is only like 199 right now and its 24 DAC just like the eclipse and has 5v preouts, does that mean the cheap kenwood will have better sq than the alpine 9855?
With Kenwood, in my opinion, they only last two years max and then they break. Plus they wear down the fastest out of any headunit i've seen(lettering and paint rubs off fast).
Alpine's Biolight display is overpriced and the ability to download custom settings to a CD and put it on there also boosts the price. So, yes, they might have equal sound quality if not Kenwood being the better one, just not equal dependability.
thats pretty funny Jexxen. Have you actually ever owned a Kenwood? Ive had all of 3 kenwood receivers in 22years. Only reason Ive replaced any of them was to upgrade to another Kenwood. my latest one, the KDC-PS900 i have 9 years with never a skip or failure of any kind. You either never owned one or dont know how to take care of them. Everyone ive owned has been their flagship receiver at the time though. might make a difference if you are buying their lower level stuff. Possibly they have degraded drastically in the last 10 years too? dont know but ive had zero trouble in all that time.
I've had four, three of which were flipface units and one which is an excelon. The oldest one I had was from 1998. It's definitely something that has happened recently. My X559's volume up/down button has had all of the gold wear off only to reveal black plastic underneath and the seek forward button has lost its ability to click;it just "smushes" in when I press it. Also, the lights on the faceplate blink randomly.
The KDC-7009's motor that flipped the faceplate went out along with the CD player and internal amp. The KDC-6009 stopped powering up. And finally the KRC something that played cassettes with a flipface-sold with the car it was in-had very very poor reception. Not to mention, all of these units had their lettering worn off at one time or another.
Maybe i've just been getting the bad units, I guess that's up to you to decide.
im going to side with jexxen on this one I have had 2 excelons, one was stolen but the replacement broke shortly after 2 years (stopped powering up reliably and then the flip face went out as well) - i just thought for 199 thats a pretty good head unit
I agree with Jexxen....I had 2 Kenwoods... First X589 I believe, display died, fixed under warranty after 3 weeks of waiting... Second eXcelon X859 (current) which just died yesterday, motorized faceplate it open, no lights turn on, etc. Has been displaying random crap on the screen last few days so I knew it was going. Tried ressetting it no luck. I'm done with kenwood. Picking up a Pioneer 80MP today... hopefully that will be more reliable. Any comments on the 80mp?