For those of you looking to upgrade the sound system in your SMB, I've learned a lot in the past couple of weeks. My RB50 E350 had an aftermarket Kenwood stereo with the Ford speakers. I replaced the speakers hoping it would sound tolerable, however, it did not. It was just as bad as before. Since I have a 6.0L, I also wanted an engine monitor/OBD2 scanner and found a way to use some of that budget for my stereo upgrade.
I found this ((
https://phoenixautomotiveinc.com/pro...versal#reviews )) product and even though the reviews were pretty bad and just about every car audio expert talked me out of this; I purchased the stereo from China and about a month later it arrived. I purchased specifically the model with a DSP to improve the sound quality, I opted for as much memory/disk as they sold and the Android 10 (not 8 or 9 as 99% of them are) version.
There are no instructions. I ordered a Ford Wiring harness kit and with some help from a friend we were able to connect the two harnesses together in about a 1/2 an hour.
We spent another 1/2 hour shaving out the double-din entry in the 2004 E350.
We then connected the mess of antenna's, USB and 4G adapters and overall, the install was remarkably easy!
The OBD2 connection was seamless and the HDTV over the air antenna works great; although I think most of the antenna's would work better if mounted outside the van.
My next step will be to add a backup camera to this configuration. It came with the proper cabling, just no camera; so this is a project for another weekend.
2004 RB50 E350 6.0L Stereo Upgrade
Linear Mode
