After having my car for about 5 months I've decided the first change to be done has to be the audio system. I've decided on the Alpine Type R components (SPR-17LS) which i'm getting for $129.00 from ikesound.com and also a Phoenix Gold Amp to power them, $92.00 also from ikesound.com. As you can tell i'm looking to spend the least amount possible. I don't have a lot of experience with car audio so i'm hoping someone here can guide me in the right direction. I'm wondering what sort of specs I should be looking at while deciding on what head unit to buy. I don't plan on adding anything to the system in the future. After this I want to focus more on performance upgrades. Any recomendations on what to look for in a head unit such as features or specs would be greatly apreciated. Thank you

 

I understand your trying to stay within your budget, which is totally cool. Everyone here knows that I like Alpine, but I like there HU for many reasons. But most of all because of how much you can tune with them. If your on a budget you can take a look at the Alpine CDA-9830. This HU unit has quite a few different options that can help you to tune the system your trying to have, plus you can get them onsale from Crutchfield for $249. Getting it from Crutchfield is nice because you'll get a warrenty and the adapters for free and if your like me, free is always cool...
As for those speakers and that amp I think you should be happy with those. They should work very well together.

 

I just finished up my sound system yesterday and I too love Alpine so i got:
Alpine CDA-9851 Which I bought for $200 (Retail at $280)
Alpine SPX-177R Type-X Component Speakers (Paid $230)
Alpine MRP-T320 400 Watt Peak Power which I originally used to power the speakers, but now powers my sub. (I paid $100)
Alpine KCA-420i which is the ipod adapter.($100) I don't carry cds anymore!
JL Audio 10W1v2 I wanted to stick with all alpine, but this sub was $100 at tweeter and I love JL too. This sub is thinner than most 10" subwoofers.

I bought all my alpine stuff on eBay which worked out great except for waiting for the stuff to get delivered. Oh, and don't expect too much bass out of the components because when the bass is high, it hits the speaker screen.

Back on topic, I recommend CDA-9851 if you can get it as cheap as I did. If not, get CDA-9847 which is $200 retail or the cheapest new alpine CDE-9841 which is $130 retail.

 

I have both the SPX-177a and the 137a's and neither of them hit anything and sound completely awesome. Did the shop install them correctly? It shouldn't hit anything. The 177's fit in the doors great(both in the cut out stock speaker basket and in the pod I made both of which do not require the use of the grilles and I have the 137's behind the seats and those do require the use of the grille but the speaker doesn't hit it...

 

Thanks, I'll probably go for one of the alpine head units but are there any others you recommend? Pioneer? Kenwood? Everywhere i've gone and asked they all recommended Alpine too. I've noticed the Lower Range alpines don't have any eq bands. Is this a problem? And should I be concerned with the pre amp voltage?

 

I can tell you that 6 years ago, Everyone I knew had Kenwoods and they all started skipping after 1 year(Luckily mine was stolen at that point!). We pretty much all switched to Alpine after that and I have been pretty happy with it(Did have some problems but I had a 5 year warrantee). The good thing is that Alpine has used the same wiring harness for over a decade so, upgrading decks is so simple if you stick with Alpine!

I like to keep things pretty simple. I look for 4V preouts, and the ability to have an auxilary input(for mp3 or other), and decent controls. I got an Alpine 9827 a few months ago for $179 from CC and have been VERY happy with it. I spent way more on my last deck but this has everything I need(even XM ready, and MP3 CD support).

 

I am installing the 9851 in the next few weeks. I listened to it at Best Butt.....and it sounded awesome. Definitely a difference between it and the Sony/Kenwood/Pioneer in the same price range. The Pioneers were nice, but werew all around $350 for a good sounding unit.

I had a Panasonic in my Miata, and it sounded OK. Alpine sounded better (but then again I was in the store and not the car).

John