Alpine CDA-9855 Versus Kenwood Excelon KD

I'd go with the Alpine.  I just find that alpine has better build quality than kenwood....

Your gonna love either one!

-Drew

I think theres a few HD stations in the US, its not as big as sirius or XM yet tho.

I don't know that the build quality is better on either without taking them apart.  I do know that the difference in output voltages is negligible.  The marketing would like you to believe more is better, but they'll both have a clean signal & unless you're picking up all kinds of noise between your headunit & amps, you'll never hear the difference.

It's going to come down to features that you use regularly & how intuitive the interface is - which one is easier to use?  given that the sound quality's about the same on both, this is what it will boil down to.

I tried the 9835 with the Ipod adapter & was bitterly disappointed with the results, specifically the lack of ability to search for something without running over a kid in the street.  I just switched to the 9855, these are some thoughts I posted to another site that may help you decide.

The display has improved over the 9835, makes searching easier. Still won't display Artist/Song combo - what's up with that? Doesn't gray-out 2 of 3 songs in search list anymore, thank the Lord.

Searching is NOTICABLY faster now. It now will jump thru tracks very fast - up to 60 at a time - but there's a trade-off. Using the Glidestrip speeds things up, but you lose some precision when trying to lock onto a certain folder. This may improve as I get more accustomed to using this Glidestrip thingy, as I'm pretty clumsy with it so far.

As for usability, I could still run over a kid looking for something if I'm not careful - it sucks my attention that way. Just not nearly as bad as last year's model. Had they allowed for fast searching with the Glidestrip & also precise searching with the volume/rotary knob we'd be golden. Next year?

Scrolling thru 20GB of music on the iPod & locating a particular album probably takes twice as long compared to just using the iPod. Again, I expect this to improve. Even if it didn't, the ability to skip tracks thru my steering wheel controls makes up for it, IMO. Also not having to hit "play" on the iPod everytime I get back in the car is a bonus.

This Glidestrip is awkward so far, but getting better. Not as mindless as a laptop's integrated mouse touchpad, but it may just take some getting used to. Jury's out.

Sound quality from the iPod is as good as it gets. Alpine's come a long way in this respect, I'd put them just behind Eclipse & Nakamichi in sound quality. That's pretty good.

Conclusions - it still ain't the cat's meow, but much better than last year. I'm going to keep the KCA-420i for now over using the AUX-IN, I think it's useful enough to overcome any shortfalls. The headunit also has a port in the back to plug in a 3.5mm headphone jack to accept steering wheel controls - a godsend.

I may post an update after I'm more fluid with it all.

Some of you may remember me cautioning against the new 9855's for problematic reasons.  However, it seems no other shop in our area have experienced these.  Luckily, the one I installed never returned bad.

I'd have to say customers do like the Ipod interface, but the touch strip takes time getting used to- and you can forget about it if you have fat fingers.  I've always been a big Alpine fan in the past, but I think I'd lean towards the Kenwood on this one.

welp, as a person who made that choice...

the glide touch looks really appealing. but.. =) did you try it out? after a while it became more annoying than helpful, starts skipping and eventually  seems problematic.

i have an alpine 7840 right now i've used for years. and replaced with a kenwood mp828 (similar to the excelon, not as long on the warranty) but this unit is VERY, VERY impressive from where kenwood stood in my eyes before. Again. price is the deciding factor for anyone buying alpine/kenwood/sony/pioneer. and i'll vote that the gentlemen who mentioned eclipse being a step above.. right on. same with nakamichi and denon. just all around better units. but not as feature friendly or as attractive (w/ naka & denon) anyways. I'd have to vote personally on the kenwood in the long run, easy to operate and tons of fun features.

kenwood excelon, hands down.  this year's excelon is much better than any kenwood you've ever experienced.  as mentioned before the 24 bit burrbrown (all 4 of 'em!) dac's are very nice (although not as nice as those in the f#1 product).  and i'll tell ya, they sound great.   i'm not sure on the alpine preout impedance but the kenwood are  5 volt/ 80 ohm. (you really need to analyze votage and impedance togethor to know the equipment's capabilities!). also not mentioned is the fact that the excelon has non-volatile memory options so you don't have to setup the dsp everytime your battery dies.  you've also got 3 lines of displayable text to go along with your compressed media and satellite radio.

i may be reading this wrong, but it seems as if noone here knows that kenwood also has an ipod adapter.  even more so, everyone complains about how the control features are set up w/ all of the manufacturer's control devices.  why not use the built in auxilliary input and use the ipod itself for control.

or better yet, leave your headphones plugged into your ipod and rip 20+gigs of music to your kenwood musickeg.  this is a harddrive designed specifically for the mobile environment and overcomes a lot of the issues people have w/ their ipod controllers.

although well built, and dependable, alpine is not necessarily the top-performer these days.