I just went to myer-emco (a trusted car audio dealer in the area) and was deciding between the Alpine CDA-9855 and the Kenwood Excelon 25th Anniversary XXV-01D and i ended up being convinced by a experienced sales person that i usually go to that the Kenwood is the better choice. Alot of it to do with the alpine glidetouch and the 4v preout compared to the 5 volt preout and of course the built quality of the kenwoods(25th Anniverary Model) are much better then the new Alpines according to the salesrep that i usually get my audio from. I paid $499.99 plus $59.99 for a 3 year replacement warranty thru them.
I got it installed today and boy am i pleased with this unit. It is by far the best sounding unit i have heard and there are so many options to get the sound your after its incredible. I have now gone thru Alpine, Pioneer Premier DEH-P860MP, Eclipse CD8454 and now the Kenwood XXV-01D.
All these HU's are excellant choices and can make the music sound great with the right install and setup. However after playing with all of them and now owning the Kenwood, i whould have to say the KENWOOD XXV-01D is my new favorite HU. Talking about the sound quality and overall sound will not do it justice till you actually go out and hear it.
Looks wise i give it a 5 out of 5, beautifull looking day or night.
Ease of use - 4 out of 5 because theres so much options
SQ - 5 out 5 and just the best ive heard yet.
Build Quality - 5 out of 5
Value - 4 out of 5 but you get what you pay for in this case for sure...
Overall - 5 out of 5 / Definetly look into this and dont sleep on Kenwood Excelon 25th Anniverary Models like i did till this week and now know that its very underated and not alot of people talk about them on this forum but in my opinion once again is a better HU then the other ones ive personally heard overall.
p.s. Offers satellite radio, hd radio, 5V preouts, DSP, and a bunch more...
Also im selling my EClipse CD8454 unit on ebay now so check for that. No Reserve
I would also concur that the kenwood unit is better then the ones you ahve named. BUT i would have to say taht the eclispe CD8455 is a better counding unit.
As far as ease of use, i'd give it a 2 out of 5. most people would be so sick of using that single button on the face of the unit to go through the menu and so forth.
I would say that for that price range that the XXV-01 is the best. If you are willing to spend 690 on teh cd8455 at a dealer, then that would be the route to go. If you have 900 bucks to blow, then i would say the mcintosh is the best out there. Or if you can get your hands on the old eclipse cd8053 with the balance box that would be a better unit.
Mine is always set to flat, i's what most people would call a purist, i jsut liek to listen to the music as the artist intended. i know it does sound cheesy though. haha.
i'd have to look at the kenwood piece, i currently have the cd8053 with the balance box :-) (want to sell it to get the mcintosh piece)
Mine is always set to flat, i's what most people would call a purist, i jsut liek to listen to the music as the artist intended. i know it does sound cheesy though. haha.
i'd have to look at the kenwood piece on how to manually set it.
SO i went out to my car today and set my crossover from my sub amp to LPF and set it around 80hz on the amp and then set the crossover on the HU to pass/thru or whatever so that the amps crossovers can take over and i was pleasantly surprised. Less distortion and better signal directly from the amps crossover in this case. I have a ppi a600.2 for the componants which does not have a on board crossover so i use the HU crossovers on that and it sounds amazing this way. But i think the amps on board crossovers sound better then the HU when i had it. Just thought i whould share that with any users of this unit.
Dan its much better then the new Alpines and built better then the Pioneer Premiers and ALpines. Sounds just as nice as any unit really. Has all features you can think of.