As said above. I am going for the high-end unit below the "large-screen" one. It retails for about 399.00. Any input would be helpful.

 

alpines are great hu's especially for tuning, good choice....

 

Thanks bro...I was planning on just having that and 2 set's of 6.5's from either Kicker or ....can't remember the name...getting tired.

 

I love my alpine. What model are you getting?

 

Probably the CDA9813. Good choice!! It has a lot of features for the money. I'm sure you'll like it.

 

CDA 9813 is awesome. I know I've posted that alot, but it's true. Great deal for the money. It's hard to find anything better.

 

Well if you have money to burn, perhaps the CDA 9815. It adds i-personalize (something probably none of us here actually need) and it has a nicer display and blue buttons instead of green. Is it worth the extra $100? I would say probably not. It's all personal preference I guess.

The 9813 has a lot more improvements over the CDA7894 it replaces. It how has Bass Engine Pro (compared to B.E. Plus of the 7894) which adds a 5 band EQ for the same price of the old unit.

 

Alpine

I have alpine HUs on all my cars.

 

hey my friend just got an Alpine 9815... i love it
it looks awesome with the blue displays and i just
love the right side of the display... where it shows
the volume/bass/treble/fade that stuff... its just plain
out awesome... and it enhances his stock speakers as well.
you will love this or im sure , any alpine head unit.
btw, this headunit is availble for $399.00 shipped at ikesound.com

 

I-Personalize lets you download car interior info for your particular car and setup the stereo with it. Cloth interiors soak up high frequencies etc. leather would not so it adjusts accordingly.

 

I am not too crazy about I-personalize. I have tried it. I prefer tweaking with the stereo manually. Besides, wasting a cdr on that little file sucks. Maybe they can get bluetooth in the next version.

 

Alpine is great My brother has had the same one for years, never had a problem.
Just don't go near Sony

 

Alpine is pretty known for there good quality. I say go for it. I hear nothing but good things about them.

 

I have an Alpine in my commuter car, and an Alpine CD changer in my '99 Accord's trunk. I love Alpine. There are other good radios out there, but there are a lot of bad ones, by picking up Alpine you know it will be a good one. The head unit I have is the CDA-7839 (which was a middle of the road unit in 1998). One feature it had that the modern Alpines don't appear to have is Direct Audio Preset (DAP), which lets you program both AM & FM radio stations onto the six radio buttons at the same time. For example, right now buttons 1, 2, 4, and 5 on my radio are FM stations, and buttons 3 and 6 are AM stations (without having to switch between AM & FM & FM2).

The CDA-9815 (which retails for $399, as mentioned above, probably the one you are looking at) looks like a nice radio. Check out the CDA-9807, retails for ~ $120 less and isn't a swing-face (which I personally think I would find quite annoying).

Quick question: If you put in a CD-R with ~ 10 hours of music in MP3 format into an Alpine radio, can you shuffle between the whole disk, or does it make you listen to them in order (which would get old really quick)?

 

I don't know... I normally seperate my mp3's by album in folders. So it behaves more like a cd changer.

 

I was thinkin of getting the CDA-7893 but it looks like it doesn't have a EQ....so would it really be better comparing the 9813 to just go with the 9813??

 

The 9813 is a newer model. If you want EQ then I would get it. I think it has time correction also.

 

Man, I hate to be the only one with something negative to say about Alpine, though here goes...

On one of the older units, maybe 3 years ago. It had a **** for the volume control. After some use, there would be a static sound between every "step" of the volume ****. Pretty annoying. Since then, I haven't played with Alpine so maybe they improved their volume *****.

Secondly, maybe it's just me. The buttons just don't feel right. They have a very sharp keypress response unline most other makes.

Otherwise, Alpine appears to make a very solid product so you can't go wrong

 

I prefer the sharp keypress feel to the squish of other heads.

I don't really touch the head. I only use the remote. I have heard that volume problem on several brands of heads. Seems to be common problem with age. I don't think it is as common anymore though.

 

This static from turning the **** is just caused by dirt in the control. It can be cleaned out with a spray cleaner from Ratty old Shack with the power disconnected of course. This is not a flaw or a defective control.

 

Alpine has M.I.X. which is their shuffle feature.

 

is the 9815 the HU that requires an amp?

 

i love alpine, good choice

 

No it doesn't. The 7995 and 7998 do.

$399 for the 9815 is a real good price. I saw the 9813 at Circuit City for that price.