what do you think?

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Forum Name: Car Audio
Forum Discription: Car Stereos, Amplifiers, Crossovers, Processors, Speakers, Subwoofers, etc.
URL: https://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp?tid=65641
Printed Date: May 10, 2024 at 4:27 AM

Topic: what do you think?

Posted By: jonchos
Subject: what do you think?
Date Posted: November 05, 2005 at 3:06 AM

I am two days from buying a new HU. Have you heard any good things or bad things about it? Kenwood KDC-X889 I really like the looks of it and I have a kenwood sirius tuner and antenna that will fit this HU so it is convenient for me to get this unit, but is it a good HU? Thank you. Any input will help.

Replies:

Posted By: dwarren
Date Posted: November 05, 2005 at 3:34 AM

I view Kenwood as one of the middle of the road products. It falls in line with the likes of Pioneer, Alpine, and all the other brands you find that are competitvely priced. By the sound of it, it meets your needs and it makes you happy, go for it. Then you can give us a review on it for future reference.

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Posted By: arrow12
Date Posted: November 05, 2005 at 9:05 AM

I've found that a lot of people like it. They say it offers great sound quality and all the extra functions you'll need.

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That's my opinion. Take it, leave it, or correct me.

Posted By: jonchos
Date Posted: November 05, 2005 at 10:30 AM

Yhank you. I will go ahead and get it and I will post the review on it for all of us to look at. give about one week to get it and install it. I am ordering over the internet.

Posted By: jonchos
Date Posted: November 05, 2005 at 2:29 PM

Ok I just ordered my HU. I will be getting at the end of next week. I was reading through the manual and damm....So many features. I hope I can get the hang of it fast. If you have experienced with this HU please give some tips on it. I will thank you very much.

Posted By: dwarren
Date Posted: November 05, 2005 at 2:35 PM

Congrats, have fun with those options!

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Posted By: jonchos
Date Posted: November 05, 2005 at 2:36 PM

Thx Dwarren

Posted By: menace2sobriety
Date Posted: November 05, 2005 at 9:55 PM

alpine middle of the road? ummm sure?

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Posted By: dwarren
Date Posted: November 05, 2005 at 10:04 PM

menace2sobriety wrote:

alpine middle of the road? ummm sure?

Yeah, where do you think it stands?

Compare any model of theirs (aside from the f#1) to any other brand in the same price range and tell me there is a difference. A Nak cd 700ii and a Mcintosh MX406 would certainley put shame to a 9835 and 9855...Older Alpine used to be top of the line, but as far build quality and overall sound quality there definately has been a "drop"

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Posted By: menace2sobriety
Date Posted: November 06, 2005 at 1:13 AM

i put alpine above kenwood and way above pioneer. and i could be a bit bias too! ive own kenwood, pioneer, sony, clairion, eclipse and even sherwood. yes i said sherwood but that was before i knew better! lol i bought my first alpine in 1992 and have never bought another brand since.

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Posted By: arrow12
Date Posted: November 06, 2005 at 9:31 PM

You say you haven't owned anything other than alpine since 1992 right? Then how would you know what something like kenwood would sound in your system? Just a question.

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That's my opinion. Take it, leave it, or correct me.

Posted By: Paradigm
Date Posted: November 07, 2005 at 11:38 AM

jonchos wrote:

Yhank you. I will go ahead and get it and I will post the review on it for all of us to look at. give about one week to get it and install it. I am ordering over the internet.

Uh oh. Watch out for this guy. He'll "yhank you." ROFL j/k that just cracked me up when I saw it.

Hope you enjoy your purchase.

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VEHICLE: 2002 GMC Sonoma ZR2
Alpine CDA-7940
AudioControl EQT x2
JL Audio 1000/1
JL Audio 10W6 (originals) x3
Kicker ZR120
Kicker ZR460
Polk GXR-6 x4
Polk GXR-4 x2

Posted By: jonchos
Date Posted: November 07, 2005 at 11:49 AM

posted_image hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Yeah you guys better "wach out" or I will "yhank you" hahahaha

Sorry for the typo.

Posted By: jonchos
Date Posted: November 12, 2005 at 3:06 AM

WOOO HOOOO I just got the HU it looks so freaking amazing. I have not installed it yet I will do that on sunday but I bench tested it and it looks awesome. Cant wait. I have some questions though. I got the wiring harness and it comes with more wires than what I am usually used to, hahaha. It has... well hee is a pic. The first wire is hard to read it but is says "ANT CONT"

What is the mute for? in fact what are all of this for? hahaha. I am hooking up two cross overs for the front components, can I just use the antenna wire to power them? I will also be using this wire to power mi amp. is to much for the HU? I am soooo lost. Please help.

Posted By: jonchos
Date Posted: November 14, 2005 at 1:27 AM

Well guys I got the HU installed and I must say I am impressed!!!! It looks way better than what I thought. Veru crisp and the functions are great. Still trying to get the hang of them, so many options is crazy. I really like it. I really have no words to explain how good it looks and performs. I will post pictures later. I will update this in about three days to give a full review. Thank you.

Posted By: Hornshockey
Date Posted: November 14, 2005 at 2:03 AM

since you said you have the HU installed already; I'm assuming you got your questions answered about the wires from that harness. Did you figure them out, or did you take it somewhere to have it installed?
I have a kenwood myself and I've owned Kenwoods for the past 8 years or so. I love mine, its a KDCMP919. I has the older style mask faceplate; the ribbon cable reliability is a downside; but I've learned that it's gonna have to be replaced from time to time and I now know how to do it. Glad you like your new one.

