Kenwood XXV-01D mini review
09-12-2005, 09:56 PM
#1
Kenwood XXV-01D mini review
Today I installed my new Kenwood XXV-01D head unit, and I thought I'd give a quick review. I haven't done any critical listening done yet because right now the rest of the system in the Corvette is in the middle of an overhaul, but I've tinkered enough to provide a functional review.
Installation was easy. No surprises out back with the wiring. It's got all the standard hookups with the standard colors. It's got 3 sets of RCA pre-outs: Front, Rear and Subwoofer. IT's also got a set of RCA inputs on the back, and the cd changer/sirius DIN input. Why they still use analog inputs for the peripherials is beyond me. In this day and age it seems like it would be cheaper and better to just have a digital input to handle system control and signal, and let the DACs in the head unit do the work.
Anyway, hookup went fine. I got it in, fired it up, and immediately got rid of the stupid demo mode.
My early impressions of the deck are that the visual build quality is very good. The feel is a bit less impressive because the whole faceplate rocks when you push the buttons. Ergonomics are a disaster. You can't do anything without digging through a series of menus. Changing the radio preset is like a 6 step process. Keep the remote handy because it greatly simplifies the operation of the day-to-day type of stuff.
The menu system is pretty simple to navigate once you get the hang of it, but there is just so much stuff that it takes a long time to go through it all.
This deck has a very good subwoofer filter. You can adjust your front and rear high-pass independantly in very small steps from 30hz up to 250. Once you select the frequency, you can choose a 12dB, 18dB or 24dB slope. Likewise, the high pass on the subwoofer has the same options.
The equalizer is reasonably useful. It is a 4 band eq, and within each band you can select from a few different center frequencies as well as the Q of the adjustment band. You can equalize the front and rear speakers individually.
There's also a time alignment feature, but from what I can see, it only allows you to align the time between the fronts, rears and sub. It doesn't appear to allow you to adjust the left and right individually, so overall it's semi-worthless in my eyes. An adjustable subwoofer phase control would have been just as useful without all of the complication.
The deck also has a bunch of other DSP options like allowing you to select what type of interior your car has, and what size speakers you've got. I'm not sure what it does with this information once you provide it, because I tend not to like all of that mumbo jumbo. I may revisit later. It'll also do some sort of SRS 3D effects that I haven't tinkered with yet either. I probably won't screw with it much.
The display of this head unit is very nice whether you're into the flashy carnival ride crap or if you just want a simple, informative display. You can select from a few different "movies" and you can download a bunch of different images from Kenwood's website. It would have been nice if they used a format that allowed users to upload their own images. If you're not into all that drama, you have the option of having a simpler 4 line text display. This is nice because you can see EVERYTHING at once. I've got it set up so that I can see the station numbers, preset number, time of day and a nice graphic eq all at once. With CD or Sirius, you get similar amount of data. The display is a bit hard to see during the day, but not really any worse than any of the other head units out there. In lower light, it's extremely impressive.
Once I get the rest of the stereo installed I'll comment on the overall sound quality and how well it works with the rest of the equipment. Overall my early impressions are pretty positive. My biggest cimplaint is the lousy ergonomics, but overall I'm happy so far.
Installation was easy. No surprises out back with the wiring. It's got all the standard hookups with the standard colors. It's got 3 sets of RCA pre-outs: Front, Rear and Subwoofer. IT's also got a set of RCA inputs on the back, and the cd changer/sirius DIN input. Why they still use analog inputs for the peripherials is beyond me. In this day and age it seems like it would be cheaper and better to just have a digital input to handle system control and signal, and let the DACs in the head unit do the work.
Anyway, hookup went fine. I got it in, fired it up, and immediately got rid of the stupid demo mode.
My early impressions of the deck are that the visual build quality is very good. The feel is a bit less impressive because the whole faceplate rocks when you push the buttons. Ergonomics are a disaster. You can't do anything without digging through a series of menus. Changing the radio preset is like a 6 step process. Keep the remote handy because it greatly simplifies the operation of the day-to-day type of stuff.
The menu system is pretty simple to navigate once you get the hang of it, but there is just so much stuff that it takes a long time to go through it all.
This deck has a very good subwoofer filter. You can adjust your front and rear high-pass independantly in very small steps from 30hz up to 250. Once you select the frequency, you can choose a 12dB, 18dB or 24dB slope. Likewise, the high pass on the subwoofer has the same options.
The equalizer is reasonably useful. It is a 4 band eq, and within each band you can select from a few different center frequencies as well as the Q of the adjustment band. You can equalize the front and rear speakers individually.
There's also a time alignment feature, but from what I can see, it only allows you to align the time between the fronts, rears and sub. It doesn't appear to allow you to adjust the left and right individually, so overall it's semi-worthless in my eyes. An adjustable subwoofer phase control would have been just as useful without all of the complication.
The deck also has a bunch of other DSP options like allowing you to select what type of interior your car has, and what size speakers you've got. I'm not sure what it does with this information once you provide it, because I tend not to like all of that mumbo jumbo. I may revisit later. It'll also do some sort of SRS 3D effects that I haven't tinkered with yet either. I probably won't screw with it much.
