SOUND: Pioneer 6800 VS Kenwood Excelon X590

[vincentp83 10+ year member]

I'm really caught up buying a head unit. I've always bought Pioneer in the past, and liked them, but this time I actually want to do more research. I'm more interested in sound quality than anything else. I don't care so much about how the thing looks (Though it helps), whether it has USB or iPod support, satellite radio, etc. I just want something that sounds great and gives me the ability to tailor my sound the way I like it.

I went to a local store and took a listen to some different HUs. The ones that sounded the best IMO were the Pioneers and Sonys. I was not able to test Alpine or Kenwood because they just didn't sell them. These are two brands I would really like to hear for myself. I did however test out an Eclipse CD3000 unit, which I've heard are very nice, and it sounded terrible to my ears. The sound was really hollow and obnoxious. I thought maybe the sound just needed to be tailored, but looking at the HU's specs, it only has a 3-band EQ. Eh. Maybe I have a strange ear?

For the record, most of my music is on MP3/WMA discs. I have a set of alpine 6.5" coaxial speakers, I don't use a seperate amp and I don't run subs, though I may add some inexpensive subs and an amp in the future.

The two units I'm leaning towards at the moment are the Pioneer 6800 and the Kenwood Excelon X590. They both cost about the same, but have different appeal. Here's what I've noticed about them:

PIONEER

+7-Band Graphic EQ

+Selectable Loudness levels

+Compression and BMX functions

KENWOOD

+Speaker settings

+System Q-EX Sound Control

+24-bit Burr-Brown converter

Notice I only really picked the features that deal with sound quality and adjustment. Assuming that, what other options are there for me in the 180-230 price range? What would you pick, and why? It's rough for me trying to pick out the unit with the best sound quality when I can't listen to all of them, and people tend to be not so useful when answering my questions. If you think I should buy a specific unit, please tell me why you think so. Remember, I want kickass sound, not pretty graphics or ten thousand worthless features.

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[yacob.naif 10+ year member]

prices of each?

you'd be fine with the kenwood, and they sound great, but if the pioneer's less expensive, i'd get it.

 

[vincentp83 10+ year member]

The price difference is negligible, if any. I think they're within 10 bucks of each other. I forgot to mention, the other unit I've looked at is the older Kenwood Excelon X889. This thing has a ton of sound features including SRS WOW enhancement. It seems like it's a little tough to find, but if I could get my hands on one of these, would it be an even better choice than what I'm already looking at? The only thing I worry about here is getting an installer (I trust a few of the installers at my local circuit city) that would have the wiring harness and kits for this, since CC doesn't even sell Kenwood, would they have the parts available to install it? Or would I be able to purchase them somewhere online?

 

[yacob.naif 10+ year member]

i'd rather have the burr browns over the extra features of the 889.

the burr browns were only in the xxv-01d last year.

i've played with the srs stuff in my car, but it doesn't do anything you can't do with the eq.

and the 24bit DAC's are AMAZING.

 

[yacob.naif 10+ year member]

oh, but i digress, if you're gonna listen to mp3's most of the time, get the 889, since you wont be using the DAC's anyays.

and then you may as well have the extra functions

 

[yacob.naif 10+ year member]

and.... for the record....

mp3's and wma's on the excellons sound WAY better than burning mp3's to an audio cd and then playing them.

the decoders are really really nice.

honestly a big difference. Plus, 10+ hours of music on a disc FTW!

 

[Ford302Redneck 10+ year member]

Kenwood>Pioneer

 

[MBrock4u 10+ year member]

Pioneer head units are nice but I prefer the excelon line. SQ is amazing. as mentioned the burr brown dac is incredible. I love my Excelon. If you really want a beauty, try to get a hold of the 25th anniversary unit. I would like to have that one myself.

 

[vincentp83 10+ year member]

Ok, so my gut feeling was telling me to try the Excelon series and that seems to be the concensus. Doesn't the X889 have the Burr-Brown converter too? The Crutchfield archives show it in their research section. That's the one I'm leaning towards right now.

 

[yacob.naif 10+ year member]

maybe it does, i may have been thinking of the x990

 

[Bdawg15 10+ year member]

if u choose the x590, here's a good place to buy from for only $160 with free ground shipping //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

http://www.millionbuy.com/kenkdcx590.html

 

[MrSwiss 10+ year member]

i bought my x790 from millionbuy, great seller, best price i could find.

 

[Prowler573 5,000+ posts]

i'd rather have the burr browns over the extra features of the 889.
the burr browns were only in the xxv-01d last year.

i've played with the srs stuff in my car, but it doesn't do anything you can't do with the eq.

and the 24bit DAC's are AMAZING.

Where in the world did you come across this incredibly idiotic information????

The KDC-X679 ('04 model eXcelon HU) that I ran before I upgraded to an XXV-01D had Burr-Brown DACs in it and that was from two model years prior to the 25th Anniversary gear's introduction.

Many other eXcelon HUs had it as well. The XXV-01D was simply the best non-DVD HU Kenwood offered for '05. But it was nowhere near the only unit they built with Burr-Brown DACs //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fyi.gif.9f1f679348da7204ce960cfc74bca8e0.gif

 

[explorer2 10+ year member]

my 889 has burr browns, sounds excellent. I seriously doubt that anything could even get close to it for the price I paid. There are so many different settings to get it to sound the way you want or you can just use presets. It took awhile to set it to my liking with alot of trial and error on the eq, but the memory feature makes it very easy to get it till you like it, save it and then compare with other settings until you get it just right.

 

[vincentp83 10+ year member]

I went ahead and purchased an X889. I seriously doubt that I won't be happy with it, I seem to be hearing only great things about the Kenwood Excelon decks and this thing has features out the ***. I'll be back to review it briefly after I install it //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif