Are alpine changers compatible with sony head units?

 

no.
alpine is ai-net or M-bus, Sony uses Unilink.

 

If I remember right, the cable looks the same, but I doubt they talk the same language.

 

I second/third the no, but i do believe it can be done(not recommended), it just takes alot of work w/ wire splitting and testing.(not cost effective)
The "language" should be the same, binary codes and decoding. The main difference between the changer is the plug and what it needs to work, power and stuff like that.

 

don't be so sure.

the text info is almost certainly transmitted differently from manufacturer to manufacturer. i don't think you can just swap plugs around. now, the audio may be the same, but the transfer and display info is not.

 

that would actually depend on how the cd was encoded, there are certain standards for cd text and things of that nature, so cds can be played and text can be displayed on different cd players.

I'm not saying this is a simple process, I'm just saying it can be done, although not recommended at all. We did an install w/ in a similar manner a few years back on a customers car.

info link

Not much detail in that link, but some sort of proof it can be done.

Albiet this was quite a few years ago(w/ an alpine 7909 for all you car audiophiles) not entirely sure about today's headunits.