Installed Rs 2 lakh worth of audio upgrades on my Mahindra XUV700 AX5

I plan to replace the Sony with dual Alpine subs moulded in the boot, in the near future.

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Hi,

I have a 5-seater AX5 and went for an audio upgrade. With the DSP, component speakers and dedicated sub, it sounds much clearer and provides a great soundstage which can be personalized through multiple settings. Significantly, I also get to use 3.5mm and Optical outputs from my Hi-res players, which make the BIGGEST difference in sound quality. No original wires were cut, so hopefully shouldn't impact the warranty.

There is a wired remote commander to handle amp/sub/source levels and select inputs. Vehicle alerts are not played if you select any source other than the head unit. I am a sedate driver and don't need it though, but know many friends who have spent 10s of thousands to just disable alerts in cars.

I got an 8-channel signal processor, Helix DSP.3s installed tapping the speaker out through a Mahindra-specific ISO wiring harness. The DSP has 8 channel outputs, which can be individually configured.

I have used 4 channels powering one pair of Morel Virtus 602 components for the front door in an active setup without using crossovers. A 4-channel Brazzo PA690 Amp power the 2 midranges and 2 tweeters independently.

2 channels are used for the rear door Morel Virtus 602 components. I reused the crossover from front components for a bi-amped setup with independent crossover for tweeters and midrange, using another 4-channel Brazzo PA660 amp.

Currently, I am using 2 channels for the subwoofer, connected to a Sony bass tube through a Class D micro amplifier Vibe 400.1

I plan to replace the Sony with dual Alpine subs moulded in the boot, in the near future.

The panels below the dash need to be plied open for accessing the speaker wire harness and are not for the faint-hearted. Component speakers with subwoofer powered through speaker level inputs should be a good enough upgrade compared to the default sound.

The overall cost with damping, moderate amps and speakers was close to 2 lakhs, no regrets! A bit of solace was that I had price protection for the first-day booking of XUV.

If you think this was expensive, please check out the inspiring Baleno RS audio upgrade thread by ROG_AK.

My setup was very professionally done to my satisfaction over 3 days by Sukumar, Karthik and the team at Autoplanet, Koramangala. Very friendly, knowledgeable and professional installers. I am yet the get the final tuning done due to other priorities.

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