I replace one kenwood excellon with another one and something else goes wrong.
The first one lasted me a good 5 years before the laser went out on me. It was repaired (for 200 dollars) and placed in my girlfriend's car. Me, being the dork that I am, wanted a newer Kenwood and purchased a KDC-869 excellon two years ago and now the damned thing clicks when I put a cd in and ejects the CD. *sigh* I would be more mad if i didn't have my aux input for my mp3 player but it still bothers me. I am never buying another kenwood product. if they can't make a decent product once in a while, they aren't worth my trouble.
Well...I beg to differ. I run Kenwood gear from the 70's to today's gear.
Saying they never make good products is a blatant lie. My Kenwood KR-6600 (1970's receiver) has had mild repairs and been around, well you do the math, but nearly forever!
My Kenwood KDC-X589 HU has not given me an ounce of trouble. In fact, it has a lot of features and settings for the price! You realize that, however, a Sony HU, well, you'd be lucky to get 3 years out of it.
The problem with your second Kenwood HU sounds like you're putting in a CD with media format it can't read...Make sure it's capable of reading the format you're inserting before you go crazy on it!
Sounds like your other Kenwood HU lasted forever! Car HU's aren't really built ALL THAT WELL, as compared to a lot of separates used in the home.
That's part of the problem when it comes to car HU's. When one thing goes, the whole unit becomes practically worthless. That's why separates will ALWAYS reign supreme over all-in-one gear. Now if only we could fit a cd player, EQ, amp, and all that gear in the dash...It'd be a wonderful world!
Kenwood ranks up in the higher part of the HU line though...
hey, i'm not a retard, ok. The cd worked 5 minutes before it started skipping out on me. The media was fine. After i popped the cd out, I placed a "real" cd in (factory recorded, not cd-r) and it still makes a grinding noise and pops back out. This happened to me before about a year ago with the same unit but worked after some figiting.
I am just sick of the problems. My next unit will not be a Kenwood. Will problably be a fujitsu ten or an alpine for the next one when the time comes.
You know, I couldn't agree more with Kenwood being an awful brand. In the past decade they have definitely declined in the quality of their products. Admittedly, I'm immensely surprised you got five and even three years out of your units. I've owned three (two excelons and a flip face) and they've all failed before the two year mark. Additionally, I have handled at least twenty-all made within the past two years. The reason they can have so many features for the price can absolutely be traced back to build quality.
I would not say a car head unit's problem is that they're not seperates, rather, they lack sufficient cooling for the output they are required to provide. A reason home receivers can last longer is because they have enough space for the appropriate heatsink and cooling system. A major problem in electronic component damage happens to be heat.
Well, I'm going to have to disagree with Jexx. Mine never gives me a bit of trouble.
And Garret, there's no need for immature name calling. I just made a possible suggestion as to what is wrong with it.
I know about 5 people around here with Excelons and they also have not had any trouble. In fact, when people see (and hear/notice all the features) my HU and then look at theirs they ask what brand and where to get one!
I agree Kenwood's quality has gone down from "back in the day" when build quality was essential due to the rising popularity and competition in the audio world, but I've seen a lot of Pioneer HU's and their idea of an equalizer, is pre-set equalizations with stupid names like "Super-Bass".
Yea, my cousin has one of those HU's. Newer Pioneer DEH-P6800MP running 4 Polk dB570 speakers, and the sound quality is garbage. He always runs the "Super-Bass" or highest bass levels he can, and when this excessive bandwidth in the lower range is introcuced to the circuits, it also introduces excessive distortion which forces his HU into an earlier clipping.
I have to say that the Kenwoods I've heard, you can have the bass all the way up, and run them at RMS levels, and they do NOT go into early clipping or distortion. Not that I do that, but I have friends who think their door speakers need to sound like subs (whatever).
Not to mention even when set "flat" Kenwoods sound a LOT cleaner than Pioneer. The output is also greater with Kenwood.
I never said I didn't like the sound quality of the Kenwoods I have owned. In my opinion, they rock as far as sound goes, but the breakdowns are what bug me the most.
I tested it again last night and I am getting the same problem... I insert a disc, it goes all the way in, does some clicking / grinding noise, and after a few seconds ejects. wonderful. So nice to have 105 s/n ratio when the cd player wont even work. Thanks Kenwood and thanks for charging me 470 dollars for something that has lasted me a whopping two years.
