Kenwood DMX1037

JRT has a Kenwood DMX1037 with all necessary plugs/wires/adapters/dash kit coming my way.

I’ll watch YouTube videos to prepare for my install but I have a few questions.

1. I’m guessing I can now just bypass the DSR-1 and it will just be RCA’s going directly to the amp - correct?

2. My recollection is the mic can kind of be a PITA to run to a good place - any tips or ideas?

3. I’m going to use an idata Maestro - any tips?

4. Planning to keep Sat and kit should have adapter - do I just use stock antenna?

5. Anything in general to lookout for or tips?

Current setup is stock HU—>DSR-1–>Infinity Kappa—>After market speakers.

Thanks in advance!

 

Also, any advice on running the RCAs from the new HU to the under the passenger side seat?

 

1. Yes, the Kenwood will put out a perfectly clean signal and not need the DSR. You’ll run 3 sets of RCAs to the amp.

2. IMO, just bite the bullet and spend the 45 minutes it takes to put it in the stock location. You’ll need to pull the left front dash speaker, a-pillar cover, and drop the overhead console. I initially tried putting my near the steering wheel and got sick of people telling me they couldn’t hear me well. No problems once I moved it to the stock location.

3. This part was easy. Just follow the directions to make sure the unit flashes correctly. Make all your harness connections as small and tidy as possible as it can be a tight fit getting everything pushed back behind the HU.

4. the sat stock antenna should work fine with the adapter. You’ll want to test before completely installing the HU as my truck had two sat antennas - 1 for nav and 1 for radio. Not sure if it matters which one plugs in where.

5. there is a YouTube video from 5 Star Audio showing how to access the “secret” menu to change the start-up image, etc. let me know if you have trouble finding that assuming you want a custom image instead of the Kenwood splash screen.
Also- if you’re still running your dash corner speakers you’ll wire them directly to the HU for signal.

It will depend on how you ran the power wire to the amp. You’ll want to try and keep the RCAs and power from being right on top of each other. I ran my RCAs in the passenger side door sill and the power down the middle of the truck.

can’t wait for your review of the new HU.

 

Awesome...THANK YOU! I ran the power cable through the passenger door sill so I'm planning on running the RCA through the center console. It looks like you just unscrew the shift knob and the top of the center console just lifts up? Will that give me enough access to run the RCAs to the passenger side floor or does the whole damn console need to come out?

Thanks Again!

 

One of my favorite channels - although the ID guy is always customizing the harnesses which is cool but it makes adding the iDataLink Maestro RR go from seeming like it's easy plug-n-play to quantum mechanics and he always ends up losing me.

 

Got the same heading my way from JRT. Should be interesting as I've forgotten how the dash tweeters are wired in from factory, do they tap off behind the radio or do they tap off down by the amp under the passenger seat?
Well, well, here we go again.

 

I put my microphone here and it works fine.
As @AZBoatHauler stated, you’ll need to pull the left front dash speaker, a-pillar cover, and tuck the wire behind the headliner.



My thread on changing the start screen image.
The image has to have these certain parameters or it won't work.
https://www.tundras.com/threads/changing-the-start-screen-on-kenwood-hus.67385/

As far as running your RCAs from the HU and down thru the console:
The best way would be to remove the big silver surround that has the air vents in it.
You just about have to take that entire dash area apart, but running 3 pair of RCA cables is pretty tight trying to work around that piece.
You'll see what I mean when you try it.

When you flash your idata Maestro you can select certain steering wheel buttons to do certain things.
Or just use the default settings.
I recommend using the Weblink updater instead of the website.
Or if you bought it from JRT, maybe he flashed it for you.

https://www.idatalink.com/weblink/

One thing I found using Kenwood HUs is that you can't scroll thru XM presets up and down, 1 thru 6.
You can scroll thru channels and the 4 bands of XM, but you cannot go from top to bottom with the selected presets.
It really sucks.
You can do it with the Pioneer, but not the Kenwood, unless they fixed that issue.

