lilpun

I've only had one head unit, and it's been a kenwood excelon (869). and as much as i liked it at the time, the motorized face stopped working a while ago... i think it's bad contact with the ribbon (of course it was right after the warranty expired)... i had it fixed once, but it stopped working again... then i bought a new car (a year ago)... and haven't re-installed... i'll do that this summer, probably get it fixed one more time and give it another chance... if not, i'll probably try out Alpine and see what all the hype is about...

As for the Kenwood, like everyone else has said, the menus aren't the most intuitive, but once you get the hang out it, it's pretty easy... i did like the super slim detachable face (about the thickness of a cell phone battery), i actually did take it out with me most of the time... the sound quality was great (as far as i could tell)...

When it did work.. i loved my Excelon... the only other thing i would've wanted was USB support...

hope this helps.

Blinddemonz

Yeah thats exactly what I'm lookin for and my only reason for upgrading lol Cuz my Alpine does all that I want and more, just unfortunately not my ipod.

curtsmith17

The models I'm looking at ... KDC-X991 and KDC-X891. Unfortunately since they're so new I can't find much info on them other than what Kenwood's site has already given me which is basically the brochure I took home lol

The X991 is $679 +tax and the X891 is $439 +tax.




where did you see the X991 for $679, i was looking at getting this deck as well, and i got a quote of $899??????

selective sound

iTrader: (11)

I could get you that deck for $679.00, $899.00 is full retail price.

scotiacustom

iTrader: (2)

I bought my kenwood on the advice that the sound was clean. Even for the cheaper kenwoods like mine. The 435U. The guy let me listen to kenwood, pioneer, fusion, and alpine. For the price, the Kenwood sounded sweeter then the rest.

Your right the menus are kinda wacky. The **** sometimes i want to do a certain function, hit a bump, and its in some other menu. Annoying.

But over all for the price i think they are a great unit. When i upgrade, i can see me getting an x891 or x991 after I had a good look at them. Id pay 450 or whatever the price was for the 891.

Smoke_31

I bought a kenwood excelon x-890. Its been a great deck with great connectivity. I'm using the external ipod controller and the controls work great. The usb input also works like a charm. I never messed around with the speach features (reads name to you of current track/artist on usb drive i believe).

I upgraded from an older alpine model (3 years old) to this deck. The sound quality of the kenwood is decent. It has many features including front/rear/sub crossovers (nice touch if you run a rear stage). If you are running deck power, the kenwood provides a decent amount of power (22W RMS I believe is what I read).

I've have only a few issues with the deck. When listening at high volumes (30 out of 35), the deck volume cuts back and distorts. I was told this is because the deck is beginning to run too hot. (shouldn't be an issue if you run external amps).

It is difficult to find the music you want off your ipod unless you setup very clear playlists.

The display is gimmicky after a while. I thought it was cool at first, but it grows old and annoying (my bad, personal preference).

All in all, it has been a great deck so far, reads many forms of media (ipod, usb, wma, aac, mp3) and sounds great. As mentioned before, the menus at first are overwhelming but they grow on you. I can access all features of the deck without a second thought now.