Aftermarket Bluetooth Mic and Center USB / AUX jack

[daikichi]

I have the sport 6MT, so am stuck with the orange-led base audio till I upgrade. Two question topics:

1) has anyone tried running an aftermarket BT mic all the way up to the map light? I assume that's where the factory one would go. I don't really like the idea of an exposed one in the corner or on the dash. Would it fit inside the map light thing? Do you have to get the whole headliner off or something to get to it in addition to the a-frame? There's not a mic secretly sitting inside there is there? I also wasn't sure if the aftermarket mics are intended to be any more or less unidirectional vs the factory one and thus if that had any bearing on best placement. I guess I'd just like it to be hidden *somewhere* if the maplight area isn't best.

2) It sounds like you can't use the center armrest usb/aux with aftermarket directly (I heard because it runs thru the canbus or something...otherwise you'd figure one of the harness makers would've been nice enough to split the 6 wires off for us). Has anyone found a clean way to mount normal aftermarket USB/aux jacks in the same little mount pod hole thing? Something better than a big wad of glue and tape

Any links to howtos/photos much appreciated! Thanks!

 

[daikichi]

Was able to answer my own questions finally this weekend:
1) Yes, this is actually quite trivial to do. If you can run the mic to the top of the A-pillar, you can put it in the map light. The map light comes off with two screws and there's a big gap along the top of the headliner you can tuck the wire into. Whether or not the map light factory mic grille is the best place acoustically for your aftermarket mic I'll leave as an exercise for the reader (works good enough I think).

2) Rather than trying to hack the existing, I popped the usb/aux pod out of the armrest, made the hole slightly bigger with a razor and shoved one of these in its place: https://www.amazon.com (commissions earned)

Works great.

Did the above along with installing a JVC KW-NSX1 and 6 Polks (2x DB351, 4x DB651). I'll work on putting photos into the howto section for those interested. Big thanks to others who did new speaker installs as I used a couple of their ideas/howtos (PC fan extension cable to make harnesses for the dash speakers and hacking/reusing the existing speaker baskets for the doors).