Old School High-End Meets New School High-Efficiency

[FR-S2GT86]

How glow can you go?

[FR-S2GT86]

So after a few years of on and off searching for a Pioneer DEX-P99RS with no luck in finding one offered from a trusted source, and since Crutchfield has finally reduced their price by $2000 for the Pioneer DXT-P99RS-80 80th Anniversary sound package which includes a limited edition of this legendary 4-way network head unit, I broke down yesterday and decided to order the entire sound system so that I can finally install this special edition, only 80 ever produced, head units into the top din slot in my dash to replace my old Pioneer Premier 3-way network head unit.

[FR-S2GT86]

I needed a place to mount my main amplifier power wire fuse in the engine bay next to the battery, so I hand fabricated a cardboard shelf,





and took that down to my local fabrication shop who made the piece out of aluminum, then took it over to get it powder coated so that it will look somewhat like a stock part,





and set it into position.





You can see the main fuse next to it that I have zip-tied temporarily in place so that it can't move around. That will mount on this new shelf. The edges toward the battery will be getting some matching edge trim as seen here.

[FR-S2GT86]

It has arrived!

[soundman98]

that's a whole lot of zero's for a limited run of 80...

[FR-S2GT86]

Originally Posted by soundman98

that's a whole lot of zero's for a limited run of 80...

It is. Someday I'll call up the nearest Pioneer rep and see if they can answer why that is, as I'm curious myself.

[FR-S2GT86]

It's a whole lot of wiring underneath....



But it all stays where it is supposed to stay.....



Now that I know everything fits in there and I can close the trunk lid, I have to take it all back apart to cover all three rack pieces with some materials and do a little bit of sanding on the ends of the center brace piece so there is a visually smoother transition from the lower board to the upper board.

Then I need to figure out how I want to hide the fasteners. The wing nuts are just temporary to make it easier to work with until I find the permanent and best looking solution. I may incorporate some very strong magnets into a simple cover trim piece.

[soundman98]

have you ever tried tech flex instead of split loom? split loom always tends to crack apart over time on me...


as far as the fasteners, you could do something with a pin spanner wrench, so it would use a threaded 'washer' type fastener like used on grinders and such to hold the discs on.

all of the other options i can think of would involve sinking the fastening device into the mounting board to allow for a flush type snap-on cover, and i'm not sure you have the thickness yet in the board for that.

come to think of it, there's the counter-sunk washers that might work:



this is called a 'Hinge Screw Washer'.. i know i've seen them in a variety of locations with different sizes what would still allow you to use a nut on the exposed bolts, might need to deep dive into a mcmaster carr to find the right size

after that, i believe they offer bolt covers that might work.

[FR-S2GT86]

Originally Posted by soundman98

have you ever tried tech flex instead of split loom? split loom always tends to crack apart over time on me...


as far as the fasteners, you could do something with a pin spanner wrench, so it would use a threaded 'washer' type fastener like used on grinders and such to hold the discs on.

all of the other options i can think of would involve sinking the fastening device into the mounting board to allow for a flush type snap-on cover, and i'm not sure you have the thickness yet in the board for that.

come to think of it, there's the counter-sunk washers that might work:



this is called a 'Hinge Screw Washer'.. i know i've seen them in a variety of locations with different sizes what would still allow you to use a nut on the exposed bolts, might need to deep dive into a mcmaster carr to find the right size

after that, i believe they offer bolt covers that might work.

I have not used tech flex. The split loom that I'm using here is fairly soft. I know there is some more brittle loom out there that eventually cracks with heat, especially in the engine bay, but not in this build. I've gone and wrapped it with 3M electrical tape as well so cracking won't be an issue.

As for the hardware, I'll eventually find something to cover them that makes it look as if they aren't even there.

[FR-S2GT86]

Got the edge trim put on and the fuse shelf installed and the fuse holder secured in place with some stainless steel machine screws and nuts. Connected the main 4-gauge power wire from the positive terminal to the rear lug and then ran the rest of the wire into the car through a grommet in the firewall.







Here is a picture with the battery terminal cover in place and the fuse holder cover in place,



I think what I'll do next is drill a hole in the top of the shelf a few inches in front of the fuse holder and run the power wire straight down through a grommet. That should give it a cleaner look than having it routed over the edge of the shelf back towards the positive terminal.

[FR-S2GT86]

This system build is coming along. I got all of my permanent power and speaker wiring, and RCA cables run over these past two weekends, some of the trunk lighting installed, and my old Pioneer Premier and Alpine head units out of the dash.

