I personally would go with the 7996. The first stereo I bought was an alpine 7892 and the sound quality was amazing. I used it for 4 years and decided i wanted a screen so I switched to an eclipse double din which I love, but Im in the process of getting a new one and I sold the current one I was using. So rather than driving for a month without a radio in my car, I bought an alpine 9857, while eclipse ships my avn6610. It looks pretty good and the ipod connection is alright(kind of a pain unless you put together playlists), but im definately not impressed with the sound quality of it. From what ive read alot of people feel the same way. The older alpine and the eclipse 6600 I had blows the 9857 away in terms of sound quality and equalization. I dont know about those specific units your asking about, but i would imagine its going to be very similar to the ones I have experience with. Good luck though.