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I assume you had a "bad" experience with Pioneer, since many owners are quite happy with their units.

 

You don't have to have an unusually bad experience to know when something just isn't as good.

 

but I know you DID have a bad experience with your Bluetooth, correct? The best thing I found about the Kenwood was its FM implementation - but since FM seems passe these days, nobody notices.

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Here it is http://store.ovi.com/search?q=avic   Not sure how many models it works on or why it's so "secret" but it works on my E71 just like it is supposed to. You can take geo tagged photos and cr

I assume you had a "bad" experience with Pioneer, since many owners are quite happy with their units.

 

You don't have to have an unusually bad experience to know when something just isn't as good.

 

but I know you DID have a bad experience with your Bluetooth, correct? The best thing I found about the Kenwood was its FM implementation - but since FM seems passe these days, nobody notices.

 

Yeah, and that's a problem.

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I assume you had a "bad" experience with Pioneer, since many owners are quite happy with their units.

nope,i have not had any real trouble with my unit, other than the occasional glitch where the phone buttons dont show up during a call, but that doesn't even really bother me. most people are happy with their units because it much better than what they have had before, and if they have not had or used a better unit, then they would never know how good it could be, as an installer, i had get to play around with many many different companies and pioneer ranks as one of the worse(of major companies, cheap china crap doesnt count) in every aspect, the software is glitchy and badly designed, inputting info is much harder than others, and even the sound quality is not as good. but the price was great so i cant really complain too much.

 

pretty much every OEM system is glitch free and usually much easier to use (its probably because they see a lot more R&D, and thats partly to blame for their super high price, usually around $2k-$2.5k)

 

and everybody wants to give kenwood crap about them not designing their own nav software, when why spend the money to develop something that, if your lucky, would be as good at best as the most trusted name in the business. garmin is by far the easiest nav out there to use, and thats a major selling point for kenny's

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I assume you had a "bad" experience with Pioneer, since many owners are quite happy with their units.

nope,i have not had any real trouble with my unit, other than the occasional glitch where the phone buttons dont show up during a call, but that doesn't even really bother me. most people are happy with their units because it much better than what they have had before, and if they have not had or used a better unit, then they would never know how good it could be, as an installer, i had get to play around with many many different companies and pioneer ranks as one of the worse(of major companies, cheap china crap doesnt count) in every aspect, the software is glitchy and badly designed, inputting info is much harder than others, and even the sound quality is not as good. but the price was great so i cant really complain too much.

 

pretty much every OEM system is glitch free and usually much easier to use (its probably because they see a lot more R&D, and thats partly to blame for their super high price, usually around $2k-$2.5k)

 

and everybody wants to give kenwood crap about them not designing their own nav software, when why spend the money to develop something that, if your lucky, would be as good at best as the most trusted name in the business. garmin is by far the easiest nav out there to use, and thats a major selling point for kenny's

 

Dude . . . I was replying to jer's comment.

My wifes's VW Jetta's nav system added $1700 to the "retail" cost, was then discounted approx 10%, and blows the Kenwood out of the water in every way I can think of save for the built-in Sirius hardware. But Sirius sounds crap everywhere I've heard it, so that's moot. That makes her over-priced OEM 15% cheaper than a Kenwood 9960. Sorry, Kenwood is SUPER OVER PRICED considering they have COMMERCIALS and DON'T supply their own nav system. Check out a new VW. And I read lots of forums of people with Kenwoods that reset, restart, freeze-up .... seriously, those "cheap" Chinese companies are a lot closer to being serious competition than I imagine even THEY think they are. :)

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Dude . . . I was replying to jer's comment.

sorry i seen the comment in a post that i was quoted in

 

 

My wifes's VW Jetta's nav system added $1700 to the "retail" cost, was then discounted approx 10%, and blows the Kenwood out of the water in every way I can think of save for the built-in Sirius hardware
as said above, the OEM manufactures spend A LOT more money and time in R&D, therefore should be much better, they also dont have to make the units universal as they know exactly what car they will be installed into, expecially when every system in the car can be ran through one single user interface like the new Audi's (and VW's) but you can also get a more basic 6160 that cost much less than your factory $1530 price tag with the exact same nav (around $750ish on amazon)

 

i didn't say they where the best(because there not even close) they just have one of the easiest to use nav systems available

 

Sorry, Kenwood is SUPER OVER PRICED considering they have COMMERCIALS and DON'T supply their own nav system.
and that is the best part of a free market system, a company can charge as much as they want because we have the choice to buy something else, but that doesn't change the fact that kenwood is selling a lot of them

 

Check out a new VW. And I read lots of forums of people with Kenwoods that reset, restart, freeze-up .... seriously, those "cheap" Chinese companies are a lot closer to being serious competition than I imagine even THEY think they are. :)
trust me, I'm on those forums too, and kennys have a lot less problem than pioneers do (well at least everything after the D3's)

 

but if you want a quality system then alpine and eclipse are two of the better choices, the interfaces on the eclipse look like they are straigt out of 1995, but they have very few problems and sound amazing, the alpines are getting much better looking GUI's but its starting to slow them down, but again pure sound quality is hard to beat.

