Kenwood's New XR-S17P Components Shipping

Kenwood showed off their new XE-S17P component speakers at CES, and they've just announced the speakers have started shipping to dealers. If you're a Kenwood fan, then these slim-fit speakers might be up your alley, and if you're not a fan of Kenwood speakers, Kenwood would like you to know that these are some of the best-sounding speakers they've released yet.
To maximize installation flexibility, the speakers feature an ultra-slim mounting depth of less than 2"s, and include 5x7, 6x8, and 6" mounting adapter plates for easy installation in Ford, GM, Mazda, and Honda applications. The new speakers are 50% lighter than last year's speakers. The woofer is composed of a carbon polypropylene hybrid cone, a 1-inch soft dome tweeter, and a sleek, small footprint crossover. The XR-S17P has an MSRP of $500. Follow the jump for more pics and specs!

Kenwood Takes Daytona 500

Well this isn't ground-breaking news since CarDomain announced the race results about two weeks ago, but I figured I'd post this since I didn't know Kenwood was a NASCAR sponsor. Ryan Newman took fist place at the Daytona 500 this past February, beating out Tony Stewart for the first place finish. Kenwood supplied the pit crew with a slew of it's radio communication gear for the driver, pit crew, spotters and crew chief.

Check out the Press release after the jump!

in the forums!

New Secret Stealth Bomber Model or iPod Dock?

Kenwood just announced this unique iPod dock speaker system, the AS-IP300, compatible with all iPod photo/mini/classic, 4th gen and 3rd gen and up iPod Nano. The design is pretty different from most iPod systems (hint: it's not square or rectangular). Behind the metal mesh grilles is a pair of neodymium-powered 2" drivers (1 per side), and it looks like the unique shape of the enclosure may help guide the waves coming off the front of the drivers for improved focus and imaging. AN included remote offers basic control of the iPod: fast forward, rewind, track select, volume, "Menu", etc. The AS-IP300 also features an mini-jack aux-in to input a secondary source like a satellite radio or iRiver, and can be powered via AC or with four AA batteries (up to 8 hours of play). And this little guy won't take up much desk space either, measuring 15" wide x 8" deep x  6" high. Oh yeah, and for the purists, it's also available in white.

in the forums!

Source: FarEastGizmos

Cool Video: Kenwood DNX8120

I found this cool video of Mike Morgan from Kenwood running though the basic functions of the new Kenwood DNX8120 double-DIN multimedia navigation radio. This was by far one of my favorite radios from CES.

in the forums!

Cool Stuff You Can't Have: Kenwood's K-WD01

As we've said before, the Japanese market really gets some pretty cool stuff, and it's pretty cool stuff that we probably will never see. Take the Kenwood K-WD01 double-DIN CD/MD combo radio, for instance. The simple and sleek brushed aluminum design kind of has a classic 70's home stereo design, but it really just looks great! I'm a little rusty on my kanji, so I'm not sure what the specs are, but it looks like Kenwood is pointing out the audiophile internal components. I did pick up that it has a 24-bit Burr-Brown D/A converter, which means excellent sound quality on the digital end. The CD player has a pretty impressive frequency response (10Hz～20kHz(±1dB)) and a pretty good signal-to-noise ratio (107dB). There's a couple more pics after the jump - check them out!

in the forums!