[s-cars] AUDIophile! Stereo Options?

[JC]

Ben -

I have a 988x (forget the exact model at this moment) in the Battlewagen...
To be honest its made me ditch my long time loyalty to Alpine.

Works OK. But audio quality is not remarkable and other usability issues
have been a big disappointment.

Various criticisms, some of which are issues that Alpine has been declining
on for some time:

- Features are low for the money you're paying, ex: no RDS on mine without
buying the HD Radio add-in. Ridiculous not to have RDS, and I'm 99% sure the
feature exists on the FM tuner chips inside but they've just not turned it
on.  They seem to be living 10 years behind the curve "ooohhh RDS? well
that's a fancy extra feature! high technology!" No, Alpine, no it's not. A
base Kia sh!tbox has RDS on the crappy OEM radio.
- Leading right off that the add-on units are ridiculously expensive IMO (ie
BT or SatRadio or HD or Imprint EQ).  If those were reasonable it might be
OK answer to the previous issue but they are not. but even then those boxes
are big and more stuff to jam behind your console, which is a PITA when
things like BT and RDS and even HD Radio should just be build into the damn
thing for $400 or more.
- iPod integration is OK but not brilliant. still old firewire-style
charging on the cables for instance, and not iPhone compatible so you always
get that stupid error to "dismiss". I would have thought they'd have sorted
that by now but the website still amazingly doesn't say "iPhone compatible"
for those units so I guess not. looks like the iDA unit is iPhone compatible
finally but that thing has no radio presets or other analog buttons that are
still nice to have so you're in BMW iDrive mode aka always dicking around
with menus to do the most simple stuff.
- Alpine interfaces have gotten more and more arcane IMO. Its often very
obtuse and non-intuitive how to do things.  This is even true of the last
couple Alpines I bought (ex: always some unlabeled weird method to re-set
the time vs. being easy and obvious and menu driven) More specifically: one
thing you'll find in almost all on-line reviews of these 988x units is the
complaint that the volume knob acts as a scroll for menus (Good!) but
stupidly, despite the fact that it is also a push-button, you don't push it
to select things (STUPID!), you have to hunt to one of the little buttons on
the side to select. completely anti-intuitive.
- Lastly the device is able to be firmware upgraded by USB but despite the
fact that they list that as a "feature", if you press the question Alpine
will basically admit they will never be releasing firmware updates to owners
and basically the day the new model goes live they stop development.

Bottom line I'd never buy this unit again, and I'm wishing I went with the
Eclipse I looked at at the same time...

HTH...

JC

>
> I have to admit, there is a lot of bang for the buck in that unit.
>
> I'm just about to get this one slightly used for half the new price:
> http://www.alpine-usa.com/product/view/cda-9887/
>
> Wondering if that is a mistake since I can get this new for less.
>
> Ben
>
>   _____


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