Okay my ex has an Alpine & he hates it but my best friend has an Alpine & she LOVES it. I wanna get an Alpine but am afraid it'll be like the ex's & go all crappy. He did wreck his truck & all but then had it fixed but it just never worked right again. But even before we had a wreck it was a bit crappy. But The best friends works really well. I believe they have almost the EXACT same model.

So does anyone have any opinion before I go spending $200.00 on an Alpine? I really Like this one but I'm really uncertain. Lol...and does anyone have any suggestions for a good CD player? I know Alpine & Pioneer are the two main ones right? But I just need an unbiased opinion.

Thankee!

~Jess

 

i love mine, never had a problem at all, neither has my brother in law or friends, you cant say alpine makes junk cause one was in an accident, id say get it

 

I've used alpine since I started driving 7 years ago (wow... it's been that long, geeze)...

i've NEVER had an issue with any of my Alpine stuff... It's always worked good and barely skipped a beat ever. Hell, I've still got my first Alpine car stereo in my Cavilier I'm driving on a daily basis right now.

I have had multiple failures with Pioneers though... and will NEVER use their stuff again...

 

I just got an alpine HU installed an dI love it. I've alwasy liek the quality of Alpine HU along with Pioneer. Either of the 2 is the way to go.

The one I got was the CDA-9805. I did come accros a prob with the install, but I posted the solution on another post.

You have to connet the Pwr antenna, and remote together, and then connect the remote from the amp to it. Even though it has a seperate wire for each, I sitll had to put them together for it to work properly.

But back to the topic, besides that minor confusion, I've never had any probs with Alpine products, and would keep buying them for any car I own (either that or a Pioneer).

 

Hmm I just read your post 97Formula. How many diferent Pioneer HU's have given you probs?? You are one fo the first I hear say that they werent stisfied with pioneer.

Well I guess no complaitns from the alpine makes it the better choice.

 

Im an installer at best buy, and according to what ive seen kenwood would be the way to go (but we dont carry alpine products so i dont know much about them). What I can tell you is that Ive seen more than a few Pioneers come in that need to be sent out for service. I have not seen even one Kenwood malfunction. Everything elese we carry is junk (JVC, Dual, Sony Xplod, Jensen, Rennosance, etc.)

 

Copied from a previous post of mine

Well... I've seen atleast a dozen fail for multiple reasons... all within a year or 2 of being new... most are ones that close friends had... I've NEVER had any issue with my Alpine's.. heck I've still got the first one I've ever bought in my beater car.. and it works flawlessly.. and that's a CDE-7831. I've had about 6 more since.

But as a small list of what we determined to fail:

Reciever poriton of the radio, no stations would come in at all, just static
CD Drive motor on 3 different units
CD LAzer motor on 2 other units
RCA Outputs on 2 units
Faceplate failures (Buttons not working, display's self-destructing, etc)

And these are only the one's I'm remembering off the top of my head...

 

Coo, Thanks y'all I think all in all the Alpine'll be WELL worht the $200.00! Yay I'm gettin a GOOD stereo! Lol!


~Jess

 

I've been installing for over 27 years now and Pioneer has by far the worst quality record of any brand I've dealt with. I'd buy an Audiovox before I would let you give me a Pioneer.

Alpine and Kenwood on the otherhand have had the best quality records in that time.

 

I also noticed that the Sony Xplod radios with the motorized faces have a tendency to burn out after a while.

 

I wouldnt own any more Sony HU. I've seen $700 HU go to crap, along with3 toerh Sony HU's (all before the X-ploid or wahtever series came out). I've lost faith in all sony products except for TV's and other home stuff.

 

I have a the top end pioneer in my camaro, and the really decent alpine in my jeep. I like the way the pioneer sounds best. I've tried so many different settings on that Alpine and I just can't get it to sound like the pioneer. THAT said...my last pioneer...the OrganicEL screen went out on one side....then alltogether. Traded it in for the newer model...haven't had that issue yet...but I'm waitin. I just like it's sound quality. The other radio I had was a Kenwood....it just kicked butt....plain and simple. Dunno if it sounded better than the Pioneer...but I did like it. I think I like this Alpine least of any I've had. It's not a bad little stereo...it's just not what I'm used to.

 

That's hardly a fair comparison. You can't compare the acoustics in a Camaro to those in a Jeep and then blame the HU for one not sounding as good as the other.

 

#1, I wouldn't make that kind of statement if I had not compared the 2 in the same vehicle...which I have. ( in fact, when it comes to pioneer vs. alpine, I've tested 4 different HU's..2 pioneer's and 2 alpines) ALL of them have been used in the jeep at one time or another and the pioneer's sounded a lot better. An alpine is in the jeep now though.

#2 One pioneer after the other got shifted over to the camaro which, might I add, is a convertible. Trust me...the acoustics in the convertible are not as good as in the jeep and it still sounds better in the camaro. Either way...I've had them ALL in the jeep and liked the pioneer's sound better. And they were ALL VERY similiar in price range (a pioneer and an alpine each in the under $500 range and a pioneer and an alpine each in the over $500 range).

#3 Both pioneers sounded about the same and both alpines sounded pretty much identical...only differences were in features on the respective models. (gotta hand it to them...they don't vary much) This is why I could say that I like the pioneer's sound better...I've done a little consumer testing

#4 Last but not least, I used to work in 12-volt sales and had the opportunity to listen to any combination of HU, speakers, subs, enclosures, amps...you name it, ALL in the same sound room. I always seemed to demo on the same pioneer. It just sounded better than the other stuff we had in there. And that was before I even bought a pioneer...so I wasn't biased yet.

I used the first pioneer I had in my Dakota SS, then the Jeep, then the Camaro. I think for a week there, I even had it in a little MG midget i used to have. Always liked it's sound better than anything else I've had. Some people swear by the Alpine's as having the best sound...this time, I can't say that I agree. But that's just my opinion. How something sounds to a particular person is probably one of the most subjective topics we could discuss here.

 

I've never owned an Alpine personaly, but MANY of my friends do. None of them have had even one problem. I have owned two Pioneer head units and loved them both. I just bought my third Pioneer..... hope all goes well.