My Kenwood just blew and I'm in the market for a new deck. I'm really digging the new CDA-9855 but I thought I get some reviews first. Also, how much can this HU be bought for? I think the lowest I've seen it is on Ebay for about $350.00.
Can anyone recommend something as good or better?

Here are the specs:



[I]

 

before you buy it - go play w/ the touch pad. most here either hate it or love it, there's very little in between ground.


generally -- the unit sounds good and is well featured w/o being overly dramatic.

i fall into the category of very much disliking the slide interface.

 

and the face will wash out when the top is down

 

I do not like the slide thingy.....I went with the 9851. Not as high-end, but serves my purposes just fine, and has a dedicated subwoofer adjustment in the HU, and its XM ready.

John

 

The touch thing is that white stripe under the display?

How would that be easy to use with the shifter blocking it?

 

I really don't care about the white control strip thingy... I'm happy with just buttons.

How does the 9855 compare with the 9835? I have played with a 9835 and I absolutely loved it. It seems like both models share a lot of the same features, if not all.

 

Also can you change the color of the blue buttons aswell as the green ring behind the knob?

 

Steve makes a good point, but honestly -- i've yet to see a HU that doesn't (aside from the OEM which displays almost nothing anyway) wash out in the direct sunlight. i've seen the 9835 w/ the Bio display in sunny conditions, it's not great, but pretty much par based on most other HU's i've seen. maybe a little worse due to the black and white lettering...

no less or more easy to use than the buttons that the slide thing replaced. it is reasonably accessible i guess. i haven't toyed w/ one in the S2000, just on demo boards. but, i can pretty easily reach the buttons on my HU. *shrug*

electronically and features wise, the 2 are very similar with some minor software, menu, option, and adjustment differences. functionally, they perform pretty much the same.

best of luck in finding a 9835 however... trust me, they are not easy to come by.
given the choise, i'd take a 9835 over the 55 w/o blinking. in fact, i recently bought a 9833 over the 9855 when i had to upgrade from my older 7894. i dislike the glide touch THAT much that i bought a year old unit off a demo board over the NIB 9855. i'm quite pleased w/ the 9833, but would have preferred the more advanced visuals of the 9835.

oh, and my 9833 and the 9835/9855 (as i recall) can be made to be entirely amber aside from the display which remains blue or black and white respectively.

 

I am one of the people who does not mind the Glide touch. I certainly will not sing its praises, however I will say that its counter intuitive for iPOD use at first. After a while you get used to how to navigate it. I can do it while driving reliably now, but I have had a few months with it to get used to when and how I can mess with it...

Go mess with it for sure, either you will decide you like it, or hate it. As for sound quality, and the display. The sound quality is great, in that department the HU is spectacular. The only other issue I have with the unit is that you cannot (as of yet) change the background animation beyond the 3 which come on the unit. You can use the alpine website to set crossover, and such but not to change the animated background.

I personally am very happy with mine.

 

i have had a 9815 alpine for years and I love it. THat new touch glide thing isnt that great IMO. Alpine makes good decks