A little help

[justsayk 10+ year member]

Yeah, i know i asked the same thing in the HU section, but that doesn't get a lot of traffic. I am thinking about doing a little upgrade in the HU department (have a panasonic right now and i'm not that happy with it) and i am have it narrowed down to three decks, all of which will be comming from ebay. Here are the decks:

Kenwood kdc-x679 $169 plus shipping

Pioneer Premier 760mp about 190something plus shipping

and, if i can find one, an eclipse 3424 should be somewhere in the same price range.

If a few of you could give me some opinions on these it would be much appreciated. The Kenwood has some nice features so i'm kind of leaning towards that, but everyone here seems to reccomend pioneer alpine or eclipse. Would really like some opinions on the kenwood. Thanks.

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[Einzee 10+ year member]

My opinion is: Look at the features and if it's a brand you like, well then go ahead and purchase it.

 

[ShakinSupra 10+ year member]

I've had problems with a lot of Kenwood HUs in the past, but I think the Pioneer and Eclipse are good choices. A buddy of mine has that Pioneer, it's a pretty nice HU, if you want something a little flashier, I'd go with the Pioneer, the Eclipse probably has a little better SQ, isn't so flashy, and is a little more simple to operate.

Personally, I'd go with Eclipse.

 

[justsayk 10+ year member]

what kind of problems did you have with the kenwoods? One of my friends had one for about 4 years and then the display went out. 4 years for a deck is pretty decent though. The nearest eclipse dealer to where i live is a couple hours away...what about buying a used eclipse off ebay? I found a few cd5423's in the 200 range. Anyone know much about this deck?

 

[justsayk 10+ year member]

also, that pioneer looks pretty sweet, but the kenwood, which is going for cheaper on ebay, has 5v pre-outs and opposed to the 2v on the pioneer. The kenwood also has 24 bit burr brown DAC...theoretically, the kenwood should sound pretty nice. Anyway, thanks for your help guys, keep the comments comming.

 

[ShakinSupra 10+ year member]

On the Kenwoods, mostly problems with the face, one just stopped putting out sound, a couple had the flip face and stopped flipping over right or the face just burned out, another friend of mine has one and his volume control doesn't work right anymore.

The 24-bit DAC is a really nice feature to have in a cheaper HU though, Eclipse HUs supposedly sound really nice, but I don't really have any personal experience with them..

 

[justsayk 10+ year member]

well, after doing some research it seems like a lot of people have had something go wrong with either their display or the volume knob or both. That kinda sucks because the kenwood has everything i want and the price is right. There are a few eclipse 5423's on ebay right now...only problem is that model doesn't play mp3's. Anyone have some other suggestions in the $200 range?

 

[justsayk 10+ year member]

how about a clarion DXZ745MP? dual 24 bit DAC's. 4 volt non-fading preout. I am kind of confused about the dual zone preouts though. I'm assuming i can hook up my 2 channel amp to the "front zone" pre outs, and hook my sub amp up to the non fading preout. I can't really find much info about the dual zone preouts other than the fact that they are there. doesn't say if they are 4 volt as well or anything. Looked in the manual and it didn't help much either. 728 different color options for the display sounds pretty sweet though...here's a link to their site... http://www.clarion.com/usa/product/index.php?mod=details&category=proaudio&product=DXZ745MP#