lose the pillar tweeters, the extra punch of the rears fills the car with tremendous sound and the loss is not noticeable at low or high end.

My installer was able to tuck the amps in behind the carpet in the trunk mounting them on top and to the side of the 6 CD changer. So the only thing out in plain view is the sub, with a long enough speaker cable that I cab get it out of the way if I need to get to either the battery of spare. He also installed a module that allows the steering wheel controls to work and a microphone for the bluetooth phone.

So I will get some pictures soon. Maybe even later today.

 

If you get a chance to ask your installer, or happen to know offhand, mind posting what interface module he used for the steering wheel controls? It's probably on here somewhere, but I figure while waiting for the pics, I'd ask anyway

 

+1 to the previous post.

I'm interested as well, even if I'm half a world away.

Lyndon

 

The Alpine Head Unit in the dash-i like the leaping Jaguar blanking plate





A super clean install in the trunk for the amps and sub





4x85 interior amp and 500 watt sub amp

 

Okay I figured out the pictures thing. Ya Hoo!! So this is what I now have. The door speakers still look the same, just sound a hell of a lot better. It kicks pretty darn good.

ChalzO-the steering wheel control module is made by Metra, model ASWC-1.

And guess what?? I do not listen to classical! I am a child of the 80 heavy metal gen. not hair bands, but metal! And okay my all time favorite RUSH (who I will be seeing for the 53rd time (sense 1977 Farewell to Kings Tour) this Saturday). Red Barchetta was the first song through the system. Second song, Iron Maiden Trooper. Third song, Motorhead We are the Road Crew! So this ol man in this luxury boat will be jammin!!

 

I too like the leaping Jag. Very similar to 1984 XJ6

 

Sweet, thanks. I'll order me up one with some new goodies tomorrow. Was gonna get it from my go-to vendor but Amazon'e half the price lol. Gotta love the interweb.

 

Sweet. How much did you spend and did you install yourself?

 

Well I have an long standing relationship with my sound guy. So it was $1300 installed.