pioneer p6600 VS. Kenwood excelon -815dvd

my .02 here... i have the kenwood and i like it. the only thing that is stupid about it is the way the screen opens i will admit that. ive had mine for about 4 months and have had no problems at all. good luck deciding!

I have the Kenwood KVT-815DVD. I will try not to be bias here, but give you my honest opinion. The Pioneer was a choice when I bought the Kenwood, and I did some comparing. The Kenwood IS Excelon, don't know what slab42 is talking about above. Both are good looking units IMO. I'm guessing the Kenwood is more stable on it's track than the Pioneer (mentioned later in this post) and that is why it is designed the way it is. It is a nice receiver. Every once in a while it will not want to eject a disc, but this happens maybe once every few months, just have to turn power off and turn back on. It has never skipped. The reason I chose the Kenwood over the Pioneer is because the output voltage is higher (5.0V vs. 4.0V) and the screen is a half inch bigger diagonally. The Pioneer has sweet screensavers and a spectrum analyzer, where Kenwood has neither (it is illegal to have distracting motion on a monitor in view of the driver, so technically you could get a ticket for it, though I'm sure it wouldn't happen). The fluffy stuff on the Pioneer is cool, but not worth trading for less screen and weaker outputs. I can't remember exactly why I didn't choose the Pioneer, but I thought it was something about how bulky it looked. The Kenwood's screen is less than a half inch thick, sits back nicely against the rest of the dash, not out in the open. One of my friends has the Pioneer, and it is wobbly on it's track arm, besides having a thick monitor. Could have been the way he installed it. I don't know if the Pioneer can be moved out away from the dash, but I am guessing that it can be. Note: this may be very important in the near future. Kenwood lists support for DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW (says right on the original box here), where Pioneer says theirs only does DVD-R/RW. The Kenwood is going to give you more compatibilty options (different media or brands of burnable DVD's) which is a very good thing. Sometimes certain brands of disc won't work if a DVD player is picky, so being able to try every disc on the market rather than just DVD-R/RW could be useful. Can pick up that great rebate deal and not worry about + or -. Also with dual-layer DVD's hitting the consumer market, you are going to need as much compatibility as you can get, as these two DVD players are early models as far as DVD burning goes. They may be pickier than the newer and more updated units. The Pioneer has better radio reception, and 1dB higher signal-to-noise ration. Radio reception is not what I look for, however, since I have XM Satellite Radio. 1dB difference in signal-to-noise ratio is a miniscule gain. Overall, I like the Kenwood. I love Pioneer too, don't get me wrong, but in this case I would say go with the Kenwood KVT-815DVD.

Forgot to mention something. I have had my eye on the new Alpine IVA-D300. It has some PulseTouch technology which got them a few awards from some powerful and reputable organizations. Below are links to two of the awards. A CES award is HUGE, and means that this piece of equipment is definately worth looking into. At $1499 retail, it is in the same price range as the Kenwood and Pioneer. http://www.alpine.com/e/corporate/award/ http://www.cesweb.org/attendees/awards/innovations/rd_2004honorees.asp?category=11

Damn, another reply. I meant I have Sirius, not XM. LOL.

knowledge8069 wrote: Damn, another reply. I meant I have Sirius, not XM. LOL.

i ended up buying the pioneer. Only paid 856 for it brand new fro ma retailer and so far, im happy.

thanks for all the info,.