Kenwood eXcelon KDC-X997

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.

amazing

what i love about this radio is the almost unlimited settings you
can do with the audio and the practical device like voice calling
memory settings (there's one thing important when you've got to
unplugged the battery) overall it's a radio i highly recommend !

Check what you're getting

I bought this head unit for the obvious quality reasons but my friend has the older version (KDC-x994) which bluetoothed anything from your phone (youtube, music, ect). I was really looking forward to it but those features were replaced with the pandora (which must be hard wired to an ipod which is useless without wifi). The only bluetooth remaining is the Handsfree calling. HD radio works very well. Can be pretty slow loading information from a flash drive but you can't expect much from there. If you don't have an ipod, i would recommend a different head unit compatible with your audio device. Over all, i love it.

Excellent product

As a long time car audio and home audio fan, I know that this hobby can get easily expensive very fast. Now that I don't have much time and funds to invest in a full car audio system, I wanted a simple yet solid and capable head unit that won't break the bank and make some decent volume and clean sound.

The amplifier built-in inside is really solid, night and day difference from the stock one. The EQ has enough bands to really make the stock speakers sound clean, regulate the annoying peaks and such as well as the x-overs which I find one of the best features ever, stock speakers running at full range is really bad and useless, stressing them mechanically without any benefits depending on whats playing.

Might have some getting use to though if your not used to an aftermarket head unit. But once you get a hold of it its very easy to use. USB and AUX cant go wrong with those, except the best sound quality will come out the CD player in my opinion, unless you have an excellent source to plug on the aux. I would recommend this product to anyone without a doubt.

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.

head unit

was not what I wanted, so I returned for an exchange

Great Unit

This unit is great, there are alot of settings, if the 59 page manual is read setup will be a breeze, high volt outputs, speaker size and configuration work well, I should tell you I am running the bass through the crossover and my fronts are amped and im using the KDC settings, al in all it is a great setup. I went from always owning pioneer premiers last was a deh-710 which was awesome but the KDC -995 in my opinion beats anything else out there. The price is cheap for what you get, just remember the manual is everything and it does not come with the unit, its a download from Kenwood.

Great

Bought this to replace my factory unit, and I` m glad I did...
This has so many features and tweaks that you can do...
5 band eq is a plus , makes the sound alot better,,, than just having bass & treble controls.....
well worth the money I spent on it