It's nice to see that this unit is still eliciting conversation. Prowler573 and I traded notes in this
CA thread last year. I used the XXV-01D for three months and loved it. However, I was curious about active speaker setups and thus had to switch to other head-units/processors capable of giving me 3-way or even 4-way configs. But I did nicely tuck the XXV-01D away if I ever wanted to revisit using passive speaker setups again.
Well, after a year I have to say that it's still one of the best SQ units I've ever listened to. (And I've owned and sold off about 20 head units in my 20 years of this hobby.) It's quite a underrated unit amongst the Car Audio community. Pic below from last year.
Prowler573,
Long time no talk on this forum! Hope you replaced your XXV-01D with another one? Hey, I'm redoing my system again and abandoning active setups and moving on to a 5.1 DVD-V and DVD-Audio/Navigation setup. There's a couple of HU I'm considering but I'm leaning towards Kenwood again -- their XXV-05V to be exact. I've read all the specs and "reviews" but wanted to check if you knew anything special about this unit.
You alluded that Kenwood in recent past dropped the ball on quality but improved them with 2005 Excelon/25th Anniv units. I'm still a little worried about their track record considering that I see a number of Refurbished/Re-manufactured Excelon (including 25th Anniv.) units out on the web. A little daunting since the XXV-05V would cost me ~$1.5-2.0K new. Can you tell me what specific problems their previous units had and have you heard of any current problems? Thanks.