If We're Lucky, What I Do Know Is What You Should Know Mar 15 '01    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Security Systems and Surveillance HD 1080P 3 MEGAPIXEL MINIDOME DUAL STREAM D/N POE (Power Over Ethernet) W/ LENS [sny-sncdh220] From $661 Kidde Dual Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Detector, Battery Powered From $28 The Bottom Line Kenwood components (at least those made back in the 80s) stand up to abuse surprisingly well. I suppose the temptation to write about the gadgets we've most recently acquired is overwhelming. You get a new set of speakers for your car or perhaps even a television for your customized van and end up telling the readers less about the actual stuff you bought than about how super-peachy-nifty-cool it is to have a one hundred disc CD changer as part of your home theater. But you can't really say anything specific about what you've bought because you're only just breaking it in. It hasn't had a chance to give you any trouble yet. Maybe instead of writing about the things we just bought, we should consider writing about the things we're replacing. Instead of telling me how shiny and loud your new speakers are, why not let me know what went wrong with the old speakers? How long did they last before you had to replace them? That's the question that led me to the "What Should I Know About Kenwood?" category. I don't claim to know anything about what you should know about Kenwood. I can only tell you what you should have known about Kenwood years ago, back when they made the stereo system that I put through more than a decade of pretty intense abuse before it crackled and went kaput. If past performance is an indicator of future reliability (which may be a dangerous assumption to make) I'll say that Kenwood has impressed me as a manufacturer of quality merchandise. I got my first job back in 1985, when I was sixteen. I delivered hamburgers (no, not pizzas) for minimum wage + tips. I finally had the economic power to make a major purchase, and I opted for a stereo system. There wasn't any epinions.com for me to check with; and I didn't know about Consumer Reports, so I asked the only real bachelor I knew (a fellow hamburger deliverer with his own place) what kind of system I should buy. "Kenwood," he said, "hands down." Now maybe he knew what he was talking about. And maybe he just wanted to sound as knowledgeable as high school kids with their own apartments were supposed to sound, but it was good advice. Using my first three months' pay, I went out and bought the stereo system that lasted me through the rest of high school, four years of college, and the first ten years of my marriage. (Sorry it was a home stereo system and not a car stereo system, but I want to talk about the quality of Kenwood products, and this is where the epinions folks decided to dump the category.) The amplifier that I bought back in 1986 has always been a cinch to hook up to televisions, CD players, etc. (which is more than I can say for the stereo system my wife brought to the marriage, which we keep in the bedroom). Most impressively, though, the speakers stood up the demands I put on them through my late adolescence. When I was seventeen and I thought it was really important for everyone in my neighborhood to memorize Pink Floyd's The Wall, my speakers enabled me to make sure that everyone could hear both discs over and over and over at top volume. And when I was in college and my roommate wanted to run a microphone through my amplifier and use the speakers as a PA system for his band, his singing was painfully audible over the drums and the electric guitar. There was feedback whenever he stepped into the wrong place--so much feedback that I expected the speakers to explode--but they never showed any deterioration in quality after having been put through such punishment. Wanna know the only song I remember from my roommate's band? Trial and error! [screeching feedback] Trial and error! [static burst] What could be fairer? [really screeching feedback] Trial and error! [incredibly screeching feedback] My Kenwood system saw me through lots and lots of poker parties in grad school. But I seemed to move even more frequently than I played poker, and all of the stereo components stood up admirably to being stored in U-Hauls and driven back and forth across the country. I was sad when my speakers recently fizzited and the light on my amplifier dimmed, but I couldn't really claim that the system had disappointed me. It absorbed fifteen years of punishment before going out with a whimper instead of a bang. I can't say what system I'll ultimately decide to go with as a replacement; but I wouldn't bet against another Kenwood.

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