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Kenwood eXcelon KDC-X692 – Radio / CD / MP3 player / digital player – Full-DIN – in-dash – 50 Watts x 4
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First, it's ugly. It's flashy, shiny, and just generally gaudy and completely clashes with the interior of my car. Unfortunately, that seems to be the going trend with all aftermarket car stereos, so I have no choice but to let it slide. All of the lights on it, except for one, are blue. Some stereos have the option to change at least the button color to amber / red / green or something, but not this one.
Second, there is a very noticeable pause between loading MP3 tracks. The stereo I replaced was a KDC-MP919 that, while it did have a tiny lag between tracks, it was more of a quick "click" sound as opposed to the 2-3 seconds between tracks with this one. If you like to listen to mixed music that is supposed to go seamlessly between tracks, this unit will disappoint. Why on earth is it so hard for manufacturers to implement seamless playback?
Third, the control knob on the right is a little tedious. There is a learning curve to the UI but that's not what I'm talking about. I really think they just put one too many functions into the control knob. I find that frequently when I press straight in on the knob to pause playback or set something, it presses a direction instead.
Finally, it lacks a spectrum analyzer visualization. It's a minor gripe but the KDC-MP919 had one and I miss it. Of course it's not like I'm watching the thing while I'm driving.
With that out of the way, here's what I liked about it:
It sounds fantastic. I thought the KDC-MP919 sounded great but this one is a little cleaner sounding.
You can browse directories on a CD or USB drive without pausing the music. Although browsing will sometimes cause the music to break up a little, it's not enough to be a major issue.
The USB port. This is honestly something I hadn't considered actually being useful until after I got the deck. I've since loaded up an 8 gig flash drive with tunes. I may never need to burn a disc full of MP3s again.
There's no ribbon cable attaching the faceplate. My KDC-MP919 had to be repaired / replaced three times (about once a year) due to the ribbon failing. Of course the KDC-X692 doesn't have the nifty motorized flip face and isn't as low profile, but I don't mind trading that for reliability.
So was it worth what I paid for it? Yes. The in-between track pause is a pretty big deal to me so if Kenwood can be bothered to make a deck that fixes it, I'll upgrade, but the pros here far outweigh the cons.
Radio reception is top notch and I think one of the best receivers in its class. I live in a pretty hilly area and it has no problem pulling stations in that most other stereos can't touch.
I also like the fact that it has an uncluttered appeal to it. With just a few buttons along its black face. Theft deterrent is a manually removed face plate but for the $120 I paid on e-bay who really cares about this anyway?
Finally, the 4-line text that this has is really great and you can customize how it's displayed with clock, date, scrolling song titles, album, artist, etc.
There are faults with this unit but they are mostly opinion and mostly minor. I'm in my late 30's... not exactly a kid. I absolutely can't stand the cheesy graphics dislays that come on these things and to boot, they're not exactly good quality either. The display is very legible but poor resolution at best. I have had kenwood home units before and have always appreciated the nice high quality LCD blue texts that they have. Not on this thing. I would rate the display output as very poor, very cheesy. The good thing is, you can option off all of the graphics. However if you're into that sort of thing, you can choose between a race car, and a bunch of other ridiculous nonesense that will happily glow in your face, non-stop, 24-7.
I'm a minimalist kind of guy but I also appreciate the i-pod approach of everything showing album covers, with good clean text too. So, if I could do it again, I'd probably go with the x792 to take advantage of all that. Then again, the graphics might just be the same poor quality there too.
Finally, and this is just personal preference, the controls are a bit hard to get used to without the remote. The deck has two knobs which control most of the functions. They operate by either pushing, rotating them to scroll, and joystick style. When you're driving along trying to push them in, you find that they aren't as responsive as you'd like and you occasionally miss the correct commands. It gets a bit frustrating operating this way but so far, if you're patient with the remote and figure where the redundant button presses are, you can by-pass most of this anyway.
I'd have to rate the deck a 4 out of 5 taking one away for the loathsome display.
This reciever sounds great with aftermarket speakers. There are more possibilities for sound adjustment than other units in this price range. I like the relatively simple face, also this model retains the preset buttons that are small but not lit up like blinding runway lights. The background graphics are rediculous looking but easy to turn off. The four line text display makes a huge difference because you don't have to have your eyes glued to the unit while selecting songs or artists from an ipod (very usefull while driving).
My only negatives would be the hinge where the faceplate folds down/seperates, and the dimming/lighting options. The hinge is cheap and flimsy and makes me not want to remove the faceplate for fear of breaking the plastic. The display screen will dim when your vehicle's lights are on however the control nobs do not seem to dim. 4/5 because nothings perfect. Great unit, grab one while you still can!
If you are not interested in dealing with a learning curve, spending time idling in your driveway just learning how to click through all the menus, and control all the functions, stay away from this stereo. It's a great unit with great features and an unbeatable price, but I am quite tech savvy, and this one was not easy.
Important for iPod use: you turn the scroll wheel to bring up the iPod menu, but if you have random turned on, it does not work. I can't explain this, or understand why, but it took me forever to figure out. If you press 3 to turn on random play, you can't access the menu, just turn random off, and then your good to go. The scrolling works great, but the selection button is not so good. Especially while driving, it is easy to miss it, or even feel it click, but nothing happens, or, worse, hit it up/down/left/right and you end up changing the menu screen and having to navigate again. It's also a pain if you have hundreds of artists, because scrolling through to higher letters can take a while. Overall though, I love it.
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