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HEAD UNITS
Every so often, it’s good to step outside of experts and see how products are really used and if they’re appreciated. While I’ve had many people in the industry over the years refer to their teenage aged sons and daughters as "normal" consumers, nothing could be further from the truth. There’s nothing "normal" about a relative of someone who works in the industry — they just get information differently and, like it our not, their view will always be skewed.
So, we chose Jennifer to review this product, first and foremost, because she’s not related to, dating, or affiliated, with someone in the industry. She was picked because she’s 18, attends college, and is popular. She’s into music and like electronics because they provide a way to get to the music. She has no brand that she would pick out above another and really looks for something to "work properly" for her to be interested in it as a product. Other than that, she had no preconceived notions or expectations toward and brand before we placed the Kenwood Excelon KDC-X759 head unit in her vehicle.
Performance Expectations
Jennifer, like most teenagers, likes a wide variety of music, but her favorites are mostly dance and techno orientated. She listens mostly to radio and CD’s, but she’ll download MP3’s for the specific reason of seeing if they’re something that she would want to purchase. Different than the notion that all teenagers simply download music, she wants to buy CD’s even though she’s fully equipped with everything she needs to deal with MP3 — a high speed Internet connection, a CD burner, and a fast processor. The reason she gives for not using MP3’s is that they’re low quality and that CD’s sound better. When asked about the most important features of a radio, Jennifer said that it should work like it is supposed to — she hates when products promise performance and then don’t work. In regards to the KDC-X759, Jennifer liked things such as the look of the radio and how it fit in the dash, but how it worked was the most important thing.
In The Car And On The Scene
So, in the car went the radio and off to normal life went Jennifer. We let her run around with the KDC-X759 for a couple weeks and then had her come back to give us some feedback as to what she liked and what she didn’t. The news was good for Kenwood — the radio was a hit with Jennifer’s friends and, surprising to me, was the fact that they all really loved the graphics (something that, as a jaded car audio guy, you wonder if it’s really liked, or just marketing hype).
Another big hit was the flip face, which Kenwood calls their D Maskt Motorized selfhiding removable faceplate — Jennifer said it was awesome and her friends liked it, but the best thing about it was that she didn’t have to take the face with her when she went places. She liked that she could take the face off, but, also, liked the fact she didn’t have too all the time.
Another unaided comment was about the color option in the face plate — she especially liked the purple, as green is one of her and her friends least favorite colors.
The only downfall in the head unit was something that I also find lacking on a lot of head units, and was surprised that it was something she noted. She showed me the remote, which she liked, but then noted that the remote was the only way to mute the radio. She mentioned that she needed to mute the radio to answer her phone and that finding the remote and answering the phone was not really safe, so a face-mounted way to mute the radio would be preferable to her. Beyond that one small item, she had no complaints.
When it came to radio performance, she stated that it worked exactly as she expected it should and the CD’s sound good on it. This, of course, falls in line with the fact that she expected performance, so a lack of it would influence her to never buy the brand, and tell her friends the same. She stated that she has to have music all of the time and that the factory options never seemed good enough. This radio met her expectation and she was very pleased with it, which is a glowing recommendation in context of her expectations.
So, the final result? I took a brand new aftermarket CD radio of a competitive brand out of Jennifer’s 2002 Civic LX, and now she wants to know how to keep the Kenwood KDC-X759. I can think of no better compliment or approval!
Price & Contact: $550; 1-800-KENWOOD, www.kenwoodusa.com.
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