my kenwood 12" subs rock out.... as did my kenwood 6x9's, and my mates kenwood head unit. Why doesnt anyone like them?
i can understand not liking sony......

Ok, here's a task for you. Go out to your car audio shop (not your ****ty retailers) and have a listen to their demo cars with Morel speakers, Image Dynamic subs, Audison Amplifiers, Dynaudio, Phoenix Gold

whats wrong with kenwood?

Nothing, they are a great mixer and the grater attachment is tops too. lol lol

See the Brissy sound off results, I've got a kenwood head unit and stocko speakers. :D

whats wrong with kenwood?

Nothing, they are a great mixer and the grater attachment is tops too. lol lol

See the Brissy sound off results, I've got a kenwood head unit and stocko speakers. :D

Didn't you get like 121dB? How, how'd you get 121dB with just speakers and no sub?

Didn't you get like 121dB? How, how'd you get 121dB with just speakers and no sub?

121.8

I think I mighta farted lol lol lol

Thats all shes got, even used the stocko speaker wire. :D

121.8

I think I mighta farted lol lol lol

Thats all shes got, even used the stocko speaker wire. :D

It's good and weird at the same time, as I know someone with a 12" pioneer sub and all they got were 122dB

It's good and weird at the same time, as I know someone with a 12" pioneer sub and all they got were 122dB


Maybe he should try Baked Beans. :bowrofl:

I got nothin hidden just what I said. :)

Maybe he should try Baked Beans. :bowrofl:

I got nothin hidden just what I said. :)

Yeah, nah I believe you. Just weird that's all.

Ok, here's a task for you. Go out to your car audio shop (not your ****ty retailers) and have a listen to their demo cars with Morel speakers, Image Dynamic subs, Audison Amplifiers, Dynaudio, Phoenix Gold
Yeah, and then ask them how much those Morel's, ID's, Audison's, Dynaudio's and PG's cost.

Not everyone can live in the realm of high end audio. :nuts:

Yeah, and then ask them how much those Morel's, ID's, Audison's, Dynaudio's and PG's cost.

Not everyone can live in the realm of high end audio. :nuts:

He didn't say anything about cost now did he?

Kenwood make awesome gear. Even alongside high end competition cars.

I know the winner of Pro Street '05 was using a kenwood headunit. (I was just out having a beer with him)

As with all equipment they have their crap end and their high end.

Bottom line, you get what you pay for.

Peace

Tim

The higher-end Kenwood stuff is fine. As Tim says, it's good stuff; however

Most people like Kenwood and inevitably go out and buy the $180 head unit, the 4" coaxials for the front and the 6x9's in the rear, coupled with a 60WRMS amp to power it all, and expect to run it like a competition system!

Said 60W amp kills 4" speakers within a few months. I've known one set to last a week. The 6x9's usually soak up the power but sound crappy afte a while. The the head unit buttons seem to start failing, I know of 2 that had total failures of all buttons. Magnat knows of another where the CD eject button failed, he swapped one in from an old pioneer deck and it's worked fine since.

As for subs, I saw a pair of their 12" 'tornado' subs delaminate their cones from the surround only about a week ago. This is with only about 200W going into each of them, no clipping, just straight out glue failure at less than 6 months of use, followed by the voice coils shorting and then burning. They were always in the boot, the car always garaged, no sunlight or heat damage at all. I didn't post it up as the Kenwood Hate threads have been killed off pretty quickly in the past by the Mods.

I've just had so many bad experiences with Kenwood gear, I will not use it, or even help out anyone with it. I send them straight back to the retailler they got it from for a warranty claim, if only to save me doing it.

That said, once you get to the $800 25th Anniversary Kenwood 6.5" splits (lovely as they are), you are getting into some serious pricing territory, and you have so many options starting to open to you - Focal, Hertz, Boston, Diamond, MB Quart, Pheonix Gold, Vibe, RE Audio, there are just so many. Same goes for the rest of the range, HU's, subs, amps. Better quality at the same or lesser price.. Just better value elsewhere.

About the only good thing Kenwood has going for itself is that is is available almost everywhere (Autobarn, Supercheap, Strathfield etc etc plus all the lower end car audio places) and has a good brand recognition.

Hopefully, this post will not attract too much attention of the mods.... :shifty:

I seen kenwood speakers, brand new being underpowered (but not clipped) melt, on more then 1 occasion.
But then again my Girlfriends kenwood head unit is 3-4 years old and hasn't caused any trouble yet.
I think it comes down to quality really.
And like what tim said, you get what you pay for. I'd rather spend the extra $10 and get pioneer which sound better :P.

Was recently at an autobarn store opening at kawana, they had 2 monaro's there, one with pioneer in it, the other with kenwood. i put my head in the pioneer one and my face just cringed up instantly.... it was loud, but there was absolutly no quality whatsoever! and this was a show car!!! (this car had about $10,000 worth of stereo **** including screens and amps etc...)

so next i walked down to the kenwood car and had a listen and in the cabin, it sounded like being in the boot when someone has standard speakers up as loud as they can go. just muffled and yuck. no distortion though. (this car also had about 10g worth of crap in it)

After this i get into my fiance's camry to go home, with only 4k of eclipse gear in there, and it was just heaven. more bass than the other two, more clarity, the trebile was in the right place, not all over the joint... it was just heaven to your ears. its one of those stereos where you dont have to play it loud enough to make the people around your car ears bleed to enjoy it.

