Kenwood DPC-X517 fun review: The Discman Zapped by Y2K

If you caught my last fun review on the AIWA CSD-FD82, then you know I love to document and review weird portables/boomboxes from the early aughts. Sadly, I don't often run across weird stuff that hasn't been covered before, but every once in awhile that lil' gem just appears amongst the bland, boring sea of early 2000s nuggets.

And that's what we have here.. this is the Kenwood DPC-X517, a portable CD player that was literally made in 2000! Have a look:



There it is... I have never in my life seen a more early aughts look than this. I even posed this unit along side other rave-worthy icons from the time period... the iPod mini, the Nokia N-gage, and a heavily worn copy of some obscure rave music... baller.

I paid a considerable amount of money for this MIB example, and examples are super hard to find. Japan seems to have the most of them, And this unit really seems at home with early aughts MD portables from there as well.

So, what I want to do is just examine this thing in more detail, and document it here so that it will have a bit more presence on the internet. So without further delay, let's chillax, and have a look!



Unpacking the unit:

Inside the box, we get a very basic set with only the main unit, power adapter, and manual. No remote, no cassette adapter, no demo CD, no car adapter... nothing. The box itself seems to give off the vibe of "high-end", since most el-cheapo players from this era were tightly sealed away in skin-blistering blister packs, but upon inspection of the components inside... it is low-end.



Now, there is much mystery around this unit in the hands of users, but we do know a lot about it's retail circumstances. Looking at Kenwood's 2000 US/Canada catalog, this was the only design they offered that year, available in two colors, all silver, and silver/clear blue. There were three models in this design, the X311, X517, and the X612. Far as I can tell, the X612 is just like mine (the X517), except it does include a car adapter in the box. the X311 is missing 40sec ESP. My unit, the X517, retailed for around US$89.99.



Appearance:

This CD player's fundamental design principles go completely against what was even normal for the time, and exchange minimalistic, screen-less, LCD remote slim players for this bulky, futuristic look that can best be described as some kind of hacking device from 'The Matrix". Seriously, this thing is horrible in the best possible way. The color scheme/layout looks like a WinAMP skin, and the overall styling cues suggests that the designers watched too much Futurama before putting pencil to paper.


Now, I'm not saying I hate it at all, I actually love it... but in a special way... what about those controls though? First off, ALL of the major controls are on one side, and the unit can pretty easily be operated with one hand. Maybe this idea looked good on paper, but it makes the player feel lopsided and the ergonomics don't allow for comfortable one-handed use. Second, the controls that aren't supposed to be messed with as much (the ESP and hold switch), are placed away so that two hands must be on the player for operation of these functions. The LCD screen has a weird magnification lens on it, and it's size makes it hard to see... unless you have inspector gadget's binoculars ofc.


High-end or Low-end?

I'd say this unit is low to middle range on the Discman totem pole for its time. Being a kid when this was new, I can remember players like this as a few steps up from GPX or Sanyo branded units that department stores carried, but definitely lower in class than the Sony/Panasonic slim metal units. The cheap plastic mold has terrible, skin penetrating seams, and the unit creaks and flexes some, but the bass-boost, 40sec esp, separate line out, and "power saving" feature made it appealing to the masses. Add the trendy design they most likely overpaid someone to dream up, and I'd say it's mid-range mass market material. It's important to note that this unit has no MP3/WMA playback support... most likely because in 2000, digital music files were not popular yet.

It's not worth going through the major functionality of the unit, but I do want to highlight the one feature that is interesting of note here:



Remember that "power-saving" function that I mentioned earlier? Yeah, that means that the unit can run off of either 2 OR 4 AA batteries. You can place two Alkaline batteries in the "main" bay for 10 hours of playback, or load up the entire unit for 27 whopping hours of playtime... that's a lot of Smashmouth! In addition, you can put two NIMH batteries in the main compartment and the unit will even charge them for you.


Sound!

This review wouldn't be complete without some opinion on the sound quality. Now for the record, I've heard the best of Discmans, and the worst. So my ears are trained... although after a few more reviews of these, I may be corrupted.

All of this aside, I placed the first test disc (Technorave 4) in the unit, and considered the sound carefully as "confessions of a raver" rang out through my brain. I was using my AirPods Max for headphones.



EQ wise, not bad! It sounded pretty well balanced, and clear as well. The 808 drums sounded about how I'd heard them in my D-321, and D-99, and the vocals were clear. Next, I tried my pop favs of this time period... Backstreet Boys, New Radicals, Beck, Savage Garden... and this is where things started to go wrong. There was way too much treble compared to even other cheaper units I've heard from this time period across every song. Turning on Bass-boost produced sobering, soul wrenching levels of distortion, with minimal effect to the bass. Turning off ESP had no effect. In addition, the volume maxed out way too low.

Being that I personally love this unit's aesthetic, I really wanted the sound to be good, but it was just mediocre on standard playback, and terrifying on bass boost mode. A lot of this is due to a puny output amp (like 6mw), but another reason is this:



Cheap capacitors from brands you've never heard of, and brands you never want to hear of.... ever. I'm going to do a recap, then post an update with a final verdict on sound, but for now... mediocre is a good rating.

Verdict:

The early aughts brought us many wacky designs that are mega awesome to look back on now and collect, and that is the case with this Kenwood DPC-X517... as long as you understand it's poor build quality and lack of impressive sound. It's fun to use, cool to look at, a nice conversation piece, but not great for serious listening. I love it, and it stays in my collection!

 

The coloured curved translucent iMac came out in late 1998 and was a huge success, transforming Apple's fortunes.

Within a year products with similar styling came from other manufacturers, even small kitchen appliances.

The situation reminds me of Tesla with Touchscreens. Tesla are doing well financially, and use a touchscreen instead of conventional controls, so other companies think they must fit one in all their vehicles.