Kenwood KDC-BT852HD

Good value

I like this radio and all it's features. My only gripe is that everything is controlled basically by one knob. There is a learning curve to figure out how to use this radio. I installed this in my truck which doesn't have the smoothest ride, it gets a little challenging to work that knob when you are moving. I'm sure it a car it would be a lot easier.

Kenwood kdc-bt852hd radio review

This radio does everything I'd ever want. Great sound, easy to use considering all of its features. I couldn't be happier. The one thing I would add if I were the designer would be to add a mute button but that is very minor.

Excellent Stereo

Just finished in stalling in my 2002 Grand Prix GTP along with the Axxess ASWC-1. The stereo sounds great with the Bose speakers I have in the car and the interface is easy to learn as long as you look over the manual a little. I have no problems going through the menus on the stereo. The Blue tooth streaming works great with my iPhone 4 and I use the XM radio, Pandora, and iHeart radio AP for listening. The Blue tooth phone works great and I sound good when talking to my wife on the cell. I installed the microphone on the sun visor. This is my 3rd Kenwood car stereo I haven't had any problems with them. The steering wheel control, adaptor was a easy hook up since the Kenwood already has a wire designated for it. This is one excellent sounding system. I highly recommend this stereo

Nice, but probably should have got the 752

I just installed this yesterday so I am still learning but have some initial thoughts. This is a highly capable unit and packs a lot of technology into a small package. That is both good and bad.

Pros:
Plenty of power (for me); lots of customization with colors, EQ settings, etc; iPod, HD, BT streaming, Pandora, Sirius-XM... lots of ways to get you music going; good BT phone quality and function.

Cons:
Mostly ergonomics. All the pros mentioned above stuffed into a single DIN needs great ergonomics and this is very difficult to achieve. First this radio does not have dedicated radio buttons. Everything, including radio station selection is menu driven via the single control knob. It works, but there is going to be a learning curve to get good enough to do much, like even selecting stations, whilst driving. You can't just feel for the buttons and cycle through them with your eyes on the road.

Also, the other small function buttons surrounding the main control knob are just that... small. For someing like me with big hands it is difficult to say, hit only the escape/back button w/o also hitting something else.

With the limited space for dedicated buttons there are some less than obvious sequences and button combinations needed to say, answer or reject a call waiting. I am not sure I am even going to worry ablout trying to learn those.

Also, the display is not highly visible in bright daylight. You can work around this by changing the color. Some are much better in daylight than others.

As for durability, I can't say much but bring your attention back to the single control knob that you need for everything. If that breaks you don't just lose a couple of radio station presets, your radio will be a paperweight.

So if I had it to do again i would probably get the BT752.

But it sounds great and i am sure I'll get better at operating it.

Great Product for the Price

This Kenwood receiver does a great job with radio, CD and Bluetooth inputs in my '05 Sonata.

I mainly bought this product to be able to use Bluetooth from my android and after some quick setup I was easily sending signals to the receiver from my phone. One downfall is that sometimes the sync between the phone and device gets screwed up and I need to restart the phone to get things working again. Another annoyance is that connecting via USB was not very successful (I think it is more geared towards iPhones).

But overall this receiver is a great product for not much money at all, especially considering the HD radio receiver and ability to use it for Bluetooth calls.

Awesome radio

This radio can and will do it all you want at a good price. I have it in an over-the-road Kenworth truck. It hardly skips the cd and has all the bell and whistles you want.

Almost a great head unit

Menus are convoluted and non intuitive at best. Support is nonexistent from kenwood because they say Internet retailers are not authorized dealers. They will never put out a software upgrade for the single din head units.

In all fairness sound quality was spectacular once I got it dialed in. The rest that went along with it just soured me on this manufacturer. There are other similar head units out there that have 5 band parametric eqs for the same money. 3 is ok but 5 is better.

kenwood #1

Best kenwood head unit made and so many new features. I love it, strongly recommend and easy to use!

Very nice headunit

Definitely one of the best looking headunits in this price range. Comes with all the RCA pre outputs, USB input, AUX input, 22 watts RMS x 4; can't complain. It does take some getting used to as the buttons are few and everything is controlled with one knob; it does however come with a remote and I've just gotten used to using that instead.

Great Unit

I've installed three of these units. I was so pleased with the one I installed in my brother's truck, I got one for my son's vehicle, and another for a new truck that I recently purchased. The remote microphone works well; those I'm talking to don't know I'm talking to them from the vehicle. The handy search button changes function depending on what source you are listening to. For example, if you are listening to your iPod, the search button allows you to look through your iPod content. If you press it when listening to Pandora, it allows you to scroll through your stations.