I bought a new car that I thoroughly enjoyed driving, a Mazdaspeed Protege. One of the things that come with it is an aftermarket Kenwood stereo. When I first turned on the car, the faceplate flipped over and started a light show. During the test drive I was distracted by the flashing display and the immense bass.
Since I've owned it, I've turned all the flashing off and adjusted the '450 watt'
sub and various other system setting to where it sounds surprisingly good.
One thing that was neat about the head unit was that it was 'Sirius Ready'. I cannot stand local radio for the most part. I found a cool jazz station but, that's about it. So, I figured I'd give it a shot.
It seamlessly integrated with the system, it sounds very good, has no commercials, and I can always find music I like.... Oh, and I have heard 1 song twice so far in 4 days. (Unlike normal radio where the loop is only 10 songs long)
The Kenwood is unnecessarily complicated to program/setup for use but, now that it has been setup, it's very easy to use and the display is very basic. I have a volume knob and presets are getting done slowly. (A 8 or 9 key sequence to program a preset
... really stupid)
In any case, I never thought I'd want/like XM or Sirius. However, now I think it's worth every penny. I don't think it sounds tremendously better than a very good tuner but, you don't get a 'very good' tuner in car audio anymore. It doesn't have the digital swirly noise like I thought it would. Well, actually, the DJ's have that sound but, it doesn't in the music..?? Which I don't understand. It doesn't sound as good as the CD player in imaging or tonal accuracy.... which is about as good as FM.
However, it's clear, reasonably accurate and doesn't have any annoying features. I'm really surprised at how much I like it.
-Carl
