The Kenwood eXcelon KDC-X993--without the blinking lights

by Glen A.

I’d never bought a car stereo before. I’m not the typical driver, I guess. Accept for some talk radio during the day, I just don’t listen to much while I’m driving around, and I’m not really a commuter, so I’m not driving around that much. So, having a real good car stereo has never been a priority.

It still isn’t. However, I do have a thing about sound quality. I like sound. I like to hear everything there is to hear, and I prefer to hear it in the way it was intended to be heard. Shockingly, not all speakers are created equal, and in come cases, they can be downright irritating.

So, what I really was doing was shopping around for stereo speakers to replace the factory ones in my car. They just didn’t seem to be all that good. Every once in a while, I would use an FM transmitter to feed my rather anemic music selection on my iPhone through the car stereo, and inevitably, I would find myself jacking up the music and then turning it down to listen to the radio.

Maybe that wasn’t the speakers’ fault, but aside from volume, I just didn’t like what I was hearing compared to what I could get say, through the computer speakers, or even over my headset. I owned a New Beetle several years ago, and that was a pretty cool stereo system. Especially at night.

Since I didn’t know a whole lot about car speakers, let alone how to install them, I decided I go straight to the dealer. I stopped into one of our local car stereo shops. I had a few minutes to kind of look around, and was immediately drawn into their main showroom where all kinds of stereo heads and all kinds of speakers were mounted in wall. The stereo units were functioning, so you could test them out, and so I of course did for a while, and then went looking for someone to help. By that point, I’d decided I’d be swapping out the car stereo, too. I just had no clue as to which one.

Well, the attendant had no problem recommending a stereo. After taking the make, year and model of my car, he suggested I get the Kenwood eXcelon KDC-X993. For the price, he said, it was easily the most popular car stereo they offered. I did tell him I was looking for speakers, and if that I did get a stereo, I’d want it to be bluetooth compatible, so I could answer my iPhone handsfree. Well, the KDC-X993 did just that, and more.

Two of the most significant for me, in addition to answering my iPhone, was support for voice recognition dialing and A2DP wireless music streaming. That meant, as long as my iPhone was capable, the stereo would do it. I wouldn’t need an FM transmitter, though a charger would still be good, and I wouldn’t have to dial phone numbers.

With the iPhone 3G, the A2DP streaming was solved. However, my phone still wouldn’t do voice dialing. Still knowing it was there, and knowing that increasing states were banning the use of cell phones while driving, it would undoubtedly come in handy, if I had a phone that could do it all.

Like all bluetooth devices, you first have to pair it with the stereo. The process is quick and painless. Once paired, the stereo detects the phone whenever the stereo is on and whenever the phone is present. In the upper right hand corner of the display, information about the iPhone appears, including battery strength and signal strength.

The mic for handsfree calling sits in the ceiling near the window

Like many newer car stereos, the faceplate was removable, something they call TDF (theft deterrent faceplate), and you could flip the faceplate to insert the CD, if you chose to go that route.

The stereo also came with a USB cable that could be plugged into, say, with an iPhone cable, so you could hear music that way. Of if music was sitting on some other USB device, that would work, too.

The big sell of course (okay, not really) was the psychedelic colors that the face of the stereo would change into. Kenwood calls it Variable Color Illumination. It’s really not all that amazing–sometimes I would prefer just one color over three or four different ones–but it is more than one the stock stereo did.

The KDC-X993 does have some settings you can tweak, though not as many as you might want, but enough to get you where you want to be with your bass and treble preferences. Maximum output per channel is 50w.

Along with the CD-Receiver, I needed to have the stereo console changed out. That alone cost $200 when it was all said and done. Originally, I was told they would give it to me for $30, but apparently that was a mistake. The KDC-X993 was another $300. Labor to install of this, which also included the back speakers (I kept the original tweeters, since I was told I probably wouldn’t hear that much of a difference), was $150.

The speakers, by Boston Acoustics, Inc.,  are a pair of S85s and a pair of S95s. The main difference is in the size. The former are 5×7″, while the latter are 6×9″. Both handle up to 120w and have a frequency response of plus or minus 3dB between 50-20kHz. I paid $216 total for both pairs.

So, how’s the sound quality, since that’s what I originally went in for? Good. I can’t say I’m blown away by it, but then I haven’t really tested them out, either. In the Beetle, I had a sunroof/moonroof, so it was kind of fun to turn things up and drive down the road kind of slow so that people could hear your music as you came home. My RX-8 doesn’t have either, so to get the same effect, it would have to be louder than I personally like to listen to my music.

A red sports car and music you can’t hear from a mile away. Another sign I’m getting old.

I don’t have anything to compare any of this too, other than the stock equipment that came with the car. I would recommend it over that, for sure, just in the additional features the stereo has. I don’t know if I can say there is a noticeable difference in the sound quality. I think there is some. I can definitely say that I don’t need to turn up my stereo so loud to hear the music from the iPhone over the FM transmitter. I’ve used the USB cable to listen to it directly, but without a mount it’s awkward to try to adjust music, particularly when you’re driving. The sound quality is best that way. I have not tried the wireless streaming yet.

Total for parts and labor for this car stereo and speaker upgrade came out to $906. They had my car for about four hours on a Thursday, so, labor came out roughly $37.50 an hour, which relatively speaking, isn’t bad. Of course, labor will vary depending on the shop and your location.