Kenwood eXcelon KDC-X994

Very Nice Deck, Easy to Use and packed with features!

I have primarily had Alpine head units in the past. I decided to go with Kenwood this time due to the ease of use, the menu system is very simple and the iPod control is fantastic. Also it has all of the right specs to control even the highest end stereo systems. I do not like that satelitte radio requires two additional interface boxes, and if you want HD you need an additional interface box. If you want both Satelitte and HD you need yet another splitter box as there is not a pass-through port. I have this installed in a truck with a large dash but even I would be challenged finding room for all of this equipment to tuck away.

Nice one from Kenwood

This radio does everything that I wanted it to do. I was looking for one with the usb in the back and bluetooth and there weren't many. I like how you can change the color of the display and the ipod control is really easy to use. It sounds pretty good too, but there are so many eq adjustments that it's hard to get it perfect. I can't really get the highs to sound good, but I'm still on stock speakers so I'm sure once I get them swapped out for some Boston's they should sound a lot better.

very good. just shy of great.

I ended up with this unit because I wanted rear usb and amber illumination. At the time I did not need all of the features but have used them here and there after a vehicle swap. As far as audio control goes I think the basic settings are great. However at this price point and this being "flagship" (starts excelon starting with a 9) there are audio features found in the past that are gone. A larger number of EQ bands, or even better, having the same number but the bands being parametric would be much more useful. Having time alignment is great but if the unit allowed filtering for a true active setup, ie hp/bp/lp the flexibility would be much greater. I would be using it now in fact but I kept my front stage passive because I didn't want to add any external processing.
I am all for the sleek look manufacturers are going for but the lack of preset buttons is annoying. I don't listen to the radio often but when i do I hate having to go into a menu to scan presets. The same menu system works very well for mp3 playback via usb. The control routine is similar to an ipod.
I didnt have much luck with the hands free via bluetooth. It could have been my mic placement but callers couldn't understand me. I do love playing audio from my phone via BT but it becomes a issue when I get a call.
One of the most notable features is the variable illumination. I havent messed with this from anyone else so i cant compare. Kenwood gives you i believe 6 or 7 preset choices that are easy and may suit most. Then you can go into user and set the r, g, and b on your own. I believe each gos from 0 to 10, it may be 6 i dont recall. I honestly wish there were more digits to fine tune a tad more. On my bmw I ws able to get close enough but not perfect on my escape it was hard to tell if it were different. so I give this feature a 9 out of 10. it is pretty easy to do and allows combo of negative and positive displays that can toggle with dimmer. Which brings me to my number one gripe. The display is terrible. Off angle a positive orange on black is washed out orange on brown. In sunlight it is nothing but black. Allowing the display to go to a negative (orange background black text) when the lights were off ie day helped a bit but was still pretty bad. IIRC the jvc units that have variable illumination use more of an OEL type display. if this is the case, kenwood needs to step up their game. This is a $250+ head unit in 2010 that is just as hard to read as a $120 deck in 2002. The feature is great if they can get the visibility to go with it. Over all I would buy this deck again. I am just being critical so people know what the shortcomings are.

Worth it

I went from a cheap 2005 Sony head unit to this & this one made a huge difference in sound. My polk db's sound a lot louder. It has lots of adjustments. Bt is clear & easy to set up.

Fantastic features and sound quality

This unit is not without its cons, however, whatever flaws there exist, they're heavily outweighted by the pros.

Let's start with the good:

1. The 2-way crossover points are very refined. You start with 30Hz and can go in increments of 10Hz into 100s. The slope options are also plentiful: 6dB, 12dB, 18dB, and 24dB.

2. You can turn off the subwoofer channel. This helps with tuning speakers.

3. Bass boost, sub volume, highway sound, and supreme+ features.

4. Digital Time Alignment. This feature is usually seen only on high end audio equipment. It's a nice touch to see it on a $250 head unit. This feature is badly documented and presets on my head unit were wrong. However, you can use it to accomplish some pretty good results. I have delayed the rear speakers by about 20ms creating a nice "rear fill" surround effect. And also delayed the closest speaker to the driver to shift the sound stage to the center of the dash board.

5. Bright 4-line display with configurable text fields and colors. Now I can see the song name, artist name, time, track time, track number, cell phone battery charge and reception quality all at the same time. Isn't this cool?

6. The USB port is attached to a cable on the rear of the head unit. This is really nice because I hate seeing wires and USB flash keys sticking from the front of HU.

7. Overall look is pretty clean..

8. Browsing through large music collections on USB media is pretty easy. It's based on folders, so if your music is well organized you'll have no problems finding things.

9. There are other features that I haven't had time to figure out yet, such as the "favorites" which is supposed to bypass the complex menu system.

10. The bluetooth hands free phone calling feature works flawlessly

Now bad things:

1. A lot of advanced functionality is hidden in the menus. It takes some time to get used to the menu system.

2. Bluetooth phones take about 15-20seconds to sync with the receiver once its turned on. This may interrupt whatever you're doing with the head unit at the moment.

3. The 1,2,3,4..6 button's for radio station presets are gone.

4. The Kenwood Media Ediotor Lite software screws up tags that foreign character sets. So I just don't use this software.

5. I wish this receiver had support for 5.1 audio processing with stereo sources with Dolby ProLogic or similar technology (ok, ok.. I know that pretty much no one else is supporting this either).

6. Sometimes the display is not visible in bright sunlight. However, this is not a problem if you reverse the color of the text and background.

All in all this head unit is a terrific value, and probably so will be the upcoming x995. There is simply NO OTHER receiver that has the features that I absolutely demanded, which are:

1. REAR USB port
2. Bluetooth phone support
3. Digital time alignment

There are plenty head units that satisfy only two of the above. Oh, and some Alpine Head units may have those features, but you're gonna have to spend over $500 on them, with the add-ons.