Here's my latest addition which I installed yesterday - A very rare genuine Toyota Graphic Equalizer!!
. This was only available as an additional option for customers who purchased the Super Live Sound System option when the car was purchased brand new in Japan. The EQ was a rather pricey add-on so there aren't many of these units floating around out there. They were available for all of the AE101 models (this particular one came out of an AE101 FX-GT) and various other models of that same era.
When I found it the plug had been chopped off and it was disconnected, so it was a bit of a gamble as to if it actually worked, but fortunately a guy I know in Australia had also managed to get his hands on one late last year for his AE101 Levin and had already figured out which wires went where and was able to provide me with all of the info I needed to make the installation quick and easy
. I had to convert the factory audio wires to RCA connectors so that it was compatible with my modern day head-unit and aftermarket amplifier, but apart from that everything else was virtually a cut-and-splice type of job.
The equalizer allows you to adjust the audio settings very precisely, ranging from thumping bass to ear-piecing highs, with 3 programmable user presets to select from depending on which genre of music you're listening to so that you can basically 'set it and forget it'. Otherwise you can adjust each individual setting to your liking by going through the frequency tuning screen and moving the levels up or down. As for the visualizations, there are 3 different display settings and 2 display level settings. I personally like the traditional graph-type display, however the drop-type and 'bounce' type display settings are also cool to watch. You can set it to stay on one particular display setting or have it revolve to different settings as you're driving.
The buttons light up when the park lights/headlights are turned on and the display is able to be dimmed both night and day, regardless if your lights are on or not. The 'DEF' button beside the 'DIM' button standards for 'Definition'. When this is pressed/activated it basically helps to make musical instruments sound more defined. Once you've played around with all of the different settings and have discovered what works best for your particular taste, your whole audio experience is enhanced and everything sounds exactly how the producer of the music would have intended it to. It works really well with the four coaxial speakers I have installed and compliments the factory option tweeters superbly.
This is the second one I've ever known of in real-life and the first one I've ever seen anywhere over here so I decided to remove the factory option Multibox and stick this in it's place. It's been a fun little unit to play around with so far
Here are a couple of photos that I took today, and also a video that the guy in Australia made who I mentioned earlier (all credit for the video goes to him - Footage of the equalizer in action starts at 59s) -
http://youtu.be/AfMOJdgO59k?t=58s
