Kenwood DDX418

Kenwood DDX-418

Bought this item and installed it in our 2000 Nissan Frontier as part of a very large system. I also own a Kenwood DNX-9140 with all the bells and whistles, however didnt want the same for this project. Overall it is a great unit for the price. Hard to beat the 4 volt preouts on a HU at this price point. System Q's crossover etc. is the same as in my DNX-9140, a pleasant suprise. If using the deck to power speaker it has plenty of power.
Some of the cons are...no included remote, front USB connection requires an addition cable to work, and the Bluetooth operation is via another USB in the rear of the unit. I feel it should have been built into the unit rather than wasting a USB connection. No option for Pandora might turn some off. Install was picture perfect and no worries. For the money I couldnt find another that I liked better.

Great Stereo/Bad Blue Tooth

This is a great product to add to any vehicle. I put this in my daughters 01 honda accord and it looks and sounds great. Putting the stereo and steering wheel controls in was way easy and probably could be done in about 3 hours depending on how you make the connections to the existing harness.

Kenwood DDX418 DVD Receiver

Very pleased with this product install for my 2005 chevy cobalt. Install was a breeze with the proper harness as an accessory (highly recommended). Screen clarity is a little above average, very pleased with it. Pro's: Bluetooth microphone is included as well as bluetooth chip (plugs into a female usb cord attatched to the rear of the deck enabling you to sync your smartphone with it's phonebook). Cons. usb stick must be plugged in the front of the deck in order to use it. Kenwood should have eliminated the bluetooth chip as they should have built it internally, and the bluetooth cable provided (has usb connection) should have been for the stick so i can hide it in my glove box). another con is that there is a slight delay when browsing through songs on disc/usb stick. All in all a 4/5 Deck.

Not too shabby

I have had this cd player for about a week now and over all its a great CD player (I would underline CD if I could). IT plays CDs perfectly, and also plays DVDs rather well, although without the remote, you can't go to any different menus on the DVD itself, you can only click play then click "next" till you get to where you want to be. Also, a huge downside is that you NEED the special, $30 ipod cable for your ipod to work properly. I didn't think it would be too bad ill I received it and its HUGE!!! no hiding that bad boy, way too thick to tuck between any panels or anything.
That brings us to the actual playback and connectivity of the ipod itself...pretty bad. You can't search through your ipod, you just have to scroll through all your artists until you find the one you want. It also throws up random artwork for random artists. (I have a brand new, 64 gig ipod touch 4th gen) It plays the ipod fine though so I guess thats really all that matters but its a real bummer that its that difficult to navigate since thats my main source of music. You can put it in to ipod manual mode so you control the ipod from the ipod itself, BUT, when you listen to music, the screen is blank! no artist info, artwork, NOTHING when in manual mode.
This also lack personal features like background customizations and whatnot. Yes you can change the background, but you can only store 1 image at a time. There is only one stock background image. You can't change how the artist info is displayed at all.
Finally, the Bluetooth. Not quite as bad as some reviews I've read, but not that great. But hey, the its only 30 bucks more than the non Bluetooth model, I'd say its worth that. I'm still trying to find the best place for the mic though.
So overall, I wouldn't really suggest getting this, I've used kenwood for years and this is the first time they have actually disappointed me. I actually wish I would have bought the pioneer avh-3300bt. My buddy has it and its way better laid out, more features, better customization. This cd player is really nothing more than a lower end kenwood head unit (which is still a great CD player) with a screen.

favorite headunit yet

The graphics of this are really good. Works great with iPhones, including the iPhone 4S.

Terrible Bluetooth

Nice unit with good sound and easy menu navigation. I concur with the other reviews that the unit is extremely bright at night without much ability to dim. This is a nice unit if you don’t need Bluetooth telephone and don’t care about crappy Kenwood service if you have a problem.

The Bluetooth microphone is the Achilles heel for this unit. It was terrible from the start. The unit is only one week old and when talking to anyone on the Bluetooth telephone, they can barely hear you and the sound is extremely tinny. It is so bad, that virtually every other word is unintelligible. I had the unit professionally installed and the mic put near the rear view mirror.

So I am returning the unit and am going to buy a different brand.

Great buy!

We purchsed this Kenwood DDX418 to replace the stock unit it works great, do recommend.