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Review 1 of 11
Price Paid:
$35000.00
from M&C Audio Strengths:
Time Correction feature Weaknesses:
Two volt pre-out
Equilizer
Crossover
Lack of simple controls
Ejecting motor mishaps
Not user freindly
Need an engineering degree to operate Summary:
I had an existing deck in my car (2001 Honda Accord) that sounded great, but was about six years old. It had started showing it's age somewhat, so I went to a local car audio retailer to inquire about a new deck.
I had hoped to find another Eclipse deck, but Eclipse is hard to come by in this area; for only one store that I know of carries it and I refused to go because of a couple of bad experiences in the past. I settled for going to M&C Audio. Upon entering the store, I quickly picked up on the fact that they "specialized in", or "pushed" Alpine. I wasn't browsing too long before the owner of the small retailer approached me and began his Alpine endorsing rhetoric. I had convinced myself that 'I had to get a new deck', and while I had a little time to play with the different decks, the Alpine CDA-9853 seemed to interest me a little. To make a long story short, the owner/salesman, was glorifying Alpine, hyping up their sound quality and saying things like 'Alpine has always been about the sound quality' and then told me about the features that this deck had. He told me about the built in equilizer and crossover, and how the sound could be tuned precisely....blah, blah,blah.....
He ended up selling me on the deck and it's qualities/features. I had it installed and while I wasn't totally comfortable or confident for that matter in my purchase, I tried to make the best of it. An example I can give is the fact that this deck lacks any simple audio controls (ie: bass, treble, even subwoofer volume). It didn't sit well with me either the fact that this deck has 125% LESS voltage output than my previous deck (a powerful 5 volt Eclipse) but, the retailer convinced me that "the built in equilizer and crossover in the Alpine CDA-9853 would make up for the less voltage" and that "the voltage doesn't matter because...." He then told me why with all of the "car audio" jargon that 90% of the general public doesn't understand. I also didn't like the fact that this Alpine deck didn't have a subwoofer volume control or even a simple bass control. I was told again that "it wasn't needed" with all of the other features. Baloney.
I will agree with a couple of the other reviews about this deck with the complaint regarding the ejecting of cds. At least three seperate times I inserted a cd and the face remained open for several seconds and the cd ejected PARTIALLY, went back in, came out partially and went back in finally to stay and start playing. This happened within the first few DAYS of owning this deck. It didn't happen enough to really bother me, but I definately filed it away in the back of my head.
I thought the 'TILT' feature was a joke, it gives you two or three different tilt angles and forget about it benefiting you in any way. The tilt angle is so severe, even in the first position it made me wonder why it was even an option. It took me a while to get the deck back to the normal position and I never used the tilt feature again.
I will also agree with previous reviews regarding the poor visibilty in the sun. You have to shade the deck face with your hand to even see what you're looking at.
Now regarding the "Glidetouch" bar that everyone seems to dislike. I didn't have that much trouble with it, but when my father was in the car, trying to change the radio station presets, he said just about 100% of the time that he thought the deck was "a piece of junk"; primarily because it isn't user friendly at all. Which brings me up to the bread and butter of this deck: The glorified "equilizer and crossover" features.
These features were the two that pretty much sold me on this deck, but I wished I knew I had to be an engineer in order to understand A.) How to operate these features and B.) To adjust them effectively. I couldn't believe the complexity in these features on this deck. I consider myself to be pretty smart and can understand something after I study it enough, but not so with this. I read, reread and messed around with the equilizer and crossover and came to two conclusions: 1.) Stick with the 'Factory" equilizer programmed already and 2.) These two features totally destroy the sound when applied. What a huge disappointment this was to me. I settled for this deck because of these two features and they, in my opinion ; were totally useless and made enjoying the deck virtually impossible.
The ONLY feature worth anything on this deck was the "Time Correction" feature. This enables the listener to actually "delay" sound coming from the car's speakers to basically arrive to your ear at the appropriate time. You have to literally take a tape measure (at least I did) and do a math equation (provided in the thick owner's manual) and when the equation is figured out all six different times (for six speakers) you adjust the time the sound comes from the speaker. It actually seemed to make a difference, but maybe it was just my thinking/ hoping for a silver lining in what I will always consider; a bad, uninformed purchase.
The other thing that was very irritating for me (although maybe not for everyone) was the ease at which this deck would 'skip' going over what I thought were harmless bumps. This deck would sometimes skip driving over a manhole cover. I always knew when it would skip when approaching certain bridges, holes in the road, frost heaves, etc. This deck, out of the four that I've owned, was THE WORST performer.
In my opinion, this deck is not worth the money, time, or trouble unless you want a challenge in trying to figure out slopes, high pass filter, Hz, crossover, and other car audio jargon. Over the years, I always heard that Alpine was excellent, but I disagree wholly. I just had this deck removed after over a year of disappointment, and wisely bought a USED Eclipse CD4000. Eclipse had won me over before and they certainly have again. Eclipse is HANDS DOWN a better overall deck, sound quality, very user friendly, much more powerful, and very durable, unlike the overrated Alpine decks. Similar Products Used:
Most complicated deck ever used, cannot compare it to anything I ever bought/used
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