Kenwood KDC-122 Car CD Player
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- Player Type: CD
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81
Music To Your Ears
Pros
Great Sound, Easy to use, lots of useful features
Cons
Lcd can be hard to read in bright light
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
cheap low end cd unit with expensive high end features and sound!
INTRO
I have had my 2003 F-150 for about 6 months now. When i brought the truck it only came with a tape player, so i have been waiting around until i could find the right cd player at the right price, and i think i may have found what i have been looking for!
THE MISSION
Armed with $100 i set out on a mission to find myself a stereo. I headed straight for Ultimate Electronics, i had a look at their website and it said that they offered free same day fitting on any stereos that were priced at $98.95 or above. I asked the sales man what they head for $100 or less, he took me to the Kenwood kdc-122.
THE STEREO
At first glance i thought that there was no way that the Kenwood would be $100 or under. It looks a lot more expensive than that. The stereo looks very sharp indeed! It has a large Lcd display that is very easy to read, all of the controls are neatly laid out and everything is where you would expect it to be. The Kenwood kdc-122 is the company's cheapest model, it does not have any fancy bells or whistles, no removable face plate, no remote control, just a standard cd player, but then you listen to it, and you would never think that this is a low end model!
I don't think ford is known for its great standard fit stereos or speakers and i really didn't think that buying a new stereo for my truck would improve how the speakers sounded, boy was i wrong. The stereo makes my standard fit speakers sound wonderful. Perfect clarity and absolutely zero distortion make listening to this stereo wonderful.
There are 5 different sound settings built into this stereo for example. If you are listening to Jazz music, you can change the setting to accommodate jazz music best, if you are listening to rock, change to rock and the stereo will be best suited to play rock music, or you can custom set the sound just how you like it. The 3 main attributes that you can change are Bass, Treble and mid, so no matter what music you like, the Kenwood can make any type of music sound wonderful. There are also 3 speaker-matching curves. I will admit i am not to sure how this works but supposedly, if you have 6x9's you can change the settings so music will sound better through 6x9's if you have 5x4's you can change the setting to make those sound better too!
All of the usual features are there too. You have the intro scan feature, which enables you to listen to the first 10 seconds of every track on your cd. Random play, hit the random play button and the stereo will pick a random song on the cd to play. Repeat play. If you have a favorite song and want to hear it over and over again this is a good feature and of course, play, pause, re-wind and fast forward are also there. Another feature i was not expecting to be on this player just because of the price is the ability for it to play cd-r's and cdr-w's. So if you are like me and you like to make your own cd's this feature is great!
The Lcd is large and easy to read, especially at night, during the day can be a little tricky though. The background is black and the lettering is white so if there is sun light beaming down on the stereo it is difficult to read. At nighttime the stereo looks fantastic! The black and white look superb, as do the big red buttons on either end of the stereo, it looks real classy.
If you want to build a custom system later on, the Kenwood will allow you to do that. Located on the back there is 1 pre out so you can attach an amp to it in the future
There are 6 presets there so you can store all of your favorite radio stations. Radio reception is extremely good! I have been able to pick up stations in Oklahoma City that i have not heard before. As far as i know (i maybe wrong) but i do not think that there is a seek button on the stereo, only a search! So if you want to go from one end of the frequencies to the other it can take a while, or maybe i am just being stupid, which is more than likely the case!
ROAD TEST
The Roads here in Oklahoma are bad at the best of times, very bumpy! I had a feeling that the cd's would jump every time i hit one of the 19ft deep craters in the highways here but i have been surprised. 98% of the time the cd's just keep going and going and going! Infact i have even tried my hardest to make this thing jump but it very rarely does unless you really hit something hard! i have been really impressed with this!! Way to go Kenwood!
Overall i have been very impressed with the head unit. For $100 you really shouldn't expect much, but with this Kenwood unit you get a whole bunch of features and great quality sound! you really cannot go wrong with this one!
I have had my 2003 F-150 for about 6 months now. When i brought the truck it only came with a tape player, so i have been waiting around until i could find the right cd player at the right price, and i think i may have found what i have been looking for!
THE MISSION
Armed with $100 i set out on a mission to find myself a stereo. I headed straight for Ultimate Electronics, i had a look at their website and it said that they offered free same day fitting on any stereos that were priced at $98.95 or above. I asked the sales man what they head for $100 or less, he took me to the Kenwood kdc-122.
THE STEREO
At first glance i thought that there was no way that the Kenwood would be $100 or under. It looks a lot more expensive than that. The stereo looks very sharp indeed! It has a large Lcd display that is very easy to read, all of the controls are neatly laid out and everything is where you would expect it to be. The Kenwood kdc-122 is the company's cheapest model, it does not have any fancy bells or whistles, no removable face plate, no remote control, just a standard cd player, but then you listen to it, and you would never think that this is a low end model!
I don't think ford is known for its great standard fit stereos or speakers and i really didn't think that buying a new stereo for my truck would improve how the speakers sounded, boy was i wrong. The stereo makes my standard fit speakers sound wonderful. Perfect clarity and absolutely zero distortion make listening to this stereo wonderful.
There are 5 different sound settings built into this stereo for example. If you are listening to Jazz music, you can change the setting to accommodate jazz music best, if you are listening to rock, change to rock and the stereo will be best suited to play rock music, or you can custom set the sound just how you like it. The 3 main attributes that you can change are Bass, Treble and mid, so no matter what music you like, the Kenwood can make any type of music sound wonderful. There are also 3 speaker-matching curves. I will admit i am not to sure how this works but supposedly, if you have 6x9's you can change the settings so music will sound better through 6x9's if you have 5x4's you can change the setting to make those sound better too!
All of the usual features are there too. You have the intro scan feature, which enables you to listen to the first 10 seconds of every track on your cd. Random play, hit the random play button and the stereo will pick a random song on the cd to play. Repeat play. If you have a favorite song and want to hear it over and over again this is a good feature and of course, play, pause, re-wind and fast forward are also there. Another feature i was not expecting to be on this player just because of the price is the ability for it to play cd-r's and cdr-w's. So if you are like me and you like to make your own cd's this feature is great!
The Lcd is large and easy to read, especially at night, during the day can be a little tricky though. The background is black and the lettering is white so if there is sun light beaming down on the stereo it is difficult to read. At nighttime the stereo looks fantastic! The black and white look superb, as do the big red buttons on either end of the stereo, it looks real classy.
If you want to build a custom system later on, the Kenwood will allow you to do that. Located on the back there is 1 pre out so you can attach an amp to it in the future
There are 6 presets there so you can store all of your favorite radio stations. Radio reception is extremely good! I have been able to pick up stations in Oklahoma City that i have not heard before. As far as i know (i maybe wrong) but i do not think that there is a seek button on the stereo, only a search! So if you want to go from one end of the frequencies to the other it can take a while, or maybe i am just being stupid, which is more than likely the case!
ROAD TEST
The Roads here in Oklahoma are bad at the best of times, very bumpy! I had a feeling that the cd's would jump every time i hit one of the 19ft deep craters in the highways here but i have been surprised. 98% of the time the cd's just keep going and going and going! Infact i have even tried my hardest to make this thing jump but it very rarely does unless you really hit something hard! i have been really impressed with this!! Way to go Kenwood!
Overall i have been very impressed with the head unit. For $100 you really shouldn't expect much, but with this Kenwood unit you get a whole bunch of features and great quality sound! you really cannot go wrong with this one!
