[Rich72C10]

I am really picky about audio but I am also being realistic about how this radio is going to sound. There is just no room in the truck with the tank behind the seat, not to mention zero room under the dash with A/C and not ever wanting to cut the dash for a DIN mounting.

Now if it sounds worse than my JBL BT boom box on top of the dash, I suppose I'll be rather upset. But currently that is what I have or no audio at all. I did have a good phone convo (plus a half dozen emails before that) with Gary between retro fitting or CustomSound audio. He had more than a few opportunities to tell me that the radios are lacking and I'd be much happier with a retro fit of my GM AM radio (which would have put a lot more $$$ in his pocket).

As for the Pioneer super tuners (which I used to love Pioneer) that is not a bad idea but my boat has sailed! LOL

Edit: Bench Testing (good thing I did).
I have the radio and dash speaker hooked up on my bench. It appears they have one side of the Dual Voice Coil's polarity connection swapped, so it sounded like the speaker was busted. The speaker and the radio was pre-made with Bullet/Butt (radio side) and the speaker side of the wires with spade connectors. All with mating sizes/sexes so when you connect you would not get things backwards - which is a real nice touch. It was easily enough figured out and fixed.

After that debugging that and fixing it, the radio sounds pretty darn good with this dash speaker!

The Radio has a "iPod" connection, which the manual says it's for a iPod or up to a iPhone 4s. The connector is in fact for the older style but I have a converter connector for that. Which for my iPhone 12 Pro Max it works like it supposed to. But with this connection there is no hands free, as that is on the BT Module.

The BT Module is pretty stupid as BT goes now days. No track information and while I can skip tracks I don't seem to be able to pause/play from the head unit. For hands free it sounds fairly good but the real test will be when I am actually driving in the truck. Since I'll be getting a window mount (or something like that) I'll just control things from the iPhone and the iPod connection will be for when my daughter is playing the DJ (she always wants her music on when in a car). One thing that really annoys me is the BT module to head unit connector - its very sloppy and I am likely going to need to put a blob of RTV silicone on it.

Overall I am happy with the setup but as expected its not like connecting up to a top end head until and using CarPlay.