So i spose if you just want loud kenwood is great, but if you want some even half decent (Maybe even 1/8 decent) sound quality, go to a proper audio shop and spend that little bit extra. your ears will thank you.

There 25th anniversary stuff is good but to pricy to compete with other offerings.

The XXV-01D headunit that Tim is taking about is really really good. But I still dont think I would even go with Kenwood. They also have a KFC-XW1300. It is a 13inch 3 + 3 ohm 1000WRMS sub. Looks nasty but then you see the price is well over $1k. :doubt: I can think of at least 10 woofers for the money I would prefer.

I think this sums it up well, went into JB hifi and was looking around and seen a KFC-W300S ( entry level black woofer ) sitting there with the damage report saying " smoke came from woofer after short period of use, " said thing was it wasn't the only one their broken. lol

You get good stuff and bad stuff, I love my Sony 6x9's, they have had 25WRMS then 10WRMS then 22WRMS then 40WRMS then 150WRMS and now 22WRMS again over a 3 - 4 year period and show no sign of expiring anytime soon.

I got a KFC-9020R headunit s/h from a friend and its been brilliant. Its one of the flip around units and not having to remove the face is a blessing. The controls are easy to use, screen is very legible and while I dont use any of the internal amps it sounds very good. It has a vast arrray of adjustments for crossover points and various customisable settings. The only thing I dont like about it is that when you remove power you lose these vast array of settings. I am sure the cheap stuff is crap but that model was pretty expensive and has worked pretty flawlessly.

The 6x9's usually soak up the power but sound crappy afte a while

Very true. My kenwood 6x9's sounded pretty good when i bought them and now they have no bass in them AT ALL.

Next pair of 6x9's im getting are JBL's

Its Basic Product Reliability.. Nothing more Nothing less..

Some People are lucky with their Kenwood Gear and will stick by them BUT
I have Un-installed more Kenwood Gear then any other Brand.
Decks
Subs
Amps
Speakers
All have gone Tits up on their Owners just after the 12month Warranty period.

Thats it.. Plain and Simple...

I have seen some people's Kenwood Gear roast on them during normal use, not abuse..
With their Decks, RCA noise, Jamming CD's and general bad running..
I will not recommend their gear as I have seen too many tears..


I could tell you my experiences but that caused a Great Flame war between two forces..

You either Like Kenwood or you dont..
BOSS is the same, some People have good Luck others dont

Kenwood used to be the shiznit years ago when I was a pimple faced hoon... :think: hold on... what's changed? :shifty:

Isn't it just possible that many installs are just not done properly and done by second rate installers leading to many malfunctions? I have also heard of a few of the big brands failing too, and even in some cases causing fires and the like and this is amongst other big names like Alpine.

its like anything, install it properly, look after it properly and shoudl last a while, otherwise it wont...simple :)

its a kenwood.thats wats wrong wiht it lol. they jus dun do me right for sum reason. cant get the satisfaction out of it. pluz they look cheap :D

Kenwood used to be the shiznit years ago when I was a pimple faced hoon... :think: hold on... what's changed? :shifty:
{sarcasm}
Its just that you got older Neil.. you lost your hooning urges... lol
{/sarcasm}


Isn't it just possible that many installs are just not done properly and done by second rate installers leading to many malfunctions? I have also heard of a few of the big brands failing too, and even in some cases causing fires and the like and this is amongst other big names like Alpine.
Absolutely. Badly installed equipment will die alot sooner due to things like heat due to lack of ventilation, bad power wiring, bad speaker wiring, reversed polarities etc etc.

Everything has a failure rate. It's just that Kenwood seems to have an exponentially higher rate than average. Yes, Alpine HU's have been known to fail, but usually it is something like 0.5% or so. Kenwood's seems to go as high as 25%, and possibily higher.

Most of my arguments against kenwood is the lack of quality of the components they use, and also the shoddy manufacturing of the bits inside. I'm talking about badly machined CD mechanisms that grind themselves into metal shavings and scratch your CD's if you can ever getthem out, RCA connectors that snap off amps, no glue on speakers, low quality wire and varnish on speaker coils that seems to have a half-life of maybe two years. Capacitors in the lower end amps seem to suffer from Capacitor cancer, switches and button on HU's have bad contacts to start with and die, the 4" coaxials are just stupidly fragile with even just a HU powering it at half volume, dry joints right throughout HU's and amps, one amp's PCB scracking and splitting in two....... the list goes on and on.

My Cousin's BF at the time (now hubby) had his totally immaculately restored HZ ute incinerated by his all-Kenwood system. Head unit caught fire when a component (probably a capacitor) exploded. It happened while it was parked in a locked garage, and ignition was off & no key in it. It also caused major damage to the shed. There wasn't much left of anything to do a post mortem on.

That's enough for now

You want to know of a **** brand? Panasonic, there headunits look mad and are great to use but the laser dies quicker than a fat man can eat his cake.

All Companies Have Known reasons for product failure.. As you stated with Panasonic it is the laser unit.. , Boss is Over Heating, With Kenwood, the Reasons and Problems occuring are Sparadic, Unknown and uncalled for, even with Supeior installation, the Equipement Fails, through no fault of the User or Installer..

It is Like The god of Car audio Chooses to Plague Some with Problems with Kenwood while chooses to let others Be Problem free...
Same Can be said about BOSS and SONY but as I have stated, For me and others it has a Way Higher Occurance after 12months then any other Brand..