Kenwood KDC-X817 Car CD Player
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- Player Type: CD
- Controlled Devices: CD Changer Sirius Ready
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A Very Versatile Headunit.
Pros
Very pretty yet elegant, tons of features, extensive crossover use,.
Cons
Internal amp cannot be bypassed, needs more power, discontinued, too many functions.
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
If you can find it for a good price then buy it!
Car: 1990 Mercury Sable GS
Experience: Let's start off with how I grew to love this headunit. I had a Pioneer P4100 MOSFET45 headunit in my car before the Excelon. It was powering my 2 factory 6.5" woofers which btw sounded fantastic for what they were. The Pioneer sounded good at the time. When I finally decided to start upgrading I looked for a headunit that I thought would be dependable, a good price, and had many features I could utilize. I finally found the Excelon X817 for a good price on ebay. I immediately switched headunits once I received it in the mail. The difference? Compared to my Pioneer deck the sound difference was very apparent. The Excelon could go louder with much less distortion and throw crisper, more defined bass. Everything just sounded more livelier. A few of weeks later I finally obtained the rest of the components needed to finish my sound system. After everything was properly hooked up, I tuned and listened. This thing sounds phenominal. It gives an airy and spacious sound. Different from something, let's just say an Alpine, would give you. And maybe it's just me or maybe it's the low distortion circuit but the bass seems to hit in a refined matter. So as time went by I learned to appreciate this headunit more and more. And what I love about it is it looks so elegant with it's Shiny Black Panel.
Pros: This headunit is crammed with impressive features. The most impressive and beneficial being the built in crossovers, which allow you to customize the crossover points on your front, rear and nonfading outputs. Equally impressive would be the amount of control you have in customizing the sound that you're listening to. You can customize Highs, Mids and Lows to a substantial degree, with you the user not only being able to adjust frequencies but also toy with the Quality off different frequencies. (You'll understand once you receive the unit.) As stated above the headunit looks very classy and professional. And what helps it look even better is the Dot Matrix display that gives you a built in ScreenSaver or different equalizers. Theres a lot of other things I could talk about but I think it would be better for you to just check out the specs from Kenwoods website.
Cons: Of course this thing isn't perfect. The headunit is marked at 22x4 watts RMS while bench test figures indicate 18 watts RMS. Which isn't bad but I wouldn't recommend driving speakers that need a lot of power. This headunit is one step behind it's family member the Excelon X-917. You cannot turn off the internal amplifier for cleaner and more power running through your deck. Although now the X-917 is now cheaper than the X-817 on ebay. The buttons on the headunit face are cluttered up with each buttons having at least 2 functions. For someone with a harsh ride or big hands this may pose a problem. The remote cannot fast forward or rewind through tracks. And all those features I mentioned I couldn't talk about? There are so many that you never learn to use some of them. And some just leave you clueless. The last thing that I do not like about this headunit is that it has a mechanical rotating face. Which is a very nice touch but that always leaves room for malfunctions in the future. But don't worry. I've heard of people using these things for 3-4 years already.
Other than the few faults it has, this headunit in technical terms is top notch. If you are looking to build a good sound system I'd recommend this headunit anyday. If you can find one for a good price I say get it. Remember they're discontinued and the new line looks UGLY compared to the older line. Thanks for listening.
Experience: Let's start off with how I grew to love this headunit. I had a Pioneer P4100 MOSFET45 headunit in my car before the Excelon. It was powering my 2 factory 6.5" woofers which btw sounded fantastic for what they were. The Pioneer sounded good at the time. When I finally decided to start upgrading I looked for a headunit that I thought would be dependable, a good price, and had many features I could utilize. I finally found the Excelon X817 for a good price on ebay. I immediately switched headunits once I received it in the mail. The difference? Compared to my Pioneer deck the sound difference was very apparent. The Excelon could go louder with much less distortion and throw crisper, more defined bass. Everything just sounded more livelier. A few of weeks later I finally obtained the rest of the components needed to finish my sound system. After everything was properly hooked up, I tuned and listened. This thing sounds phenominal. It gives an airy and spacious sound. Different from something, let's just say an Alpine, would give you. And maybe it's just me or maybe it's the low distortion circuit but the bass seems to hit in a refined matter. So as time went by I learned to appreciate this headunit more and more. And what I love about it is it looks so elegant with it's Shiny Black Panel.
Pros: This headunit is crammed with impressive features. The most impressive and beneficial being the built in crossovers, which allow you to customize the crossover points on your front, rear and nonfading outputs. Equally impressive would be the amount of control you have in customizing the sound that you're listening to. You can customize Highs, Mids and Lows to a substantial degree, with you the user not only being able to adjust frequencies but also toy with the Quality off different frequencies. (You'll understand once you receive the unit.) As stated above the headunit looks very classy and professional. And what helps it look even better is the Dot Matrix display that gives you a built in ScreenSaver or different equalizers. Theres a lot of other things I could talk about but I think it would be better for you to just check out the specs from Kenwoods website.
Cons: Of course this thing isn't perfect. The headunit is marked at 22x4 watts RMS while bench test figures indicate 18 watts RMS. Which isn't bad but I wouldn't recommend driving speakers that need a lot of power. This headunit is one step behind it's family member the Excelon X-917. You cannot turn off the internal amplifier for cleaner and more power running through your deck. Although now the X-917 is now cheaper than the X-817 on ebay. The buttons on the headunit face are cluttered up with each buttons having at least 2 functions. For someone with a harsh ride or big hands this may pose a problem. The remote cannot fast forward or rewind through tracks. And all those features I mentioned I couldn't talk about? There are so many that you never learn to use some of them. And some just leave you clueless. The last thing that I do not like about this headunit is that it has a mechanical rotating face. Which is a very nice touch but that always leaves room for malfunctions in the future. But don't worry. I've heard of people using these things for 3-4 years already.
Other than the few faults it has, this headunit in technical terms is top notch. If you are looking to build a good sound system I'd recommend this headunit anyday. If you can find one for a good price I say get it. Remember they're discontinued and the new line looks UGLY compared to the older line. Thanks for listening.
