Originally posted by -DZ- You make a lot of good points, but:
8V preouts are useless unless you have an amplifier capable of accepting an 8V signal.
I don't know about others, but I can drive my amplifiers well into clipping with the 4V preouts on my Alpine.
I consider Eclipse to be "just another off the shelf brand". Nakamichi, Dennon, McIntosh, etc.. Those brands are all fairly "exclusive" and are not everyday stuff.
No, I don't think it's wrong to want more features for what I would be paying. Why does a $250 head unit play MP3 files whereas a $549 head unit does not? Satellite radio this summer? Other brands have had this for upwards of two years! (That's with the program? Sounds like they are running a little behind in this department)
Yes, way less ESN head units get stolen as way less ESN units get SOLD. I doubt detachable face theft is as high as you say it is, and I doubt Eclipse thefts are as low as you say they are. If I'm Joe Thief, I'm going to break into your car and steal what you have. I'm not going to say, "Hmm, that's an Eclipse. Better leave this one alone. Probably no subwoofers, amplifiers, and nice component speakers in here either". If they will take the stock radio, they will take your Eclipse, Kenwood, Alpine, Clarion, or Road Gear.
I can gurantee if you did a blind swap in 95 percent of systems between an Alpine and an Eclipse, most people wouldn't be able to tell you which is which.
I'm not saying Eclipse sucks, not at all. If it had some of the features I'm looking for in the price range I'm shopping in, I'd seriously give them another look. Right now, you can get a better value in other brands without sacrificing SQ for features.
As for the theft stats, percentages were given(so the fact that more detach face decks are sold is irrelevant). The guy who posted them works for an eclipse dealer I assume, but another guy posted the stats as well backing him up. I didn't say 4 esn decks were stolen while 10,000 detach face decks were stolen, for example. Thieves take just about anything, sad but true. I am by no means saying ESN is the best theft deterrant out there(I think a fake stock looking face would be much better), but I haven't seen any convincing argument that detachable face is better(and many people get tired of taking the faceplates off which would render the feature useless anyway).
As for satellite, from what the local shop says, Eclipse was holding off to see who would survive, and then, once they decided that it looked like both would probably be around, they wanted to be able to offer both as choices. Their sirius unit is being engineered to be compatible with decks going back to 99(in that you won't need a separate controller, even if your deck is 4 years old...not a bad deal for somebody running an older eclipse). Yes, I say eclipse is with the program. They offer many products(mp3, navigation, voice command, a new 20 gig hard drive unit this summer, etc). There is something to be said for not just jumping into something either(a year ago, sirius was not looking very promising at all, financially speaking). Eclipse has consistently offered more features for less money each year and still maintain excellent sounding decks. If it takes them an extra model year to do what they want in a deck, and do it right without compromising sq, then I say fine.
I agree that denon and mcintosh are more exclusive, but since Nakamichi is readily available from net retailers and
ebay, it is hard to consider them THAT exclusive. Eclipse is definitely not as exclusive as denon or mcintosh obviously, but the point remains, if eclipse is somehow overpriced because of the "features per dollar" argument, then the other decks(nak, denon, mcintosh, alpine f1) should be held to the same standard, IMO.
Eclipse's pricing on mp3 decks atleast give people the chance to buy an inexpensive mp3 deck(remember how much the alpine 7878 listed for 2 short years ago?). It is all a matter of their view on the market. Sure, maybe eclipse could have put mp3 in their upper end decks and priced them $100 more and left them out of their lower end decks this year. If that happened, then you would see people complain that "gee, eclipse doesn't make a cheap mp3 deck." You can't please everybody. Maybe next year all of their decks will have mp3, who knows. If Eclipse had priced the cd8053 at $649 and offered mp3 in it, would that have been better?..i dunno
I don't think there is any brand that offers mp3 in every model anyway(I could be wrong). I think anybody interested in a higher end, balanced line deck is probably going for complete sq(and mp3 is more than likely, not a concern).
Quality of pre outs doesn't just mean higher voltage either(atleast not to me). The local shop tested a guy's alpine for him, and it clipped at a relatively low volume. Another guy(posted on elitecaraudio) tested the pre outs on 2 7897s and, when the front pre outs clipped, the sub pre out was putting out 1.7 volts. I mention that just to show that "better" pre outs doesn't just mean "higher voltage" IMO. I don't think that just because deck A has higher voltage pre outs, that it is automatically better. I now run a 4 volt clarion for example, and it works fine. The majority of people I have seen post on the polls that people make(the ongoing alpine vs eclipse, which sounds better), say they think eclipse sounds better(I prefer eclipse but I also tell people to go check them out for yourselves and see what you think). They have had experience with both decks, have a/b demoed them, etc. Most people(myself included) will be objective and say what they think sounds better(If I listen to 2 decks, I will say which one I prefer. It doesn't matter if somebody is there telling me which one sounds better). It surely isn't some mythical perception that they have about eclipse's sound quality. If any brand has mythical status, it surely is alpine, not eclipse.
Anyway, I take this is interesting conversation/debate without the flaming. I hope you feel the same.
