Alpine H/U's

[amato2]

what do you guys think of alpine h/u's

- are they reliable
-sound quality
- ease of use

ders a special on and i want to upgrade...alpine seems like the go, i have a $350 budget to spent on the h/u

Jb and autobarn suggest alpine but dnt generally stock them "well were i am anyways"

im loooking at the CDE - 9843

[02ZZI]

i got a cda 9831 and have never looked back, awesome for tuning suits the dash nicely and they dont look over done like some other brands i see. Alpine are very reliable havent really had any problems with my deck.
But a head deck's a head deck not unless you put in the dosh you wont see the results.
Just try get one with the most features for example has at least 3 rca outputs and a decent internal amplifier, how ever i would never suggest the use of the internal amp.

[dfekm3]

depends on what you want to do with your system really... I have always loved Alpine, in my civic i was running all alpine gear from in dash dvd/screen head unit, dddrive splits, subs, amps... and so on mna... i also had the phantom face alpine unit.. best head unit ive owned but retailed at 1600 back then haha

but yeah.. best thing to do is what do you wnat in a head unit, what is your goal in your sound system and start from there

[amato2]

well i want a nice crispt sound....and i want to be able to upgrade to amp's and subs eventually...."dnt have money for that yet"

- i have put in 6x9's pioneer's and done the front speakers too so now i just want a good deck that not to expensive but still offers good features

[matt]

i have a CDA-9833 and its been sensational - easy to use and it actaully matches the dash of my dc5r exactly which i was surprised about when i put it in.
i dont know if you can move much on your budget but the CDE-9845 would be the one i would look at, beacuse it plays WMA, has an auxiliary input for iPod etc and it has better controls for folder searching for MP3/WMA discs.
i was looking at the 9843 for my g/f for xmas but when i went to the shop and had a look at it i went for the 9845 straight away.

you wont find alpine in Jb etc cos they are only available through specialist dealers.

[Fhrx]

I'm not alone here; I'm of the opinion that Clarion decks have the best DAC's and associated components, whilst Pioneer decks tend to possess the best overall functionality (which is easiest to use too). I'm afraid the only area where the Alpine really exceeded in 2005 was its screen resolution and picture quality.

Just for the record, I (along with many others) are certainly not a fan of the Alpine 'slider' found on many of the higher end head units. :(

Certainly well designed and well built head units though. You're not really going to go wrong with the Alpines, I would just suggest a few other decks before them. :)

[Fhrx]

you wont find alpine in Jb etc cos they are only available through specialist dealers.

I do get a chuckle out of the 'specialst' line. Truth be known; just about every car audio store on the planet sells Alpine, whether authorized or otherwise... ;)

[aka_NSX]

never a fans of Alpine . . .

but nothing wrong with Alpine so if you like it ..... get it

[dfekm3]

Pretty much, look at all the head units, read reviews on them, ask around, then purchase

[urtwhistle]

i got a 9835 and i love it but then again it wasnt exactly cheap. u all ways get wat u pay for

[matt]

not in australia, tell me which mass market stores sell them in australia and ill retract my statement and im talking about authorized stores that are supposed to be selling them.





I do get a chuckle out of the 'specialst' line. Truth be known; just about every car audio store on the planet sells Alpine, whether authorized or otherwise... ;)

[dfekm3]

complete audio in adelaide sell alpine as that is where i got all their gear from and they are a authorized dealer

[JDMTMY]

im a big fan of alpine...i use to have a cda-9807....loved it! but then my car got broken into and it was stolen :(

currently running a kenwood H/U now... imo kenwood arent too bad these days.

[crazyray]

gary's car audio
tower audio
freeway car audio

those are the one that are authorized dealers for alpine!

that i know of...

[ICACHA]

not hard to find out whos authorised to sell alpine in australia, www.alpine.com.au and go to the authorised dealers section derrrrrrrrrrr guys hahahahaha

[IN73GZ]

i bought my alpine deck from the US wen i was over there and its the best money ive ever spent, they are heapz cheaper in the US aswell. i got the one wiv the ipod box so u can access the songs on ur ipod via ur deck. SIIIIKKKK!!!!!

[89civic]

alpine have 18wrmsx4 usually and pioneer have 22wrmsx4. what would be better sound and loudness?

[arverson]

89civic, dont base ur decision purely on a 4watt difference - thats hardly anything noticable, especially if u dont play ur music at MAX volumes ALL the time. HU's will do a reasonable job of playing speakers loudly enough for most ppl. id go the alpine, MUCH betta SQ and IF u want it louder... get a amp

[kerim]

Alpine headunits are excellent in quality but can be expensive. as they say you get wat u pay for

[89civic]

ok thanks guys, ive seen some alpine ones i like but i gotta get an amp for my sub first

[dfekm3]

All in all in the end, shop around, look around, go with what you need and what you like. Read reviews on different headunits and this will lead you in the right direction...