Also as @AZBoatHauler stated, make all your harness connections as small and tidy as possible as it can be a tight fit getting everything pushed back behind the HU.
Don't forget if you want Siruis/XM, you have to buy the separate tuner SiriusXM SXV300V1 Tuner.
The Kenwood HU doesn't receive XM on its own.

https://www.crutchfield.com/p_220SXV300/SiriusXM-SXV300V1-Tuner.html


And if your amp has an option for a dash mounted bass adjusting knob, use it.
You'll need to adjust the bass level of different songs, especially on XM.

 

The 3 dash speakers are connected to the HU on a nonJBL.
Not sure about the JBL systems.

FYI, if you get a decent amp and door speakers in your upgrades, the best thing you can do is disconnect the all three dash speakers.
Well, if you disconnect the side dash, if will stop the feed to the center.

The combination of amped door speakers and the 22 watts RMS to the dash speakers from the HU, just mucks things up IMHO.
Those factory dash speakers are 6 ohm sides and an 8 ohm dual voice coil center speaker.



They will ruin a soundstage of a good amped front door component speaker set with a tweeter in the door sail..

 

Call James Taylor-he can flash maestro and make your harness up for $30. He did forget to do my dimmer wire though. Didn’t realize it until I put my stereo in though.

I reflashed my maestro before I installed it. Takes about 10 mins with installing everything. If you decide to ver from the "factory defaults"; your mute button won’t be mute. I added climate controls as a long press button. It doesn’t work as I don’t have digital climate controls. But I thought I would try it anyways. The difference between the gauge control screen and vehicle info is: gauges are the gauges. The vehicle info screen has the tire pressure, check engine light, and battery voltage. When first setting up my Kenwood- the tranny temp guage wasn’t able to be selected. I told Kenwood to communicate with maestro; and it appeared after that. Just a fyi.

you can use either antenna as the kit from James should include the factory adapter. I put my kenwood sat antenna under the center speaker grill. It cuts out in different places than my factory did. But doesn’t cut where my factory did either. I saw a thread where they notched the center speaker cover so the antenna would just poke out without pinching the wire. I haven’t decided if I am going to try that or go back to the factory one. I did the kenwood because I heard it receives more sat’s. But so far I’m not impressed at all. It cuts out in my driveway whereas my factory one didn’t. But it sits on top of the truck vs under the center speaker grill cover. I am using the svx-300 tuner as well. Both sat antennas fit; mine one needs the adapter.

I mounted my Bluetooth mic on the side pillar that has the airbag in it, at the top. I couldn’t get it to come off or find a way to chase the side dash speaker. It was not long enough to get to the factory location anyways even I could have chased it. My wife said I sound fine with it there near the top corner. The bracket wouldn’t fit on the visor and I have ceramic tint on my windshield so I won’t put it there (for now).

I did the tech 12volts 9 speaker upgrade no sub. So I have his upgraded 3x dash speakers. With the new doors (tweeters aren’t in yet) and dash speakers, they all sound really good. Even before I messed with the sound controls.

it is correct you cannot select the preset SiriusXM channels like you could with the factory head unit. You also can side switch between similar genre channels like you could with the head unit. You however tell the HD/FM radio to seek between preset radio stations. So if you like the reverse selection that factory head unit had. When you flash your maestro, make sure to reverse that. I almost did but didn’t know I could do that. So mine is up equals down, and down equals up. Very weird since having it the factory way for 5 years.

the traffic app that you need to use with traffic reports (mine is free for 5 years) is stupid. Every time you reconnect your phone-it asks permission again. It doesn’t remember your first okay. App Store has this complaint on 99% of the reviews

I did my install yesterday. Kenwood Dnx997xr. But I didn’t know about the 10.1’s until yesterday. Otherwise-well I would be waiting on one.

One last thing. I bought a dash kit from Amazon that is pretty tough. The one I could from James, broke the first time I tried to pry my climate controls out. The amazon set is much stronger.

$22 BYNIIUR Trim Removal Tool, Fastener Remover Tool Kit Automotive Interior Plastic Pry Kit, Car Door Panel Tool Radio Auto Clip Pliers Removal Tool Kit, Red

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Y33KYXZ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I am sure I forgot some stuff about my install. Even ours is different- some will be the same. Any questions just ask.

