MP3 Head Unit -- long

[Z26]

Hey guys, I have a decision to make on a head unit. I have narrowed it down to the alpine CDA-9815, pioneer/ DEH-P9400MP and the premier DEH-P940MP. I went to demo these units so I could get my hands on them and I thought the pioneer was a lot easier to navigate than the alpine. The alpine has 4-volt preouts as does the pioneer, but the premier has 6 volt. Other than the volt difference the pioneer and the premier are exactly the same but on EBay the prices are a lot different. The pioneer unit is around $100 more than the premier! I thought it would be the opposite being that premier is top of the pioneer line in car audio. The pioneer units have a 13-band eq with a built in mic and the alpine has a 5 band. The internal amp in not important to me because it will not be used. I can get the alpine 9815 for around $350, premier $350-450 and the pioneer $500. What do you people think?

Here are some pics.

Pioneer DEH-P9400MP
http://ebay0.ipixmedia.com/abc/M28/_EBAY_83c78069d7192631169d6e22bce1aea6/i-1.JPG

Premier DEH-P940MP
http://ebay1.ipixmedia.com/abc/M28/_EBAY_5dfa3f2a514aa6e2d46936606cb428dc/i-1.JPG

Alpine CDA-9815
http://ebay0.ipixmedia.com/abc/M28/_EBAY_f70e875797f88a3834856b3e66ce1890/i-1.JPG

[JLannoo]

Ok,well the Pioneers used to be hella slow at playing MP3's back when I had a 7400mp. I mean REALLY SLOW. Like 3-4 seconds between tracks when skipping and 2-3 when playing. Make sure they have fixed this or steer clear. Take a MP3 cd to a store and test it if your not sure.

Also the pioneer's would not autoscroll any text and would only display 8 characters of XM data. I would check that they fixed these things before buying pioneer.

[EViLsneakyDUCK]

im looking at the CDA-9815 myself. Im an Alpine fan and I had an Alpine unit in my del sol. Alpine is known for excellent sound quality and the 9815 has a lot of tunable stuff using i-personalize and some other stuff.

[ATRIOT]

Check out JVC's head units, their reliable and have a ton of features.

[Speck]

Here is my take on the sit:

I currently own the 9815, and I could not be happier. I tend to get bored with things very quickly in striving for solid auto sound. I previously owned the Sony MEX-5DI, P940MP, couple of Eclipses.

The 9815 is an excellent HU, it really is a set it and forget it model. Once you have measured (yes, really used a tape measure) the distance between you and the speakers, the sound is incredible.

The 9815 definately killed the 5DI in the sound quality dept, and IMHO is better than the P940MP. The Time Correction is a big thing for me, as well as being about the fine tune everything from the HU, instead of walking back to the trunk and tweaking my EQ (Which I am now trying to get rid of in a large trade package. See Classifieds).

Anyhow, that is my opinion, get the 9815, especially since I paid $475 just 2 months ago :(

-=speck=-

[Z26]

The pioneer will display 1 line with 32 letters of text or 2 lines with 24 letters for id3 info of cd text. I have heard of the mp3 navigation being slow, I will do some reserch.

JVC- never liked the brand. Never had it before.

[ssvr6]

I have the Blaupunkt MP3000 and it's great. It can read up to 8 directories deep.

Good enough for me. :)


Steve

[Z26]

I know the alpine doesnt have any bass and treble control. So how easy is it to change the sound setting?

[JLannoo]

Originally posted by Z26
The pioneer will display 1 line with 32 letters of text or 2 lines with 24 letters for id3 info of cd text. I have heard of the mp3 navigation being slow, I will do some reserch.

JVC- never liked the brand. Never had it before.

Check out what it can display for XM info though. I just pulled this off thier website.

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/Pioneer/CDA/CarProducts/CarProductDetails/0,1429,32409,00.html

XM Satellite Radio Ready
Controls optional GEX-P900XM or GEX-FM903XM Satellite Radio tuners (as XM source)
8-character display for XM Radio text (no scroll)

So you have this great huge display and then only 8 characters with no scroll! Really lousy. It could be cool though if your not planning on getting XM. Just check out the MP3 navigation first. If its as slow as the 7400 its almost unusable.

[Civicvtec1ps]

i have pioneer premier deh-840mp. flip down mp3 player,
works perfect, very fast read. NEVER skipped.
great headuint. thumbs up for pioneer from me

[JLannoo]

Originally posted by Civicvtec1ps
[B]i have pioneer premier deh-840mp. flip down mp3 player,
works perfect, very fast read. NEVER skipped.
B]


Ok now I have used one of those. They are SUPER slow with MP3's

[Civicvtec1ps]

Originally posted by JLannoo



Ok now I have used one of those. They are SUPER slow with MP3's
hmm i dont konw. works pretty good to me. dont have any problems.

[Speck]

As far as the alpine not having Bass and Treble controls.... Umm, yes it does :) I believe you get to it by pressing the volume knob 2x for bass and 3x for treble. I will check on that. I KNOW you do 1x for subwoofer output :)

-=speck=-

[Z26]

I have heard it just has the EQ and thats how you change your sound. But you own one and I dont (yet!) I will take yoyr word for it. Do you have any pics of your sett up? I would like to see the 2 line display at work in an actual car. Any night pics? How bright are the blue buttons?

[Speck]

I will get some pics ASAP for you. The blue is BRIGHT, I mean, not overwhelmingly... but it is definately blue :) But I also connected the illumination wire so that when my lights go on, the display dims a bit.

The 2 line display is nice, but that is the main difference in the 9813 and the 9815 (and the color of course). I will see what I can do to show you, you can choose to have it scroll 2 lines, or just keep em static, I scroll em, plus you can choose what you want it to display on each line, either time, disc title, folder title, track title, artist, song name, file name, time in track.

-=speck=-

[JLannoo]

Originally posted by Civicvtec1ps

hmm i dont konw. works pretty good to me. dont have any problems.

First let me say I was crabby this morning :o

I like Pioneer. Pioneer has some great features and the best displays and animation out there IMO I was just really let down by the models I mentioned.

I know Pioneer fixed the XM text problem with the 7500, 750, 8500, 850 by introducing a new XM tuner along with them. thier website seems to indicate that the new tuner would not fix the problem on the older units though. I think it was a combination problem with both the Headunit and the XM tuner having the limitation.

[jaydub]

I might be late to the party adding my $.02 here, but I also own a 9815 and it's been an excellent head unit so far. The two lines of text are reason enough to make it better than the competitors, for me. It's so cool when the song title scrolls twice as fast as the artist name...

One thing to mention, is that the Alpine's rated 4v output are weak. Another car audio board I'm on had a guy benchtest it, and the front and rear channels get close to 4v, but the sub output is only about 3v @ full volume without clipping. What does all this mean? Well nothing really, it only means you'll have to play with the gains on whichever amp you hook this up to, and even if you don't use an external amp, the internal one is pretty beefy.

I think Pioneer has a long way to go before they switch between MP3's as fast as Alpine, but JVC has them both beat in the speed dept.

[JLannoo]

Originally posted by jaydub
It's so cool when the song title scrolls twice as fast as the artist name...

My Excelon X869 does this. I was like WOW thats cool the first time it scrolled that way :)


I think Pioneer has a long way to go before they switch between MP3's as fast as Alpine, but JVC has them both beat in the speed dept.

Kenwood is super speedy at this as well. Plus allows you to browse folder names while another MP3 is playing