There are a lot of people out there who are happy with their car but wish they might be able to do a little better on the technology side of things. An eight-year-old car with under 100,000 miles on the clock probably has a lot of life left in it, but is also probably a relic of past technologies, complete with a cassette deck or single-CD slot when you have ‘iPodified’ music. You yearn for today’s tech so you can ‘Navigethere’ while speaking legally with your ‘BlueTeeth.’ Or something like that. What you do not need is your dashboard looking like they are the old buildings at Yale – growing ivy wires from the base of the ashtray, 12-volt power sockets to the top of the dashboard and sprouting electronics from every stem. All in all, assuming you kept your factory radio, you would need eight discrete units to replicate the potential power of the Kenwood DNX7120 head unit (satellite radio, DVD/DivX player, Bluetooth handsfree calling and music, HD Radio, GPS Navigation, remote access transmitter, USB and SD card reader and iPod connector). You could have all of these features as add-ons to your factory radio and have more suction cup mounts than a typical college apartment bathroom. Granted, there are some portable units on the market that combine some of the features mentioned above, but isn’t it easier and safer to have all of this aftermarket ‘tech horsepower’ in the place where the auto manufacturer and God intended – in the center of the dashboard? Meet the Kenwood DNX7120.
Believe it or not, the DNX7120 is not even the flagship of Kenwood’s deep mobile electronics lineup. The top-of-the-line DNX8120 adds Bluetooth built into the unit (the DNX7120 has it as an option) and, for audiophiles, a hotter set of preamp outputs in case you want a killer system with outboard amplifiers. If you are in the opinion that your factory radio is loud enough for you, then the DNX7120 with its built-in 22 watts per channel of true RMS power will be fine and you will never miss the DNX8120’s 5-volt preamp outputs (again, only good for adding additional amps in the trunk). Without getting too technical, the 5-volt output of the 8120 is really just used for rejecting noise from potentially being induced into the system compared with the 7120; both would be great choices for the real world. So why not review the 8120? They are so hot I could not get my hands on one, but the 7120 will suffice for 90% of the readers.
