Kenwood KDS-P100

Price Paid:  $100.00

Summary:
System:
Nak 45z head unit,
Kenwood KDS-P110 eq,
Alpine F407 4ch amp,
Boston Pro 6.5 two way spks,
Monster interconnect and Nordost speaker cables,
No sub...yet.
Got this off a friend for about US$100. In New Zealand they retailed at about US$500.(NZ$999.00)
What impressed me was that by adding it to the system, I struggled to notice any degredation of sound quality at all (I come from a traditionalist "higher end" home audio background of many years).
It has given me a great deal of flexability in tuning the sound to my liking. I did have concerns about this issue after adding an Alpine F407 amp and getting a super sterile/clean sound that was not very listenable for long periods.
I tried using the Auto parametric function at first and this gave good results but then learnt very quikly how to use the Manual mode to adjust Q, band gain and centre frequency, and this has yielded fantastically natural results. It also shows that it has tremendous flexability.

I also use the Seating Position adjustment to very good effect.
I had concerns that this would narrow the staging in the windscreen area too much but this has proved unfounded.
It has allowed me to get a very solid image, placement and depth of sound stage even when I listen with my eyes open just like a very good home system can do.
At the same time, the stage remains very wide and is not pulled down at each side nearer each dash mounted tweeter.
As I choose not to use rear fill at the moment and may not use it at all, I have not played around with the DSP settings much although a cursory "fiddle" left me interested in future possibilities...
The rating is based on if I had paid close to retail for the unit. (Obviously, through my transaction, this would be different but hardly fair ratings wise.)

Strengths:
Very good quality, small, multiple display colour, very flexible, easy to use, very good quality.

Weaknesses:
Gets hot...quite hot but this seems to be designed to work sandwiched into a dash console so it must be able to handle it...
A pop can be heard in changing the volume down past -10dB level on the way down but a similar "flutter" can also be heard on my Nak's volume also when adjusting attenuation - a trait of digital attenuation I understand.

Similar Products Used:
Kenwood analogue unit from a few years ago - very simple, quality was ok but..., casual experience with various Alpines - not too keen on the sound-too clean and perhaps complex for me iMo.