Alpine HU (SQ improving or declining throughout the years?)

[JLCivic 10+ year member]

I can't say whats happened over the years but I did just replace a 9830 with an eclipse 5435. The SQ to me is a little better with my eclipse, but the big difference is that the eclipse sounds really good set flat, right out of the box. My 9830 took a lot of tweaking to get good and none of the factory preset eq curves were any good at all. I thought it was just the acoustics of my ride, until the 5435 sounded so good set flat. So IMO the alpine I had was OK, but I'll look elsewhere next time I'm in the market for a HU.

That is one of the reasons the local shop has loved selling eclipse for the past 13 years. As they say, "install it and turn it on...not much else needs to be done."

 

[3.5Max6spd 10+ year member]

Put it this way, my last Alpine HU was a 7949....and that was many moons ago....the stuff since hasn't ticked my pickle