Kenwood or Clarion?

[mrsilv04]

I'm down to these two units for my new head unit.

Clarion CX501
Kenwood DPX500BT

Decisions, decisions... They're within $20 of each other, and do the same things as far as I've been able to tell.

I've owned Kenwood stuff before, and have been pleased. I've never owned Clarion before, and have never considered them before.

I think the Clarion has a cleaner and better face and a better looking display. The face of the Kenwood looks cluttered.

I was also considering the JVC KW-R900BT. I love the display on it, but the BT via an adapter seems to be a little behind the times, and I'm just not wild about the layout of the face.

 

[dparm]

Until you start spending big bucks, there's not a lot of difference. Get the one that is easiest to use and/or has the features you need.

 

[Malo83]

Always liked KENWOOD

 

[NHGUY]

Bought an 83 Turismo years ago that had a Clarion stereo installed,the tape deck was damaged and would not accept a tape,but the radio part sounded great.

 

[EricF]

Kenwood's controls seem to mixed together to me.

I've always had best sound & features with Pioneer.

 

[mrsilv04]

The thing that I can't figure out is that Kenwood put the USB port and the AUX port in the lower left hand corner (nearest the driver) and then stuck the buttons for using it with a phone in the lower right hand corner (nearest to the passenger).

That seems backwards to me.

 

[Jeffs2006EvoIX]

Both are very good, aesthetics is a big player here. Kenwood USED to be the shizzle, but like everything else is China made and no better than the Clarion Unit. Alpine too same thing. So just look for best wattage per channel, if its upgradeable for amps, and such. Even down to the LCD color. Some units have a color some folks dont like because it doesnt match their car well.

In the end, both of these units are pretty much made with the same insides...aesthetics is what separates the two.

Jeff

 

[AVB]

I have been happy with Kenwood head units in the past, I've only had one Clarion I didn't really like it.

 

[dparm]

Originally Posted By: mrsilv04
The thing that I can't figure out is that Kenwood put the USB port and the AUX port in the lower left hand corner (nearest the driver) and then stuck the buttons for using it with a phone in the lower right hand corner (nearest to the passenger).

That seems backwards to me.



Poor ergonomics = pass. I'd go for the Clarion in this case.

 

[mrsilv04]

Originally Posted By: dparm
Originally Posted By: mrsilv04
The thing that I can't figure out is that Kenwood put the USB port and the AUX port in the lower left hand corner (nearest the driver) and then stuck the buttons for using it with a phone in the lower right hand corner (nearest to the passenger).

That seems backwards to me.



Poor ergonomics = pass. I'd go for the Clarion in this case.


Exactly. The more that I looked at the pictures, it made me wonder... what in the heck were they thinking when they decided on THAT?

So.... I went with the Clarion CX501, and the above button arrangement is a lot of the reason why. I was also a little miffed, in that I contacted Kenwood's Product Support with a question, and was (for the most part) told to figure it out myself. I responded with that I'd take the time to investigate the offerings from the competition instead.

Plus, the Clarion had the edge over the Kenwood on a few of the specifications, nor were the specs on the Kenwood compliant with CEA-2006 methods.

I also found a coupon code, which gave me a $25 discount on the Clarion (that wouldn't have applied to the Kenwood), so the Clarion unit ended up being $5 less than the Kenwood.

I went with Crutchfield on this order, as their free/discounted accessories (along with the $25 coupon) helped to really sweeten the deal. Along with that, was free 2 day shipping...so I'll have it in my hands to install this weekend.

Also, I hope that I won't need any support, but it is nice to know that I'll have a phone number to call if I run into issues during the install.

 

[dishdude]

Originally Posted By: NHGUY
Bought an 83 Turismo years ago that had a Clarion stereo installed,the tape deck was damaged and would not accept a tape,but the radio part sounded great.


I would have expected it to have a Kraco or SPARKOMATIC.

 

[Jimmy9190]

You did well in buying from Crutchfield. Their service is excellent and they actually want you to be happy with your purchase so they will be there to help from here on out if you have any problems with the new deck you bought. Check out their forums for even more technical help and operational info/review type info. I personally have never had any problems from Crutchfield.

Clarion had a great reputation back in the early to mid-1980's. Does anyone here remember the good old Clarion EQB-5 booster-equalizer or Clarion's Audia line of higher-end car audio? I cut my teeth on Clarion and Sanyo products back in the early 1980's when I first got started in the car audio installation business. That being said, when Circuit City began selling Alpine back in the 1990's, Clarion tried to step in and fill Alpine's shoes as the higher quality, high-end niche gear sold and installed by the independent car audio shops. It did not work out very well. Clarion had problems back then with product quality, even though it was still made in Japan. They have probably changed a lot since the 1990's and the deck you bought should do a fine job.