Maybe if they got rid of all the bells and whistles and payed more attention to the basics, problems wouldn't happen so often. Thank God for an aux input.
And Tyler, the name calling wasn't immature. I know what kind of media the Kenwood can handle. Before this little incident it played wonderfully with all types of cd-r's, factory made cds, mp3 discs... whatever I wanted to throw at it. Unfortunate how the thing crapped out on me.
Who knows? Maybe today it will decide that it wants to work? Never can tell with shady head units. I guess my mp3 player is going to get a lot more use. *sigh*
It won't matter in a year or two anyway. Graduating college = new job = new car = new head unit. this also = no Kenwood.
There's a pic of mine. I wonder if maybe something is wrong with a motor type mechanism...Maybe the laser again...Heck, that sort of thing happens with PS2s and XBOXs alike, so I think it goes to show nothing made today is meant to last all that long...
Bottom line is that with any unit, the more mechanical gismos it has the greater chance of breaking, that is why JVC did away with the kameleon line, broke to easy.
jah
Unregistered guest
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Well if i may add nobody ever considers the user of the head unit some people are just not good at taking care of their products and this may be a factor in the equation of how long you get out of your head unit and as ty mutlow said "the more mechanical gismo it has the greater the chance of breaking" In fact this is very true and many of these features are purely for show and marketability and not for functionality
I do not abuse any of my stereo equipment. Abuse was not a factor in the failure of this cd player. Poor engineering was the culprit, unfortunately. When I graduate, hopefully I can change this kind of thing for the better.
Heh - yeah, and people thought the Wright brothers were crazy too. A flying machine? CRAZY! IMPOSSIBLE! Someday, pal. Chipsets are going to be better and better with new developing products... you think Mosfets are good, wait 10 years and see what really happens to power. In the 1900's, you wouldn't have imagined 300 horsepower 4-cyl cars, home theater systems, or even city-wide plumbing, but now we have it all. Technology has jumped significantly since the 1970's and will continue to increase ten-fold every couple of years. We went from a 286 to a 3+ ghz PC in 20 years. We now have little USB drives that will carry a gig or more of storage whereas 10 years ago, that was the size of my entire hard drive. Don't underestimate the intelligence and the drive that engineers have. I'm sure we'll have our head unit figured out sooner or later.
In my opinion kenwood has always sucked i used to have an old skool kenwood amp d2mn thing crapped out on me couple months later. Then a kenwood head unit and it started doing that clicking noise too.
I like the top head unit with the folding face it looks better and newer, tyler what model is yours it looks kinda old.
Garret, I have a lot of respect for Electrical Engineers-it takes a great deal of work to become one and they benefit society greatly... Congrats on graduating in May! And with a minor in mathematics? Very nice!
Bastage? You sound like one of my friends lol. He has the same fights and arguments with his crappy Sony HU.
About your whole HT system comment. Personally, HT IMO is garbage. The idea of the 4 or 5 tiny sattelites plastered around a room with a tiny 8 or 10 inch sub tucked under a coffee table is rediculous.
And then to claim that the sound quality and SPLs are equal or better than that of a pair of well designed speakers in stereo. I'm sorry, the surround sound idea, just can't compare.
Especially when they SS receivers claim to put out hundreds of watts in output to 7 or more channels fully driven! It's BS as of now. Now, maybe someday it will happen, but all the hype over it now, is pointless as a lot of today's popular things crap out.
I especially find it funny when people insist on how much bass they get from a Bose surround system. I guarantee I get better sounding and louder bass out of ONE of my CV speakers vs. one of the Bose subs. Anyone seen the recent Bose Wave Radio with "Wave Tech."?
Seen their candle test with their "ports"? It's rediculous! They take two of their obviously distorting speakers (I could hear the distortion over my TV's speakers) and cover it with about a foot of angled plastic piping, and call it "WAVE TECHNOLOGY". Well it's obvious that all that "WAVE TECHNOLOGY" does is MUFFLE the distortion.
Basically, they take the idea of inverted speakers, and put a tube on it, and copywright it.
You're talking about satellite speaker based home theater? I agree...and the worst part is lack of frequency response down low and even between the 'sub' and satellite speakers. You really miss out when you go that cheap haha.
I think the only thing Bose has come close to doing right is computer speakers...the MediaMates are actually pretty good, but once again, hideously overpriced...
