I bought this receiver about 6 months ago and I am VERY pleased with my purchase. I would recommend any Kenwood or Kenwood Excelon reciever. Pros: USB and Ipod ready (Amazing Feature!) You can navigate your Ipod directly from the radio! You will need the usb to Ipod cable to do this however. Personally I use a 4 gig flash drive, I routed the cable into the glove box. (conceals it safely) Also this unit sounds a bit better than my old Excelon X5** series. (at least 6 years old, forgot exact model#) The factory presets sound better too. Cons: (these are only personal quirks really) One feature that keeps annoying me is how the unit switches sources. You have to press a source button then turn the right knob to the desired function then press the knob button in. Its overly involved and makes you look at the unit to much. Other Thoughts: I upgraded from an old X5** model. The equalizer options are the same as my older model.(only this one has better display and now has USB and satellite radio ready) I was hoping it would have the options that my dads Kenwood MP8** does. It does not. His unit has far superior adjustment options and much better display, but his was more expensive. Again I got this after my old unit broke and it is amazingly similar to the old one. If you don't need the extra iPod ready or what not new features, purchase an older X8** or X9** model for about the same price.
First Off, I would like to say this is one of the best looking radios I have ever seen. The main reason I bought this radio is because I like the dual knobs, USB input and AUX input. I installed this radio this morning and I have been messing around with it all day. When I first turned this radio on I had to get the manual out to turn DEMO mode OFF. Not a big deal, once you use the manual to figure that out the only reason you will need it again is to figure out what some of the abbreviations mean that are in the settings. This radio has it all!! Well, as far as audio. One thing people have been complaining about in earlier reviews is not being able to make out what it says on the screen when in direct sunlight. Well that is very true it is hard to see while in sunlight. I wouldn’t recommend this radio if you own like a Honda civic where the radio is tilted up in the dash. For me, mine sits nice and straight and I also have tinted windows which helps but I did find myself holding my hand over the sunlight to see what was going on, on the radio. I think so far that is the only con I have found. This radio has like 5 different display settings or backgrounds you could say. I was worried that they would be on at all times and it would bother me in the corner of my eye while driving, well, that isn’t the case you don’t have to deal with the moving backgrounds at all. The way I have it setup which is very customizable is to have the date, time, name of song/radio station/artist/CD Title or you can even have the time show up in big numbers that go across the whole screen. As for moving backgrounds don’t worry you don’t have to have that on and its no bother whatsoever? This radio comes equipped with RDS, if you aren’t familiar with RDS it is an option on most new vehicles and it allows radio stations to have the name of their station, artist, and song title scroll across the screen. My old stock radio had this feature and it took forever to have that information show up. The Kenwood Excelon KDC X792 comes up with this information almost immediately when you change the radio station which is a definite plus. The AUX input is great in my case. I have a portable satellite radio and it has an FM transmitter equipped with it which can be very staticy at times which is very annoying when listening to Howard Stern on my way to work and sometimes the best part of the show gets cut out when I drive through downtown. The AUX input allows me to plug my portable satellite radio directly into the Kenwood head unit from behind which means I no longer have to listen to static ever again!! The USB input is even better, I have a 30 Gig IPod 3rd Generation Video and I have it full with about half of my music library on it. I was able to remove my CD visor that was pretty much tearing off my sun visor in my car because I had so many damn CD’s stuffed into it well its gone now!! I never have to worry about a CD again! The USB function for the iPod is great although it seems a second or two slower sometimes then I would like it to be, I can’t complain its reading from a hard drive off the IPod. I just put it in my glove box and when you switch to the USB function on the Kenwood deck its just like scrolling through your iPod, the kdc-x792 even gives you a song repeat or shuffle option which comes in very handy. I guess there’s not much else to say except I am very happy with this unit, it looks beautiful at night. The colors are perfect and with the current selection of Kenwood’s I have found, this is the best one for the price!! Overall, this radio is great I would recommend it to anyone that wants some serious clear sound coming from their speakers and also it has a built in adjustable crossover which is very nice when you have 7 total speakers installed in your car. One thing I did not mention is it comes with a mounting bracket for your USB port, if you don’t want to have your USB device sitting in your glove box it has a nice mounting bracket to mount your USB port flush anywhere in your dash, I haven’t used this yet because I don’t want any wires to be seen where me or my passengers sit. I will be posting a video on YouTube soon and what this radio does. I tried to find a good video on the net to see what this radio can do but they were all junk, I will be posting one on YouTube that will show you the ins and outs of this radio and everything it can do. Keep checking YouTube to see it, it should be up by October 30th 2009. I could keep going on and on about how great this radio is but I don’t think I can type anymore. Thanks and good luck on selecting your next car stereo and do yourself a favor and buy Kenwood!