[amato2]

your so right DFEKRN3, but id go for the alpine and i have actually made up my mind im getting the CDA - 9845 i think it is, suits my needs looks good and sound quality is fantastic

[StrawberryFace]

Alpine gets the thumbs up from me. Their products are second to none in terms of sound quality and clarity. Id say for the price you pay, you probably won't find better products.

[Slow96GSR]

We used the Alpines for Sound Quality. Oh and most decks don't even come close to what the box says. Take the fuse and multiply it by 12.5 (Voltage) then divide it by 4 and take some off for running the deck itself. So say 10 amps… 10x12.5=125 then 125/4=31.25 peak watts. But if you take in to consideration about 25%-40% of the power is used to spin that cd and light up the deck. So more like 25 peak watts per channel. Can’t put out what you didn’t take in. When they say 45x4 peak watts what they mean is 1 second before it blows up at max volume taking in 15-16 volts!! Most manufactures just use the bigger numbers because the general public doesn't sit there and test everything and it's not really lying because the deck did do 45x4!! Most speakers die because they are underpowered and people try to run 40Hz thru a tweeter!!! Not good! So if you want more bass get a sub(Just my little bitch fit!!)!! I recommend Alpine 100% also Panasonic, Pioneer, Kenwood and there's one more I can't remember!

[philmak]

When i bought my car, it had no headunit in there (got it taken out..so i could put my own gear in there).....ended up driving around for 2 months without any music. Slaving my arse off i eventually ended up buying a 9855, sure it doesn't have a colour screen but the build quality is awsome , very user friendly and sound qulity is mint!

Wouldn't look back :wave:

[Mattski_VTIR]

I have to agree that Alpine do make quality headunits. My previouse car ran a full Alpine system, and many of my friends stereo's are made up off Alpine components.. Espically Headunits. There are many other good brands and it really depends what you want to do with your system, and how much you want to spend. I did my research and i now have another Alpine head unit ready to go into my new car.

[ICACHA]

There is NOTHING wrong with any of the major brands we know today except a few and one which actually tells you what its going to do if anything is to go wrong :D If you want to have a read of what I think then keep going, if not (as it might take a while to read) then just go to another thread :p


I really find people (and resellers) giving other people their view on something pretty lame as their sort of bias in ways to brand names they dont carry or dont like. (might sound confusing to some).

In other words, dont buy this cause of reason (A) and buy this cause of reason (B). come on who are we fooling? I think most believe one is better than the other due to having a liking to a particular brand for the way it looks or what features it has NOT for it sounding like this or like that.

All those nuts who think that one head unit sounds better than another raise your hand!!! Oh BTW when you start the car, will you still think that one unit is better than the other??? Will you be able to hear the detail as you did without the car running??? Oh I forgot no one in here listens to music played with real instruments rather listen to pirated MP3's downloaded from the net, hense why all the MP3 sales and I-Pod sales have gone up :p

I spent a while last night tuning a car which had some very nice equipment put into it with REAL music and then the owner jumps in and puts on DOOF DOOF crap. Man, a set of $49 NO-NAME brand speakers and head unit will do you fine, why waste so much money on nice gear to listen to compressed jigaboo crap with no dynamcis???


Anyone want to put their money where their mouth is to buy and do back to back (real life same car) listening tests of the major brands that people seem to like or dislike cause of one reason or another? One car, one set of speakers, and one amp. Its called an UN-BIAS listening test with an A-B switch to switch between units playing the same music, where the volume knobs or buttons are NOT touched and set so both units are at the same level on playback.

I say, BUY what you can afford with the features you will use, anything else is a waste of money.

Stores would like to make you believe is that one brand is better over the other, a cheap deck will still be a cheap deck regardless what discount you got when you bought it so why do 'WE' go around telling people how cheap we are? "Hey man I got this $200 head unit at $100. Cheap is cheap and there is no other meaning for it :)

I bet that if you listen to them you will NOT pick the difference from head unit to head unit unless you change a setting on it or unless you got ears of gold :cool:

Whos game?

One day I'd like to see phones and any type of source unit that is released be available PLAIN JANE, no features and the purchaser pays for features to be uploaded to it. So the phone or head unit just plays CDs or makes calls and if you want anything more i.e. EQ, T/A, X-overs and so on you pay for it...