Trying to decide on which one. All three seem to be good units. Now I just need to see the advantage of one over the other. The 9815 is quite reasonable for the money where as the 7998 is about $180 more. The 7897 is right in the middle. Anyone familiar with all three or have good/bad experience?

Thanks,
TopleSS

I will be adding a 4 channel amp for a front & rear fill set up & a mono for the rear sub.

Well, there are a few differences. The 9815 has the V-Power amp built in, which gives you about 26Wx4 RMS. The 7897 also has an amp built-in, but it only does about 22Wx4. The 7998 has no amp at all. All three have faceplates that swing out, the 7897 and 7998 have 1.5DIN (about 50% taller) faceplates than the 9815, but still have DIN-size chassis.

There are differences in using them, as well. All three give you Bass Engine Pro, which has the time alignment and 5-band parametric EQ. On the 9815, you control this only numerically, i.e. the display reads "+1 3 100" to mean you've boosted the band centered at 100Hz by 1, and the Q is set to 3. On the 7998, with the Biolite display, Alpine shows you graphically the adjustments to the EQ curve or crossover points. The new 9835 (go to crutchfield's website to see it) will have this same feature in an updated 9815 chassis.

Other than that, it's just the color of the buttons and the faceplate that differentiate. Pricing ranges from around $350 on ebay for the 9815 to $450-550 for the 7897 and 7998.

When is the 9835 coming out?

Crutchfield is saying March 1st, but my local Tweeter expects to get some in by mid- to late-February.

Crutchfield