I went to best buy today to play around with alpine's new head units (namely the cda-9857). What crap! It's not motorized anymore, they took away several menu options within the setup screens, the eq is pathetic (bass and treble, that's it), the screen is smaller and has a lower resolution...everything looked so pixelie. Even the images for the background were crappy. Every year alpine comes out with a new head unit with added features, but then they remove something else from it that made it so great. It's so aggravating. I sold my 9855 because the glide touch got annoying and I was going to buy the 9857 because of the full speed ipod controls, but not anymore. Why can't they just keep all the features and simply add to them. It's alpines 2006 head units and its not even motorized! Alpine is supposed to be one of the higher quality head units out there. Sad year for Alpine in my opinion. I wonder what the 2007 units will be like. Maybe they will bring back cassettes. I needed to vent sorry, I'm stuck with my factory radio now and I don't know what to replace it with now.

Anyone know any real good head units that work great with the ipod? As in no delay from song to song, good sound quality, shows the track names quickly, etc. I don't think i want to wait another year for alpine to possibly come out with a better head unit.

 

Well since motorized faces break I'll take non motorized over motorized any day of the week. i've had multiple motorized face HUs fail but none of my ancient manual flip downs (HOW DARE SOMEONE MAKE THEM!!!) have broken.

I know it's hard to lift a 6 oz piece of plastic though.. I understand.

As for the EQ, I somewhat agree on that, but it sounds fine with a little tuning and being that we drive a roadster I'm not concerned over the loss.

Personally I think that the BGV should be off anyways so that doesn't bother me. The display is worlds better than the OEM HU

The only better way (none are equal that I've used yet) to connect to the iPod is an aux input and then manually controlling the iPod, the new alpines are very fast, especially compared to the older ones and other brands.

 

The EQ is the only thing that eats me up but you can get a seprate unit to control all the Eq you could dream of so i guess it's not too bad considering it is still possible.

 

I guess thats one way of looking at it.

I think motorized faces are the suck. I hate them. Just another thing to break, more annoying when driving, etc etc. This is just IMHO though. Ive had DOZENS over the years, and always prefered cd slot exposed, or if not, a quick mechanical release button.

I love my 9856.

 

motorized faces are for the same guys who have neons that bump along with the bass.

since when did motorized face = higher quality

 

This thread is funny WHO CARES ABOUT THE MOTORIZED FACEPLATE!!

 

Seriously I meen your not buying the 9857 for your CD's your buying it for the full speed connection! you have an Ipod!

 

Only thing that concerns me about the 9857 is the pixely screen that LubedK mentioned...is it really that bad like bad as the Sony CDXGT500 screen?

 

If you wanna cheap head unit that has an ipod adapter, you get an Alpine.

If you want really good sound and an amazing EQ with an ipod adapter, you spend more and get a Pioneer Premier deck.

I bought an Alpine 9856, but had no idea i'd want to do a system. I'll probably end up selling it once the rest of my system is done and getting a Pioneer.

 

Hmmm... Didn't really care for the motorized face on my last Alpine... more of a gimmick since it really didn't help much with clarity of the display. Oh, and I really liked it when the damn thing got stuck going in the wrong direction. When I started the car, it would retract... turn off the car it would angle out. I was able to "fix" it, but only out of frustration.

No complaints about the Biolite display... better than the dot matrix (talk about pixelelated)... and 100% better than the old digital looking crap. When you're driving you shouldn't be staring at your HU... and if you're passenger is staring at the HU, you're not driving fast enough. You have an option to change the font, and its nice to have a multi-line display... especially with properly tagged MP3s and XM.

BGV should stay off... yes, the selection of graphics sucks.

There is a little more than just bass and treble... Not intuitive, found it while leafing through the manual. Its either "FUNC" or "MODE" until Bass Engine comes up then hit the "play" or "mode". Did I mention not inuitive? Once in this feature, you can choose the center of parametric curve (i.e. 120hz, 80hz...) then you can choose the "width" of the curve (i.e. narrower or wider). Definitely not as customizable as a real EQ, but its not just bass and treble. Makes my stock speakers sound half decent.

Don't have an iPod so never used the full speed feature.

Wired steering control input is nice... few have this... the color biolite DVD HU, doesn't.

I'm a little disappointed with Alpine like you... really would have liked a DVD capable unit with the Biolite display, no glide touch, wired steering wheel control inputs and a reasonable $$$. Probably next year....

The 9857 is better than stock any way you cut it... MP3s. Good luck with your selection. Would like to hear what you settle on.