my new head unit (1 Viewer)

landtank

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• Jan 28, 2006

• #1

I've had a Rocford/Fosgate RFX-9400 for a few years now. I got it for it's MP3 ability and bought it cheap on line. While it sounds good the MP3 ability sucks. You need to burn disks at 12x but not all burners will work. It only reads a few disks that I've bought and then it's picky as all hell. It will never play song #31, I don't get this at all. It pops during playback which I think is the emulsion layer thing. So I got fed up with it and went on the hunt for a new cheap head unit.

My criteria was as follows:

MP3 ability
high output, no amps going on this thing
flip down face to help keep out dirt
no glamour display, something simple
sub output

oh and did I mention cheap, well reasonably cheap.

Went hunting on EBay last night and got this unit

Kenwood KDC-X589

Pretty much fills the bill, hopefully it will sound reasonably well.

 

Trunk Monkey

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• Jan 28, 2006

• #2

Very nice. I've been looking at the deck right above that, the 689, but haven't seen any on Ebay for cheap. Let see some pics once you get it installed.

 

shocker

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• Jan 28, 2006

• #3

I've seen those in person, and liked them in line with your reason #4. Simple design, nothing too blingy.

Be sure to take pics when it's installed, as I know I'd appreciate them.

 

landtank

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• Jan 29, 2006

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• #4

I'll post up the install pics, should be next weekend.

From what I can see the X689 is basically the same unit with a different display and $40.00 more. I personally don't need all the info that display provides and the smaller text would give me some issues with these tired eyes.

With all the high end threads on what to put in to replace the stock unit I thought I'd post up a more value orientated choice.

 

Cattledog

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• Jan 29, 2006

• #5

I just bought a head unit over at Wally world. The brand is Duel made by Pioneer. I plays MP3, WMA, CD. The unnit has preamp outputs and a auxillary input in the back of the unit. It gets great reception on both AM and FM. The unit is rated for 200W max and 80 W nominal. For the price it was impossible to beat. $88 with two 5.25" speakers. I put it in my DD a corolla wagon, could not be happier for the money. The only down side is the brightness of the display, way too bright at night. The units are on closeout from christmas. I am just up the road from you if you want to hear the setup. I have been wanting to see you truck in person anyways.

 

apcoleman

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• Jan 29, 2006

• #6

A friend of mine has that unit in his jeep. He likes it and has never complained about it.

 

landtank

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• Jan 29, 2006

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• #7

Cattledog said:

I just bought a head unit over at Wally world. The brand is Duel made by Pioneer. I plays MP3, WMA, CD. The unnit has preamp outputs and a auxillary input in the back of the unit. It gets great reception on both AM and FM. The unit is rated for 200W max and 80 W nominal. For the price it was impossible to beat. $88 with two 5.25" speakers. I put it in my DD a corolla wagon, could not be happier for the money. The only down side is the brightness of the display, way too bright at night. The units are on closeout from christmas. I am just up the road from you if you want to hear the setup. I have been wanting to see you truck in person anyways.

Click to expand...

Ya we should get together for a beer. One nice thing about Kenwood is they do rate their amps in rms which for this amp is 22w rms. The whole peak rating is convoluted. You could have only 18w rms and still peak at 50w which is the same as this 22w rms unit's peak. That was one of my reasons for this deck, I wanted enough power in the deck to avoid external amps.

 

landtank

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• Feb 4, 2006

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• #8

I installed the head unit today. Since I had already installed an aftermarket unit I only had to cut in the new harness into the old one so not much trouble there. This is probably more common than I thought, but there mounting holes for the factory bracket where part of the new unit.

As far as the sound goes I like it better than the Rockford Fosgate and I thought that was pretty good. The scroling text reads the tags on the MP3 files which is nice as you can select how the tags are displayed. So far every disk that I've put into it works, which is a nice change from the old unit. I'll know better on how it performs on the road next week.

Attached are a couple pics of the installed unit.