Out of Kenwood, Pioneer, and Alpine. List specifics if you could. Im tryin to stay to brands that are on crutchfield.com

 

Alpine out of those listed. Eclipse out of all of them. List your price range as well.

 

Kenwood out of those, Alpine is just 30% more expensive for SQ that tends to be on the low side of a good Kenwood. I tried 3 Alpine h/u's (CDA-9851) in my max, all of em sounded muddy compared to my Kenwood, regardless of how I tweaked them. I ended up getting my money back and sticking my Kenwood KDC mpv-622 back in. Alpine makes good amps, decent speakers, and used to make decent headunits, but I wouldn't buy an Alpine headunit without hearing the exact one I was buying first.

Eclipse is GREAT if you don't ever plan on running a quality high band EQ + active crossover setup. Its just kinda overkill for 99% of listeners to run an Eclipse h/u and a good Equalizer and a good 3 way active xover, although many would disagree with me.

 

I own the Alpine 9833 and have had no problems at all. As far as the CDA line, I cannot comment. I would narrow my search down to either a Pioneer or Alpine HU that fits your budget. JMO.

If you weren't set on using Crutchfield, I would say Eclipse all the way.

 

eclipse>pioneer>alpine when it comes to the 05 model lineup.

 

I think that the old Alpine models are awesome...but their current stuff just sucks a fattie. I have the 9833 which can be considered a steal for their current price. If you are looking for something new, the Pioneer Premier line is another great HU although slightly higher priced.

 

I do. I don't think that the older Kenwood's compare to the old Alpine's, but the newer ones...well, that's a different story.

 

Ive heard the same thing from sells men who were quoting this years reviews.

Proph

 

I've got a Pioneer 8600 its having problems it doesn't read discs well and the multi function button isn't so great. I'd recommend you go Alpine. I had a Kenwood and it was great but what they have now is crap. I don't know about you but Ultimate Electronics is going out of business in my area so you could try there they might have stuff on sale. Also circuit city is dumping all their alpine so you might find something there.

 

out of crutchfield I'd look at 24bit Clarion (dxz855mp and up) , Pioneer 9600 and even 24bit JVC Arsenals over the Alpine stuff.

 

For the price, panasonic makes decent head units.

 

I haven't heard any generation of Alpine h/u in the same "class" that was any cleaner sounding than my ~14 month old Kenwood when driving speakers straight off the h/u on both. I went from a bottom end Pioneer to an mp3 Pioneer h/u to my mp3 Kenwood, and the Kenwood sounds the cleanest of any of them, even though it only feeds 2v through the preamps...It was a drastic improvement in SQ between each swap when running my speakers off the headunit, although the Kenwood doesn't recieve weak FM signals as well as the Pioneers were capable of. That only applied for a short distance anyway, since my local station I listen to all the time (94.5) is strong, and if I got out to the edge of its range, there were different stations using very close freqencies that bled over (94.3 if I went about 80 miles south, 94.6 if I went about 75-80 miles north).

If I ever decide to change headunits again, it'll be to a Kenwood/Excelon unless I get a steal on a Pioneer or Eclipse...I've heard some lousy things about a FEW kenwood headunits, namely the first generation of motorized headunits, and the ones with a "joystick"..

 

That is becuase they stopped making their nice units a while back, and those did not have built in amplifiers .


I would still be runing my 7949/PXA-H600 setup if it were not for the cd player being extremely picky with CD-R's.


Oh and out of those units mentioned I would go with ECLIPSE .

 

kenwood is garbage, ive had nothing but bad experiences with them. go with an alpine, ull get more options and better sound then alpine. i had a alpine and switched to my pioneer p80mp and i am much happier. the subwoofer controls on the pioneer are so nice and convinenient. there are also a lot more EQ settings with the pioneer, go with a nice pioneer and ull be very happy!!

 

The best thing you can do for you car is go with the eclipse, i have the Cd5435 in my 93 Maxima and the SQ out of my factorys are unbeliveable, the decks volume can go to 80 i've had it up to 75 and there was very little distortion, all their decks are 5v preouts plus with the eclipse you get a really good warrenty, even better security fetures and it has an electronic tracking device that tracks you deck via satilite, also if they cant find your deck thay will replace it FREE OF CHARGE. thay are a bit pricy but you get what you pay for. Panasonic also has great decks i would put my old Panasonic against an alpine of the say range anyday...
Good luck in you choice!

 

IMHO, alpine is garbage and Kenwood is the a/v equipment of the titans..I haven't had a single problem with anything Kenwood, and its considerably cheaper than Eclipse..although I didn't know eclipse had that nifty tracking thingy, I'll have to look into that some day..when I have "spare" money...

Really, everyone has their own opinions and biases for car audio stuff. I'm Biased in favor of Kenwood, because I've never heard one I didn't like.

 

I hope the 'tracking device' wasnt part of a salesmans pitch that helped you into buying it. It is utterly False. There is absolutely no tracking device inside the units.

 

in that case, I won't get in a hurry to look into em

 

The theft replacement coverage is true. IF bought and installed by an Authorized dealer they will replace the unit free of charge within the first year of owning it. As well as having a 3 year warranty which is something that none of the competitors can offer.

Hands down Eclipse is the better choice, but to each their own. Kenwoods have proven to me to be unreliable for long term use.