 

When I had my center dash out. It is very tight. I had to route my obd plug, Bluetooth mic, and extra gray usb cable extension from kenwood up and to the left and down. I didn’t see a way to go straight down. As I want to eventually get a 5 channel amp and sub from a James. So when you figure it out, report back please.
Speaking of which. You will want to connect to the black usb if you have a iPhone.

 

I should know this but let's just say 2020 has exhausted me to the point where I don't up from down sometimes. Do I also need to run a remote amp wire with RCAs with an Infinity Kappa 5? I believe it has some sort of auto detect but can't remember if it does or the DSR1 is "waking up" when power is provided.

 

For RCAs I'm thinking 13:08-13:20 is the best option but I'll just lift up the bottom of the passenger side center console where the plastic meets the carpet and tuck them up out of sight and run them to under the passenger seat from there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cet0XsIENJ4

 

If your amp works now you should be good to go. My remote wire was built into the stock amp harness adapter.

 

There is a feed wire in the underseat amp harness for the amp remote turn on.
If James made your harness, I'm sure he took care of that..

EDIT: I should have refreshed the page before posting...
@AZBoatHauler covered it..

 

You mean the one I clearly installed between the power and ground wire?! Lol...like I said, it’s been a long year. I only ask that you all extend me extra patience with this project...not feeling like myself.

Thanks for all the help so far!

 

Watching this video on features. I currently have crossovers all set on the amp with the stock head unit - I assume I should set the amp to All Pass and just use the crossover and slope on the new

$1,049 DMX1037S 10.1" High Definition Car Stereo Receiver with Capacitive Touch Panel

DMX1037S to make adjustments?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U9Z4B1PDtg

 

Yes...
Use either the amp or the HU crossovers and set the other one to full/bypass, don't use both.
It is much easier to set the HU crossovers and dial it in to your liking.....

You'll also have more options for your crossover slope using the HU..

 

Probably tackle this Saturday. I'll try and take pics of anything useful or interesting. Thanks for everyone's help so far!

 

Ok...a little overwhelmed trying to wire the TO3 to the main harness. I always read too far into things - the correct wire diagram is Toyota Tundra with Non-JBL Amp? Where to start?

 

I started at the top. Snip the RCAs and splice the front speaker wires. You don't need to splice the rear speaker wires since those will feed from the amp via RCA connections from the HU. Then do your blue/white, black, red, and yellow. Look at your Kenwood installation instructions for the color to connect the remaining wires if they're required(orange, purple/white, lt green, and pink).

ETA this assumes you still have and want to use your dash speakers. If you're not using dash speakers you can skip wiring the front speakers as well.

 

Maestro RR is programmed and TO3 is wired. Not as bad as I thought....

 

Alright mid-install


On factory harness I have a white, a black and gray male and on the TO3 harness I have two white females not used. All three of the factor males harnesses fit into the two whites females on the TO3? First time I tried there appeared to be no power to the unit.

 

Ok three problems:

1. Maestro RR has power but it blinking twice. I reprogrammed it twice double-checking the serial number and the idata link cord is attached.

2. Unit does not seem to have power even though Maestro RR does

3. I have an airbag fault somewhere. I did disassemble the area under the glove box to run the RCA. I did not disconnect the airbag but I guess it could be loose.

Any idea about 1 and 2? If Maestro has power then the unit should have power - correct?

 

I seem to recall you have to unplug the Maestro and connect it directly to your PC to reprogram. If the Maestro has power the HU should have power.

 

Maestro is blinking twice which means there is a communication error with the HU. I checked the cable and reprogrammed and still double blinking. Stumped.

 

It’s been a long time since I installed my DMX906S but remember having issues with the Maestro and if I recall I had some connections wrong. Where did you get it? I got mine from Crutchfield and they have really good wiring diagrams and I had to double check.

 

I'm a dick and didn't read the instructions and it turns out there's a stupid plastic cover between the main unit and screen that has to be in place or it will not turn on. It's too dark to do now so I'll see if that was the problem in the morning.

 

The easiest way to run the RCAs is to just disassemble the entire right side of the dash above and below and including the glove box and then there's plenty of access. There's a Youtube video I followed and I had it apart, wires routed and back together in 20 mins.

 

Don’t sweat it happens to the best of us! Keep us posted...