Kenwood KIV-701

Best yet for sound!

I have allways ben a Sony man but all my buddys say that this deck was the best yet for control and sound out put for its price. They were right i am restoring a 1989 GMC Jimmy A.K.A BruZer and this makes it look clean and the sound got me in trouble with my lady. (she wants one now) The install was easy if you know electrical and the mounting was rough and stabel just in case i need to go off road. also the Pandora radio is great if you get tierd of your iPod or music device. so i would recomend it if you want something for an suv but i dont know how it would sound in a car yet!!!

Would be awesome with a Firmware fix.

Could be awesome with some tweaking of the firmware, but it doesn't look like Kenwood is issuing an update any time soon (if ever).

Pros:
- 18 station radio favorites list
* Persistent memory does not have to be reset when unit is unplugged
- USB hub and card reader compatible for up to 3 devices (** See cons.)
- 5 line display plus album art
- variable button illumination with autodimming
- rearview camera input (** see cons.)
- extensive audio control and EQ options
- 6 preouts, plus option to disable internal amp
- RDS and traffic alerts

Cons:
- No attenuate option on player, must use remote
- rotary knob does not register all clicks unless clicked slowly
- menu navigations can get exceedingly repetitive/laborious even to do simple things
- limited display options when using custom wallpaper
- speaker "pop" between EVERY single MP3 track
- doesn't preload USB until USB source is selected, resulting in wait times as it reads drive
- doesn't preload (queue) up the next song, resulting in wait times between sequential tracks
- doesn't actually load multiple USB sources at once, but rather requires a "port switching" menu action, and then wait for the device to be read
- if the player is turned off while playing from port 2 or 3, it will revert to file #1 on port 1 when the player is turned back on

Great Headunit!

I bought the Kenwood KDC-X996 from another place and returned it after I messed around with the 701 in a buddies car. This headunit is a great buy and sounds really good. I have had Kenwoods in the past, so it was easy for me to set up/install. I plan to purchase new door speakers, but it makes 10 year old speakers sound a lot better than the Pioneer that was in my car. The display on this 701 is very nice also for a single din unit.

It brings up a nice display when I use my iPhone/ipod with the direct connect cable. The time alignment is a bit tricky to set up, but it just takes some patience and a little messing around. The DSP is nice and allows you to talor your sound for your size of vehicle.

The park safety wire was a PITA to tap into the parking brake wire, but that was just cause I didnt want to pull my center console out, so I did it the hard way with minimal space.

I would recommend this to anyone. It's a great sounding, great looking deck. The 996 just had too many EQ's to set and didnt have the nice crisp display/ease of setup this has.

Its ok

This radio works great in my 2003 330ci... but there is a catch..you have to have a special cord in order to use a ipod with it (KCA-IP202) make sure you get that as well.

Great Headunit

The color key selection was a big plus once i found the exact colors as my interior lights. running two sets of rca cables to a sub amp and running all four speakers of this works perfectly and sounds great. Settings and the features are easy to get the hang of and fine tune your setup. Accessory option KCA-IP202 is required if you would like to hookup a iphone which pulls the audio through the charge cable versus plugging a aux cord to the top of your iphone.

Great product! Works Great

Product was easy to install and works wonderfully! Couldn't be more pleased.