Alan: I'm glad you got your Basslink fired up nicely. I have one of those too, mounted in the trunk of my streetrod, complete with remote gain control. I actually never found the remote all that effective, unless the gain on the unit was turned up. And, like your experience, I had to configure the HU (Pioneer) to output properly to the sub. The rod also has an MTX 250W amp and 2 10" subs working with the Basslink. I had quite a few interesting discussions on the car audio forum about this setup!

As to a comparison, the Basslink is much more beefy than the Kenwood, but it depends on the mounting and the degree of isolation of the trunk from the cabin. It's also quite a bit larger. I've not had any experience with the Clarion unit, nicely mounted by Zoonhollis, and that appears to be about it for self-powered compact subs out there. I tried a 'tube' unit, but they don't have the internals of any of these, and are too big for my taste.

I think if the Kenwood is hung right under the package shelf, facing down, it should sound just fine.

JHZR2: I was thinking that too, just wiring the blue and yellow to an ignition switched source. Just be sure it is switched, though, or the unit will be on all the time and would likely drain the battery. It wouldn't matter a hoot that the radio (and CD player too for that matter) were off while the unit was on. That'd be like turning on the CD player and not putting in a CD.

Let us know how you made out. I'm curious about the original radio and the trunk CD changer. Are these completely separate, so you put CD's in the trunk unit and control it with a remote?

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1986 560SL
2002 Toyota Camry
1993 Lexus