Kenwood XR-1800P 7in Component Loudspeakers

Product Details
Manufacturer: Kenwood
Website: link
Typical Selling price: £149.99
In A Nutshell
A superb, game-changing speaker set from Kenwood. Simple, yet high quality and made to be ONE BIGGER! They come with an amazing set of plastic baffles you can use to fit these components into a six by nine standard hole. A seven inch midbass with old fashioned and better paper pulp cone, old fashioned classic rubber surround and a passive with REAL meaningful labels on the resistor-pack HF reduction jumpers, of 0dB, -2dB and -4dB. None of that silly ‘˜+’ nonsense you see on most passives. The soft dome tweeter we do not get told the material of, is fully 30mm in diameter. The simple truth is that the sound is just the slightly startling side of remarkable. These sound really, really good and rich and detailed and with low colouration. Remarkable bass output, too. Kenwood are fighting back with a MASSIVE hike on what they do for the money I do not think another £150 set of components from any brand will beat them as they are no longer apples to compare with apples. They really are going to get a bit cult-struck these, I feel, once the word gets out.
The Kenwood XR-1800P seven inch components? ‘Wicked’ would have been simpler and shorter. And you can quote me.
Overall 8.8
Sound Quality 9
Build Quality 10
Power 8
Efficiency 7
Value For Money 10
Recommended by Talk Audio

Editor Review : Kenwood XR-1800P Component Loudspeakers
What They Are
These are about Kenwood taking a major tilt at regaining a slice of the component loudspeaker market back, as the exotic brands and Americana have bitten such a slice out. They are an 18cm component design and meant to fit into a 17cm location or even into a six-by-nine location, using the seriously well moulded and heavy duty plastic trim rings supplied, that can fit into many cars and allow a good baffle for the ‘˜sevens’, as that is their size yes just one inch down from where ‘˜woofers’ begin. The tweeters are likewise a bit bigger than normal at 30mm rather than the more normal one inch or 25mm type and come with pod housings as well as the ability to simply flush mount them.

My set was a white box and had no manual, yet in the USA, these are sold under the Kenwood über-brand of ‘˜Excellon’, just like they do in Japan. (DIGRESION ALERT!: Mind you, some years back, there were some 25th anniversary component speakers made in Japan especially and the UK got only twenty sets. Mr. Kenwood-san tormented me during our review at the HQ listening room of these XR-1800P by showing me the LAST set they had in a box. I was like, ‘I NEVER SAW THESE!’ and he simply agreed. It was a simple business thing they never needed me to try them! But oh damn, I’d like to..) Where were we? Oh yes, the USA price is $300 and some sap has some on E-bay at like £194! Chortle! I think those listings are going nowhere now we have them here for half that in Sterling! (Now called bloody ‘˜GBP’ in computer money, UGH! STERLING! As in SILVER!)

How Is It Made?
There is a significant amount of money spent on tooling here but Kenwood and the like breathe this sort of thing. The plastic baffles look like they have a really wide set of carefully car-considered applications, since they feature lots of differently-letter marked zones or snap-off bits. The tweeters are just bigger. The midwoofers are just bigger and made to a better standard of uncoloured audiophillic output as that is now the market. More grown ups than us nutters. The grilles are posh but we never bothered. Either in my own test boxes or the ones seen below, as used at Kenwood House. We had competition winner Chris Smith in the room as part of his prize! He was a really good extra set of ears and was so impressed and genuinely startled at the quality, that he was given them to put in his car. He paid for a set of other speakers in the same price bracket originally, so changing them in his sound off car won’t, I gather, mess up his class cost-qualification in sound off.
Chris will have to wait until I have used them to drive actively on the new 4ch amp I was given to test the day we were there. Here he is in the test room with Mike Edwards of Kenwood Electronics UK.

How Well Does It Work?
Remarkable speakers. And a freely admitted different corporate approach has resulted in fitting a seven incher into a six and a half inch hole, with a bigger tweeter and the result is literally amazing for the likely selling point of £150. That said, they will almost certainly be discounted so are a solid ten for VFM. I played some of my own stuff as well as the bloody Eagles yet AGAIN by Mike Edwards from the DNX-7210BT double DIN head unit used for the test. (I admit that Dark Desert Highway still does it for me, though DAMN!) And the KAC-7405 amplifier bridged into two bigger channels to feed the passives sounded sweet.
On the Propellorheads, off iPod, I actually heard detail and nuance I didn’t know was on the track, let alone came out of my iPod! A solid nine for sound. I admit I wanted a ten, but that would have been too-too price relevant. For while I do feel speakers aughta be sound-rated partly down to their price as in Pioneer TSA-E series being awesome for the money, I also feel absolutes obtain and damn good is just damn good.
So, a really good score and these are to stay here to test the Kenwood super-skinny amplifier I now have in the house that has crossovers with TWO passbands you can switch EACH one between! Cool!
Full Specifications
Speaker System: 2-way component
Peak Input Power: 330W
Rated Input Power: 110W
Speaker Size: 193.5 x 85.3mm (with grille)
Magnet Type: Ferrite
High Quality Crossover Network
Woofer Specifications
Peak Input Power: 330W
Maximum Input Power: 150W
Rated Input Power: 110W
Woofer Cone material: advanced hybrid paper pulp Cone
Speaker Basket: Steel
Speaker Surround: Rubber
Sensitivity: 86dB/W/m
Frequency Response: 57Hz to 20,000Hz
Dimensions (WxHxD): 176x176x69.5mm
Mounting Depth: 62mm
Mounting Hole Diameter Ø: 152.5mm
Speaker Weight with Grille (pc.): 1,160gr
Speaker Weight w/o Grille (pc.): 1,050gr
Gross Weight: 3,900gr
Weight of Magnet: 330gr
Tweeter Specifications
Dome Size: 30mm
Dome Material: Soft dome
Accessories
Screws (Parker-type): Ø 4 x 25mm, 12 pieces
Screws (Parker-type): Ø 4 x 6mm, 8 pieces
Screws (Parker-type): Ø 3 x 16mm, 4 pieces
Clip nut: φ4, 8pieces
Clip nut: φ3, 4pieces
Wing nut: M5, 2 pieces
Bracket for flush mount: 2 pieces