I temporarily reinstalled the factory tweeters after bypassing the capacitors so that I can run them fully active. I had blown both of the new Dayton silk some tweeters that I had installed because I overdrove them without any protection. I have since purchased some replacements, but they need to be slightly modified before I can insert them into the tweeter receptacles in each of the dash speaker grilles. The factory tweeters will serve the purpose for the time being, and they are now running in series with my home-made tweeter protectors. I found some red incandescent bulbs and mounted them in some generic housings I purchased at the local auto parts store,





I was really wanting to hear this new Pioneer 80th Anniversary DEX-P99RS 4-way network head unit running the system, so I temporarily got it connected in the dash,





so that I could get all my amplifier gain levels set to their initial settings, and run the Auto Time Alignment/Equalizer feature of the head unit in AUTO mode.

I had to run it several times to find out where the head unit wanted to set my levels at, make some gain adjustments on my amplifiers and re-run it each time. Between four separate gain controls, It took about 10 runs, but I finally got the amps set to right about where they need to be, which resulted in the levels of all eight outputs on the head units' display to be within 1 to 2 db from each other,



And as you can also see in the picture above, the unit automatically set my crossover slopes to 12db/octave.

I have now adjusted each slope to 24db/octave as you can see here,



in order to keep all of my speakers in phase with each other, and I will save that as a custom crossover setting to use as I run the Auto TA/EQ process once more in CUSTOM mode this time to force the unit to use 24 db/oct crossovers instead.

Then I can add a shelf filter for the subwoofer, because everyone always likes a little more low end,



I'll have to run Auto TA/EQ again when I install the permanent replacement Dayton tweeters, but that's okay, it helps me learn how this deck operates.

From what I have heard so far, this system kicks ass! Everything is crystal clear up front, the test CD that I use for image placement uses voices in five different areas of the front stage which are perfectly placed. Ariana Grande's a capella song Raindrops (An Angel Cried) sounds perfectly clear, and I'm not even done yet.

Edit: Added the pictures.

[FR-S2GT86]

New head unit installed permanently with a pocket-style drawer installed underneath.



The slide-out section of the drawer had some white writing on the face of it from the manufacturer that I didn't want, so I removed it with isopropyl alcohol. But due to how the ink smeared and gave the black plastic an uneven, chalky appearance, I shined it up with some 0000 steel wool, and gave it one coat of matte black Krylon Fusion All-In-One paint + primer (with a "No-Peel Guarantee"), then let that dry a day and rubbed the shiny spots off using the steel wool again, and laid another coat down, then after that dried one more day, laid the final coat down.

The drawer slides out,


but won't slide out on its own during acceleration. This means I can put whatever I want in there that will fit and not have to worry about anything flying out like you would with a normal pocket. I think I'll pull the drawer back out and line the inside with some non-slip drawer liner just to keep anything I place inside from making any noise.

And using a couple of adapter harnesses provided by https://autoharnesshouse.com/
I've also integrated the stock USB port and auxillary input receptacle to this new head unit for additional audio sources.



It has Bluetooth capabilities as well, but you have to have the accessory adapter to use it. Besides, using Bluetooth with it's relatively poor sound quality in comparison to what I'm trying to achieve with this build with a head unit like this is pretty much pointless anyway, and I have no desire to connect my phone through it either.

Nope, this is a system built for music and driving pleasure, not for me to be bothered by other people wanting to get a hold of me when going through the twisties.

I'm really liking this head unit, how it looks in the dash, how it sounds, how versatile the DSP is, the fact that each of the eight channel outputs has independently adjustable crossovers, and levels, the 31-band EQ per side. There is really no other head unit out there that can hold a candle to this Pioneer. It truly lives up to its legendary status. And only 80 of these 80th Anniversary Edition models were ever produced for the world.

It has now been three years since this head units' release with no current replacement. I hope at some point in the future, Pioneer will step back up and come out with something else for us audiophiles of equal or greater quality. But for now, this appears to be the last of its breed.

[soundman98]

Originally Posted by FR-S2GT86

It has now been three years since this head units' release with no current replacement. I hope at some point in the future, Pioneer will step back up and come out with something else for us audiophiles of equal or greater quality. But for now, this appears to be the last of its breed.

i've wondered the same thing about the 80prs. it's extremely old, from 2012. and yet they're still selling them.