The display of this head unit is very nice whether you're into the flashy carnival ride crap or if you just want a simple, informative display. You can select from a few different "movies" and you can download a bunch of different images from Kenwood's website. It would have been nice if they used a format that allowed users to upload their own images. If you're not into all that drama, you have the option of having a simpler 4 line text display. This is nice because you can see EVERYTHING at once. I've got it set up so that I can see the station numbers, preset number, time of day and a nice graphic eq all at once. With CD or Sirius, you get similar amount of data. The display is a bit hard to see during the day, but not really any worse than any of the other head units out there. In lower light, it's extremely impressive.
Once I get the rest of the stereo installed I'll comment on the overall sound quality and how well it works with the rest of the equipment. Overall my early impressions are pretty positive. My biggest cimplaint is the lousy ergonomics, but overall I'm happy so far.
09-13-2005, 12:51 AM
#2
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Im really mortified by this years choice of decks.
Im **** and picky about a lot of silly ****, but its **** that drives me crazy on a lot of these decks. I dont mean performance characteristics too, i mean, those speak for themselves. But on ergonomics and aesthetics alone, im pretty much set to keep the CDA-9811 im borrowing, and hold off until someone designs something human again.
Im not sure why all these companies want to do away with the 5 or 6 preset buttons. I love em. ****, you can make them macro buttons, or whatever... Alpines old 7949 (i think) used to change what they did, the Function buttons do on the recent decks, and even on factory systems, their functions can change with menus. But why take them off? That really irritates me.
That, and whats with folding out faces upon faces? How can there NOT be enough room for some of these designers? lol... ****, my ancient CTA-1505 has a Spectrum analyzer, a display with track and time, and the stuff all around the buttons. All in a standard DIN sized unit.
I was looking at the one you got, and the lack of presets looks like id go nuts. But, the pics dont explain how any of that works, so maybe its not bad.
You know what makes me sad though? On Aesthetics and Ergonomics alone, my favorite deck out right now is some second rate Sony, not even one of their top models... Sony CDX-F7715X
:shrug:
Im **** and picky about a lot of silly ****, but its **** that drives me crazy on a lot of these decks. I dont mean performance characteristics too, i mean, those speak for themselves. But on ergonomics and aesthetics alone, im pretty much set to keep the CDA-9811 im borrowing, and hold off until someone designs something human again.
Im not sure why all these companies want to do away with the 5 or 6 preset buttons. I love em. ****, you can make them macro buttons, or whatever... Alpines old 7949 (i think) used to change what they did, the Function buttons do on the recent decks, and even on factory systems, their functions can change with menus. But why take them off? That really irritates me.
That, and whats with folding out faces upon faces? How can there NOT be enough room for some of these designers? lol... ****, my ancient CTA-1505 has a Spectrum analyzer, a display with track and time, and the stuff all around the buttons. All in a standard DIN sized unit.
I was looking at the one you got, and the lack of presets looks like id go nuts. But, the pics dont explain how any of that works, so maybe its not bad.
You know what makes me sad though? On Aesthetics and Ergonomics alone, my favorite deck out right now is some second rate Sony, not even one of their top models... Sony CDX-F7715X
:shrug:
09-13-2005, 02:49 PM
#3
That new Sony deck is being pretty well received by those using it. I don't remember if that one is the silver one or the black version, but the black version has burr brown DACs and aside from the lack of a decent crossover, seems to be a very good deck for the money.
09-13-2005, 03:04 PM
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Jim, i noticed something weird there.
Thats the black one, and i saw it on Crutchfields site. After your post, i dug through all the brands ive liked in the past (Alpine, Pioneer, Kenwood, JVC, Clarion) and its the ONLY thing i saw that i liked.
Oddly enough, i went to Sonys site after seeing it, and they only seemed to have the Silver one, and its under a different model number.
Sony CDX-F7715X is the one i saw on crutchfield...
Sony CDX-F7710 is the silver one i saw on Sonys site.
I cant find a site detailing the differences though, and it was too late last night to keep track myself, lol...
EDIT Okay, i mustve been too tired, becuase five minutes with google and i found it. I guess its part of that new Sony "specialty series," and yeah... the specs seem way different between the two. I really like the 15x more after looking this stuff up though...
Thats the black one, and i saw it on Crutchfields site. After your post, i dug through all the brands ive liked in the past (Alpine, Pioneer, Kenwood, JVC, Clarion) and its the ONLY thing i saw that i liked.
Oddly enough, i went to Sonys site after seeing it, and they only seemed to have the Silver one, and its under a different model number.
Sony CDX-F7715X is the one i saw on crutchfield...
Sony CDX-F7710 is the silver one i saw on Sonys site.
I cant find a site detailing the differences though, and it was too late last night to keep track myself, lol...
EDIT Okay, i mustve been too tired, becuase five minutes with google and i found it. I guess its part of that new Sony "specialty series," and yeah... the specs seem way different between the two. I really like the 15x more after looking this stuff up though...
Last edited by admrlam; 09-13-2005 at 03:32 PM.
09-13-2005, 03:06 PM
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All that aside, didnt mean to hijack the thread. That Kenwood you got sounds like its great for the audio purposes (obviously why someone would buy it), and im sure id get past my hangups on the aesthetc stuff.
All in all, sounds like a good deal. Id still go bonkers without preset buttons, lol...
All in all, sounds like a good deal. Id still go bonkers without preset buttons, lol...
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