KITT didn't just talk. He listened. And when the voice went quiet, the music came up.
The sound system in this build isn't an afterthought bolted in around the rest of the car. It's a full signal chain — source to speaker — engineered the way the original prop team engineered the dash: deliberately, with specific hardware chosen for specific reasons. Every component in this rack has a job. Nothing is there to fill space.
The foundation is three Sherwood amplifiers — the XAT-300, XAT-340, and XAT-400 — running a dedicated multi-zone setup. Amplification is split so each part of the cabin gets its own power budget. That's not how most cars are built. That's how studios are built.
Signal shaping runs through an Audio Control stack: two EQTs, two EQLs, and an EQX. AudioControl built a reputation on doing one thing better than almost anyone else — keeping the signal clean while you shape it. The EQTs handle two-channel equalization at the output stage. The EQLs work the line level. The EQX manages crossover duties. Five processors, each with a defined role in the chain.
Sitting between the source and the amplifiers is a Rockford Fosgate EPX2 DSP. Digital signal processing at this level means the system can be tuned precisely — time alignment, phase correction, output levels — without touching any of the analog circuitry downstream. The EPX2 was serious hardware for its time and holds up.
Two more AudioControl units round out the processing: the Epicenter for bass restoration, and the ESP-3 for center channel and spatial reconstruction. The Epicenter recovers low-frequency content that compression artifacts and bandlimited sources throw away — it rebuilds what was lost. The ESP-3 synthesizes a center image from a stereo pair, giving the cabin a soundstage that has a front and a middle, not just a left and a right.
The source end is Alpine: a CDA-7949 head unit feeding an Alpine CHA-S605 six-disc CD changer. Alpine's CDA series was the benchmark for in-dash audio in this era — clean preamp output, solid transport, built for exactly this kind of dedicated signal chain. The changer keeps six discs on deck without touching the head unit.
And then there's the JVC KV-V10 in-car VCR. Because KITT had screens. This one does too.
System components as installed:
| Head Unit | Alpine CDA-7949 |
| CD Changer | Alpine CHA-S605 (6-disc) |
| VCR | JVC KV-V10 in-car VCR |
| Amplifiers | Sherwood XAT-300, XAT-340, XAT-400 (3-amp multi-zone) |
| DSP | Rockford Fosgate EPX2 |
| Equalization | AudioControl EQT ×2, AudioControl EQL ×2, AudioControl EQX ×1 |
| Bass Restoration | AudioControl Epicenter |
| Spatial Processing | AudioControl ESP-3 (center channel / spatial reconstruction) |
This is a living chapter. Speakers, wiring, installation details, and the video side of the system will be documented here as the build record fills in. What's above is the signal chain from source to amplifier — the backbone everything else hangs off of.
The car was built to sound as good as it looks. So far, it does.