A lot of car decks nowadays have built-in equalizer curves. Most of them sound fine. Some work better with different genres of music or audio books, FM radio, satellite radio, etc. I have had a few different decks in the last few years. They mostly all had a 3 band user programmable like the Clarion. That will probably sound fine and let you tune it how you like it. My own preference is to have more bands of tone control. I recently removed all of the high end gear in my truck and sold most of it on Ebay. I guess I just have grown out of the high end loud car audio scene. I tried a Pioneer deck and it was good but just did not have the tone control I wanted. I returned it and bought a basic Sony CD deck with a USB input. It has an internal 7 band equalizer and a few preset eq curves but the custom 7 band eq combined with the DM+ compressed music enhancer really sounds good to me. I used a discount code and picked up two pairs of Pioneer TSG1644 speakers from Advance for $60.00 for both pairs and I really do like the sound of my basic system now. My Ipod broke so rather than spending $250.00 on a new one I just bought a 32GB micro flash drive off of Amazon. I loaded it with MP3 files from my music library and really could not be happier. The system sounds good and less trouble. Plus music from a flash drive is pure digital, not sent through a digital to analog converter like on an Ipod. The main thing for me with any car stereo deck is how easy is it to safely operate while driving? Then comes tone control. Then user features like USB input and whether the display can still be easily seen in bright sunlight. The system you have picked out should sound great. And Crutchfield really does help you out if there is ever a problem.

 

[mrsilv04]

It appears that the clowns at Crutchfield sold me a wiring harness for my truck, that isn't 100% compatible with the factory wiring on my truck. Nor did they mention any of this.

Of course, I only figure this out after I've completed the installation.

Now, I get to take my dash apart again, remove the head unit, remove the wiring harness, cut off all of the splices, re-splice all of the connections using a different harness, and re-install everything. Thanks for a complete waste of my time, Crutchfield.

And to get my money back for the incorrect harness, I have to package it back up, box it up, tape and label it, and then drive it to the nearest UPS store to get my money back.

Even more of my time wasted.

Absolute idiots. This will be my last purchase from them.

I'm debating just requesting an RMA for everything, and then they can just screw with all of it as an open box return.

 

[Malo83]

Measure twice cut once

 

[mrsilv04]

Originally Posted By: Malo83
Measure twice cut once

Or "Listen to Crutchfield, do it twice"...?

 

[mjk]

Originally Posted By: EricF
Kenwood's controls seem to mixed together to me.

I've always had best sound & features with Pioneer.


Great luck with Pioneer decks, going back to the late 80's. Present car had an Alpine in it. Nice, but nothing a Pioneer wouldn't do.

 

[Vikas]

I thought the whole idea behind buying from Crutchfield and purchasing their wiring harness is to avoid doing any cutting or splicing.

Even with the wrong wiring harness, how did that happen?

 

[mrsilv04]

Originally Posted By: Vikas
I thought the whole idea behind buying from Crutchfield and purchasing their wiring harness is to avoid doing any cutting or splicing.

Even with the wrong wiring harness, how did that happen?


Well, they sold me a harness that is *almost* compatible. It plugs in to the factory plug, and splices up color for color... but the illumination level on the new head unit never changes, even with headlights on. Of course, I didn't realize this until the first time I drove the truck with the headlights on.

Even though there was a wire (orange/white) that had to be spliced up for dimming the illumination, no change.

So, I pulled it back out, and plugged in my stock radio. Yep, it still dims. Not my truck. So I re-terminated the orange/white connection, and re-installed the new head unit. No change.

At this point, I called the Crutchfield Tech Support line, and gave them a quick run-down of what I was seeing. And the Tech Support guy responds with "Oh yeah, thaaaaaat".

And no warning whatsoever from Crutchfield that this is a known issue (at least it is a known issue amongst the Tech Support staff).

So, two choices to resolve the problem according to the Tech Support guy that I talked with. Find a wire that is hot with the headlights on, tap onto it, and use it as a 'trigger', to tell the radio that it is time to dim the display. Or try the harness that I should have been told to buy in the first place.... which is supposed to have a orange/white wire that works properly.

Well, I opted for a new harness, because I'm not in the mood to go spelunking under my dash with a tester for something to tap onto. I went to Crutchfield route to specifically *AVOID* doing any trial and error activities.

So... we're in waiting mode for the new harness. If after I cut off all of those splices, re-splice the new harness, and get it installed and there's no change, I will not be happy at all.

Not sure how Crutchfield has a complete breakdown in communication between the Tech Support staff and the people who list what is supposed to work for each model. But I'm sure not very impressed right now.

 

[Vikas]

I spent little bit time on the Crutchfield's website. I did some window shopping for my 99 Odyssey and picked up a potential Pioneer receiver.

Then I went on to ebay. I was surprised that adapter for my car and adapter for the receiver can be purchased over ebay. I bet they are probably made by the same company. Each costs less that $5 shipped to my house

Being an engineer, it really bugs the heck out of me that the industry or the company could not come up with a standardized universal connector for this application :-(

Adapter with connectors for HONDAUNIVERSAL
and another adapter for UNIVERSALPIONEER

And then nobody has to splice or solder! Standards is the way to have widespread application and to make money in the tech industry. The key is to be the gorilla to make your implementation the standard of the industry.

Just think if every disk drive had a different connector! We probably would be still using 1200 baud modem to communiate

End of rant.

 

[mrsilv04]

And, of course, the second harness does NOTHING to solve the problem.

And now I have a second Crutchfield Tech Support rep telling me something completely different.

Thanks Crutchfield.

I'm about ready to get an RMA for all of it, and tear it all out and ship it back.