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You guys keep talking about the Kenwood being 3x more expensive but if you shop around you can find better prices. Hell, I picked up a barely used DNX-8120 w/SWI-JACK, iPOd cables, trim ring + chassis cage/can & SCC1 Sirius tuner for only $400. I know this is rare but I've seen VERY good deals on Kenwoods too so the price isn't quite as different as some post if you look. If you didn't know about this Amazon + rebate deal one could say that the Pioneer was only a slight savings over Kenwwod as well. Deals are out there... you just gotta find them.

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but if you want a quality system then alpine and eclipse are two of the better choices, the interfaces on the eclipse look like they are straigt out of 1995, but they have very few problems and sound amazing, the alpines are getting much better looking GUI's but its starting to slow them down, but again pure sound quality is hard to beat.

 

Keep in mind that Fujitsu10 (parent company of Eclipse) has decided to not produce anymore Navigation units under the Eclipse brand name so you can pretty much count Eclipse out of that list. Sad too because they produced some of the best decks on the market in terms of overall quality. The navigation piece, while adequate, was nothing to write home about. It was the same as our Camry Hybrid and Tundra OEM units so it's real easy to use and works solid but didn't offer some of the features of the Garmin powered Kenwood navigation. Real shame too because they were some of my favorite decks overall in terms of reliability, user interface and stability. Of course, they were manufacturing decks that needed to work flawlessly for 3yrs or more since their stuff was designed for OEM applications so when you have that standard to adhere too you are going to build better units (from a durability and stability standpoint) by default. I used to like the Alpine stuff back in the day as well but the interface on their newer stuff isn't as clear as some of their competition. It's a real shame about the Eclipse stuff though. Anytime there are less options in a segment the consumer loses. :(

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yea but there are plenty of good eclipses out there, maybe not brand new units. one of my friends just bought a new in box eclipse nav for just over a grand online (dont know the model # yet as he is bringing it over to get installed in about a week and a half) but hands down they are some of the best radios i have ever heard,

 

and the new alpines are not too bad, as they are starting to look much better and they always sound great, especially when you use their add on modules like the imprint sound processor and there 4ch amp upgrade.

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yea but there are plenty of good eclipses out there, maybe not brand new units. one of my friends just bought a new in box eclipse nav for just over a grand online (dont know the model # yet as he is bringing it over to get installed in about a week and a half) but hands down they are some of the best radios i have ever heard

 

Not too many people are willing to pay for hardware that already has no support. They didn't opt to have Navtech make a MDV-10D update for them this year so that's all that you need to know that they have no plans to support existing hardware with new firmware and map updates. That's not a good sign at all. I would rather pay the same or less on a Kenwood which is going to be around for a while. As much as I like Eclipse products I just can't bring myself to spend a grand on one even if it is brand new because I know it's already dated w/o any chance of updates.

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So with no voice control, would you go Kenwood or Pioneer?

 

Voice Control isn't really a concern for me because it never seems to work well, regardless of the device. I tried the Pioneer and really don't like it for many, many, MANY reasons. I'm going to change out for a Kenwood and think that I will be much happier.

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The VR on the Pioneer is superior when using it with the AV. However with the Pioneer there are only about 8 commands that can be used over the whole unit. The VR on the Kenwood is far superior when using it with the navi and offers more like 40 or so commands over the whole unit. The VR for navi on the Kenwood is nearly flawless but not so flawless with the AV.

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You guys keep talking about the Kenwood being 3x more expensive but if you shop around you can find better prices. ... you just gotta find them.

 

Kenwood doesn't allow Al & Ed's to advertise their units online anymore as A&E uses "price-matching". You can purchase from them in-store, but the last three I phoned were at best $100 below retail, which puts a 9960 at $1700. Oh, there's a rebate, so $1550. And all "authorized" dealers I called have been just about the same.

If you want un-authorized, or used, then yes, it will be cheaper, but there's no warranty.

So, to get VR from a Kenwood, and warranty, I would have to spend 3 times as much as I did for the Pioneer.

I agree about Alpine - too many freakin' add-ons drives the hassle and price outasight. Too bad, their iPod technology is rock-solid.

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