Alpine or Pioneer

[victor.atm 10+ year member]

both have great stuff, but i personally use pioneer and its amazing,

 

[eharri3 10+ year member]

I have had in the past 5 years a 9883, 9884, and a 9886 and am now running a Pioneer Premier deh980 BT. I can say without a doubt, I am done with Alpine unless I ever happen to come across an older model next time I'm in the market. The Pioneer with its built in tuning features have made a bigger difference in imaging, staging, and detail than I would have ever thought possible. My music has literally come to life, just by using the pre-set 'natural' EQ setting and the time alignment at the factory default settings for both front seating positions and without me doing any real tinkering.

The only thing worth buying in the Alpine line is the 9887, and IMHO even that doesn't really stand out above the higher end head units. Everything else in Alpine's new lineup pretty much a ho-hum CD player with IPOD control and bass/treble boosts until you pay an extra 150$$ for this, another 200$ for that. Alpine still isn't offering built-in bluetooth and has removed most of the important tuning features from EVERYTHING below the 9887 because they don't want people to get too satisfied with the head unit itself and leave IMPRINT units gathering dust on warehouse shelves.

OTOH This pioneer has built in bluetooth, optional IPOD compatability, 16 band EQ, time alignment, BBE sound, independent crossovers and slopes for front, rear, and subs. And unlike IMPRINT it has a built in Auto EQ setting that you can further tweak to your liking.

Im done with Alpine because I basically got tired of being told, 'OK you've already paid x-amount for the head unit, now if you want this feature 'unlocked' that'll be 150 bucks, this other piece you need is 30, this other thing is 199..." Come on, throw out some kind of bone, why should I have to pay 150 bucks or more for a whole 'add-on' module just to get a 5 band parametric or 7 band graphic on the 9886 when other manufacturers build 10 bands or more of equalization into more than one HU in their lineup.

 

[blackdragonaudi 10+ year member]

This has been done in a poll and alpine came out on top. I will never ever go back to pioneer I have went threw 3 of them one developed a ejection problem even before a year was up. Sent it in for repairs and they said nothing was wrong with it. The next one the screen crapped out about 4 months into owning it, and the third one I installed and had a terrible noise now i know that little ground trick but come one if you are going to make a deck make it with strong grounds for the rca's. So i sent that back and in the mean time installed my buddies pioneer after a week he hated the thing. So he put a alpine deck in his and never has looked back. So i recived my new deck which was an alpine installed it and no noise and sounded much better all around. My neighbor has a 10 year old alpine deck and its still working flawlessly!!! I will never go back to pioneer and people that I install systems for thank me for telling them to go with alpine.

 

[19992wdtaco 10+ year member]

Definitely Pioneer.

Here is all you need to know about Alpine. Take one apart and you'd see how cheap they are made now compared to 10 years ago.

http://www.nlcnet.org/campaigns/archive/report00/alpinedaesungdoc.shtml

 

[Kai Winters 10+ year member]

I have been an Alpine fan and owner for 30 years, give or take a couple and would not buy another brand. During this time I have also tried Pioneer, Eclipse, JVC, etc. and always went back or reinstalled an Alpine unit.

I've also seen and owned enough of them to have seen many and varied changes, some good, others not so good.

I have never had one go south on me.

They aren't perfect and there are certainly other good manufacturers out there but for me I will stick with Alpine.

 

[jrouter76 10+ year member]

I have both Alpine and Pioneer HUs and its ALPINE all-day every-day, much cleaner sound.

 

[eharri3 10+ year member]

Comparing my pioneer and my Alpine, my Alpine somehow seemed to put out a 'thinner' sound, all else the same.

 

[jrouter76 10+ year member]

Comparing my pioneer and my Alpine, my Alpine somehow seemed to put out a 'thinner' sound, all else the same.

what model # of Alpine?

 

[Korn4Life 5,000+ posts]

Pioneer

 

[Beerdrnkr 5,000+ posts]

I'm a big fan of Pioneer. I think the menu's and features are much more user friendly and Pioneer seems to have more features at even price points w/ alpine units. I'm currently using the Pioneer 800PRS and I love it. All that being said I bought a W200 w/ H701 processor because that combo is just badass and I needed the 4way active capability. We'll see how the Alpine unit does, but man I hate scrolling through the menus of Alpine units.

 

[joeboxer5876 10+ year member]

i used to have a pioneer 9300 and i still hav emy alpine 9835. like the alpine better but my buddy still has my old 9300. both sick HU depends on what you are looking for. pioneers are nice with the colors and graphics if that your gig. alpines are not as flashy but have everything i needed that the pioneer didnt have.

 

[adam71 5,000+ posts]

This has been done in a poll and alpine came out on top. I will never ever go back to pioneer I have went threw 3 of them one developed a ejection problem even before a year was up. Sent it in for repairs and they said nothing was wrong with it. The next one the screen crapped out about 4 months into owning it, and the third one I installed and had a terrible noise now i know that little ground trick but come one if you are going to make a deck make it with strong grounds for the rca's. So i sent that back and in the mean time installed my buddies pioneer after a week he hated the thing. So he put a alpine deck in his and never has looked back. So i recived my new deck which was an alpine installed it and no noise and sounded much better all around. My neighbor has a 10 year old alpine deck and its still working flawlessly!!! I will never go back to pioneer and people that I install systems for thank me for telling them to go with alpine.

Yes, because a poll on this forum is the end all, be all for deciding on a deck.//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/rolleyes.gif.c1fef805e9d1464d377451cd5bc18bfb.gif

 

[adam71 5,000+ posts]

Comparing my pioneer and my Alpine, my Alpine somehow seemed to put out a 'thinner' sound, all else the same.

I've always noticed that Alpines lack in the mid range. But thats just my ears.

 

[adam71 5,000+ posts]

pioneers are nice with the colors and graphics if that your gig.

Pioneer offers a lot more than colors and graphics. Way to generalize with no credible information.

alpines are not as flashy but have everything i needed that the pioneer didnt have.

Such as what??

 

[dbeez 5,000+ posts]

I have ran both brands and like the alpine a little better at least the higher end because seems all the pioneers give me their famous whine after a bit but never ran into that problem with the alpine however the pioneer i like the features and ease of use way better..