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Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around once in a while; you could miss it.

Posted By: Hornshockey
Date Posted: November 14, 2005 at 2:03 AM

Posted By: jonchos
Date Posted: November 14, 2005 at 8:11 AM

I did it myself. I just was not sure how to hook them up but I just kept reading here and found a way to use a relay to power everything. I like the HU more everyday. I am not familiar with the HU you have but this one rocks. You should check into it.

Posted By: mariocesar
Date Posted: November 14, 2005 at 6:34 PM

Yo Jonchos!

You could use the antena wire ....as long as you hook up a relevator...letme lookup in my sound installation stuff(at my room jejeje) and I´ll get you the model (it´s a Radio shack) and the wiring diagram...

a relevator will help to upgrade the sigal fron the antena wire , if not, you could burn it...

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Posted By: jonchos
Date Posted: November 14, 2005 at 8:19 PM

But isn't the antena wire from the head unit able to handle the 12 volts requiered for the amp to turn on? if not, I could just use a relay instead if necesary. I have always used the antena wire for the remote turn on no problems.

Posted By: dwarren
Date Posted: November 14, 2005 at 8:30 PM

The problem with using the antenna wire for your remote lead for your amps is that when you switch to cd, the antenna goes down, thus the amps turn off. You need to use the proper remote lead, (WHITE/ blue).

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Posted By: jonchos
Date Posted: November 14, 2005 at 8:32 PM

mine does not turn off. I have changed from cd to tuner to sirius and standby and the amps stay onn all of the time untill I shut the unit off. I don't even have a power antenna in my car so is not going up all of the time or down, hahahaha. I think it will be ok right? I do not want to damage the BRAND NEW HU. WHat do you think? is it ok to just have the ant. wire to the remote turn on?

Posted By: dwarren
Date Posted: November 14, 2005 at 8:40 PM

I suppose, I just find it odd that it doesn't lose power when switching sources. If you are really worried about it, fuse it or like you said use a relay.

Glad you like the deck!

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Posted By: jonchos
Date Posted: November 14, 2005 at 8:48 PM

Yeah I found that crazy too. Maybe the wire I am using was supposed to power up amps. I checked every wire in the standby mode of the HU and there was only one that read 11.06 volts or close to that i can't remember correctly, so I just hooked that one up and the rest I left alone since the only read like .06 volts and the others in the same range. Here is a picture of the wires I have the one on the top hooked up it says "Ant. Cont." at first I had the "Ext. Cont." and the amp did not turn on. That wire only reads .06 volts.

posted_image

Posted By: Hornshockey
Date Posted: November 15, 2005 at 1:26 AM

I beleive that "ext. cont." wire is for use with Kenwood's eXcelon amps. It is a wire that will allow amp settings and status to be displayed on the head unit. It should be explained in the installation manual that came with your unit.

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Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around once in a while; you could miss it.

Posted By: jonchos
Date Posted: November 21, 2005 at 8:53 AM

Ok sorry for the delay on the review guys. I have been trying to fully test this HU. Here we go.

Kenwood KDC-X889

Looks: This unit looks very high end nice chrome accents and a very nice shine to it. Blue lights cover the background of the volume knob and the control knob. Also red buttons that can be switched to green. The screen has a very nice crisp look to it. The only bad things I found about the screen is that when sun is directly hitting it, you are unable to read anything in the screen. Even with the different angles that you can adjust the screen, it's still all blury. But not a big deal.

Performance: I am in shock. This unit has sooooo many options for sound quality, sound filtering and sound delaying is not even funny. I have yet to understand every single one of them. But I am getting there though. It has a crossover for front, rear and sub. This is very nice when installing a set of 6x9's in the back and components with a crossover in the front. This way you can just use the units crossover for the reaer speakers. I am very happy about this feature.

You can select the type of vehicle you have in order to have the best sound performance in your speakers, anywhere from full size car to wagons.Pretty cool. Also has a speaker selection to, again, have the best sound out of your speakers. This feature even includes the subwoofers.

This uinit has many displays already in the memory but is fully capable of downloading new ones in there for your favorite display. Wallpapers, movies and the famous G-Analyzer. The G-Analyzer is very fun. It is very easy to set up and you will find yourself driving crazyer in oreder to see all the G-Forces your can can produce(be very carfull when driving though)

The sound that my factory speaker had with this Hu was amazing. I have never had a Hu that did sucha thing. Now when I installed the components in the front and the coaxials in the back. WOW. I was in shock. I feel like I am driving inside a very high end sound performance vehicle. I mean this is so far the best sounding set I have had.

This HU is very user friendly. At the beginig might be some what intimidating because of all of the features but give about one week and you should be almost a pro at using all of the features in there. Easy to read menus and displays.

I has a feature that names all of your folders and albums or artist's when you are switching fro folder to folder. I really like this feature since I can change folders without having to look at the HU. I just heard them. hahahaha. Kinda cool. You can turn it off if you do not like it.

Over all I am very pleased with this HU. The only two flaws that I found was that the screen gets extremly hard to read whe the sun hits it and that cd's take about 10-20 secs to read. But not big problems. I will definetly recomend this unit to everyone.

Sorry I did not cover every single feature of the HU, but there are to many to list. I hope this helps.

If you have a specific question about the HU let me know and I will try to answer as fast as I can.

Jose