I had decided early on that the rear mounted CD changer was not for me, and that I would get the Eclipse units up front. At the last moment, I found out about the Nakamichi MB-75, which is a self-contained 6 disk AM/FM/CD receiver. Since the only cassettes I ever listen to are my son's Disney tapes, I decided to get the Nak instead of filling up the dash with the Eclipses. I also decided to get the MB Quart RKB series speakers for the front and rear, even though I've never had a chance to listen to them. I bought them on reputation alone, I guess. I found a great mail order dealer who sells all of these units at a heavy discount, including Eclipse. They are Gold Star Audio, in Southern California at 800-978-3736 (ask for Steve Mehr). Here's the price breakdown for the various pieces: MB-75 $529 RKB160 189 RKB130 179 Cable harness 17.95 Antenna adapter 7.99 Shipping 15 --------- Total $937.94 I had the dealer loosen the factory radio for me, which they did for free, as well as activate the fog lights (said they would charge $15, but either forgot to charge me or forgot to turn them on). I was nervous about the adapters that I got from GoldStar, since they had never put anything into an ML, and they based their choices on vague descriptions that I gave them of the various plugs from reading the postings I could find about process. They sent me the following units: Antenna adapter: Scosche (http://www.scosche.com) VWAB Wiring harness: Schosche VW01 The ML was not listed on the application sheets for either unit, and a call to Scosche left me feeling that what I had wouldn't work. They claimed that nobody made adapters for MB, much less them. Anyway, imagine my delight when I got the truck home last night, pulled the radio all the way out, removed the connectors from the back, and found that the wires plugged into the Scosche adapters perfectly! The only problem was that the wiring harness adapter didn't have the labeled wires in all of the correct places for the half of the connector which supplies power to the radio. It was a simple task to use a straightened out paperclip to release the pins that were wrong and move them to the proper places. The half of the connector which provides connections for the speakers was already correct. Here's the layout of the pins in the connector, for those who care. The view is face on to the plug (really a socket) which comes out of the ML's dash, with the wires coming out the back. Note that there's another plug into the factory radio which is evidently for the CD changer and possibly the cell phone. That connector is left dangling in my installation. -------------- | 1 2 3 4 | | - - - - | | |[] <- clip that fastens plug to radio | - - - - | | 5 6 7 8 | -------------- | 9 10 11 12 | | - X X X | | |[] <- clip that fastens plug to radio | - - - - | |13 14 15 16 | -------------- Note: X = no pin present in plug 1 Pink - Left rear speaker + 2 Blue - Left front speaker + 3 Tan - Right front speaker + 4 Red - Right rear speaker + 5 Orange - Left rear speaker - 6 Green - Left front speaker - 7 White - Right front speaker - 8 Gray - Right rear speaker - 9 Pink - +12v when ignition is on 13 Brown - Ground 14 White - +12v when lights are on, not used by Nak MB-75 15 Red - +12v always on 16 Tan - power supply for antenna amplifier, connected to power antenna output of Nak MB-75 I used a wiring diagram which I found on the Web, and verified that the colors from that diagram were correct, using a voltmeter. I cut the wires that came with the Nak a bit shorter, soldered and shrink-tubed them to the Scosche wiring harness, plugged it in, and it worked. The whole job took less than two hours. The Nak sounded great with the factory speakers, so hopefully it will sound incredible with the MB Quarts. The unit sticks out of the dash a bit, whereas the factory radio was pretty much flush. I think it has something to do with the removable face plate. I'll take a picture with my friend's digital camera and post it to the web when I get a chance. There's just enough clearance in the back of the dash so that you don't have to separate the Nak from its amp block and mount the block separately (which is supports and comes with all the hardware for doing). I haven't been on any bumpy roads, yet, so I don't know about how well it will track the CDs under adverse conditions. The Nak also has two sets of auxiliary inputs (RCA) which make me consider wiring the factory radio to it so that I can retain the cassette and weather band. I would wire a set of speaker outputs from the factory radio to the Nak via an attenuator. The antenna would need to be split if I wanted access to both tuners, and I would need to cut into the factory harness unless I could order the plug from the dealer and mate it to two Scosche adapters. Maybe someday when I have more time... This weekend I'll tackle the speakers, and report my findings in case anyone is planning to attempt the same thing. In summary, it really is quite easy to put a new head unit in the car yourself, assuming that you have basic wiring skills.