Matt Dralle
Site Admin
Joined: 08 Nov 2005
Posts: 25858
Location: Livermore CA USA
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 Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 9:56 am Post subject: Kenwood DNX8120 Entertainment System (was: Welcome back) |
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At 10:50 AM 7/23/2008 Wednesday, you wrote:
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Hi Matt,
Welcome back to this crazy and rewarding thing that we do!  What make/model is the entertainment system? What influenced your decision?
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I went with the Kenwood DNX8120 for a number of reasons. Certainly the "coolness" factor had a little to do with it, and, well, I'm trying to see just how many LCD flatpanels I can wedge into an RV-8 instrument panel... 
Seriously, though, the DNX8120 has a lot of features that come in a nicely integrated solution. The 7" LCD is very clear and bright. It has both an iPod control interface and a USB hard drive/thumb drive interface. More on those later. It has a Garmin-based full moving map with POI database, which is probably not exactly useful in an airplane, but here's a situation: Let's say you're flying along on a cross country to somewhere far away and suddenly you've got a huge hanker'n for an A&W Papa Burger and a frosty mug of Root Beer. Your next way point could then easily include a local city with just such an establishment. Doesn't A&W have car hops? Maybe they'll rollerskate out to the RV-8... Okay, its a stretch, but I had to justify the coolness somehow...
It has a "touch-screen" where all but a couple of things can be viewed, configured, and changed. The upside of the touch screen is ease of use and "coolness", but the downside are the finger prints and ultimate wear on the screen. The screen is "fingerprint resistant", but sweaty fingers still leave prints. There are some "hard-buttons" for Volume control and switching sources.
It also has a "rear-view" camera for "check-six" (very tiny and clear). Kind of like a rearview mirror actually. Very cool.
Audio quality of the DVD player, MP3, XM, and HD radio are all extremely clear. I've got a PM3000 stereo intercom and new Bose NR headsets and the audio is stellar to say the least.
Kenwood also makes a matching 7" "headrest" rest flat panel (Kenwood LZ-702IR
) that I will be mounting to the back of the pilot's set so the passenger can enjoy some "in-flight" entertainment.
The iPod direct control interface works really well and will stream both music and videos off your iPod. The downside is that it appears to use the line-level audio output from the iPod, so the quality suffers a little. Does anyone know if you can stream digital audio from the iPod?
The USB harddisk/thumbdrive interface (can be connected at the same time as the iPod interface), works very well and the audio quality is superb since the D/A conversion is done in the Kenwood. The downside is the severely limited number of MP3 file the Kenwood seems to be able to handle. It appears to be a little over 3000 tracks. I have a 160GB 2.5" USB hard drive with about 100GB of MP3's and I was hoping to be able to access all 18,000 tracks, but it won't seem to read them all. Maybe on the next firmware update. There is no track limitation on the iPod interface and the Kenwood lists all 80GB of MP3's I have on the iPod.
There is full bluetooth integration as well. It sync's up with my Blackberry 8820 great and I can dial and place calls right from the Kenwood with phone audio coming through the Bose headsets. Voice pickup is through a dedicated microphone plugged into the Kenwood; I'm not sure how well that will work in the noise airplane environment, however.
The Garmin-based GPS Navigation works great! The maps are very detailed and updates are quick. There are a TON of POI's and all include address and phone number. It will be interesting to bring up the ground speed on the Kenwood and compare to the GRT to A-B test the response time. Probably aren't too many car installations where the cruse speed will exceed 200mph!
So, to summarize, the Kenwood DNX8120 is an very nice, high-quality, highly integrated entertainment system that makes a nice installation in the panel. Perhaps the only downside to it is the weight. The HU itself is pretty heavy and all of the external "boxes" (XM, HD Radio, etc) add up too.
Here are a couple of links to the main unit and the remote screen:
http://www.kenwoodusa.com/Car_Entertainment/eXcelon/Mobile_Video_n_Navigation/DNX8120
http://www.kenwoodusa.com/Car_Entertainment/CarPortal%E2%84%A2/LZ-702IR
Best regards,
Matt Dralle
RV-8 #82880
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