Sony CDX CA900 Car Head unit Installation

The OEM head unit always greet me with enjoy Honda. Okay, thank you. So nice to have the head unit that greet me all the time I turn on the key. Personally I love driving this car, but for the OEM audio quality is not.

First of all, the OEM head unit has so many source input. It has Radio, CD, AUX in, USB with iPod control. But none of them sound good. I am sure the internal DAC that handling all the stuff is low quality components. It sound bad even my radio here is sound way better. So, there is no others way than throw this head unit away and put the Sony CDX CA900 on it.

The Sony CDX CA900 doesn't have many source input like the OEM head unit has. It only play CD and radio. Aux input is also available so I can plug into my iPod. But this is far better in sound quality which I prefered.

So the first step is disassembly the OEM head unit which is quite easy.

I remove the bottom tray box by pull it out firmly. It only have few clips to hold it on the dash.

Once the tray removed, then I can access inside the dashboard where the head unit placed. I need to find two 8 mm bolt under the frame bar and open them. This new car bolts are tighten really well.

Once those bolt are safely removed, the head unit can be pull out now. This is also quite hard to pulling the head unit out since all clips are still tighten really well to the dashboard. Please be careful when pulling it since the glossy panel can scratch easily.

Once the head unit pulled out, then I need to remove all the sockets. They are hazard switch, head unit and antenna sockets.

Popular car like this Honda Brio has many OEM parts available. Like this head unit socket adapter is very helpful when changing the head unit to another without cutting the original cable. It is not a genuine Honda parts but it is works well.

The color code is all the same like the OEM Honda. Only two brown cable are extra and they for connecting to the wired steering control.

I check it and it correspondences to the steering wheel buttons.

So I connect those cables to 3.5 mm mini jack. I taken this jack from my broken earphones.

I isolate the wiring and it is ready to connect to the new head unit.

Back to the panel, I need to remove the OEM head unit first, and then install the new one. This steps is far easy to do compare when I remove it from the dashboard.

The Sony CDX CA900 is single DIN head unit, while the OEM head unit is double DIN size. This new head unit cannot directly install to the panel since the cut out of the panel are way bigger.

My solution is using the single DIN tray. Lucky I have the same brand as the head unit. So they are fit well together.

The pretty combination of SONY Xplod CA-900 and SONY GMD-700

Continue to the AUX input. This Sony head unit AUX input is using RCA plugs, so I should modify my 3.5 mm mini jack to RCA.

Previously I am using the mini to mini stereo cable for AUX input, then I just cut one end and split the cables into two for this RCA plugs.

This is how it looks like when finished.

This installation is all done. I am really happy to see this simple head unit matching with the glossy panel.

I turn ON the unit and the sound quality is very good with all default setting.

The only audio setting that I think give so much improvement is turn ON the DSO and set to level 2.

This DSO is actually a preset setting for the time alignment. It makes the sound virtually come above the dash board.

I test the sound from CD player, radio and AUX input using iPod, the sound are remarkably better now.

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