alpine quality in jeopardy?

[LowZ24 10+ year member]

hey,

i was at circuit city tonight & was looking at 4 ch amps & got to talking to a sales girl. i asked her if they still carry alpine & she said that they dont anymore bcause "stuff was breaking all the time".....even their display models were having problems.

my question is when did all this begin to happen to alpine products?

i heard its made in china now instead of japan, is this correct?

what model lineup of alpine amps were the last true japan made?

anyways i checked out a big infinity reference 4 ch(7541a) and an eclipse(ea4000). i've heard good things bout the alpine mrv-f407 4 ch amp(this is an older model) & i've considered getting one of these used instead of one of these newer amps.

would this older alpine be like night & day compared to the other 2 amps mentioned? the 7541 is like $299, ea4000 $339, and the mrv-f407 was like $600 back in the day(i think)....but used is much less.

thanks for any input guys

LowZ24

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[desertheat 10+ year member]

All electronics are junk if the retailer is not allowed to sell them anymore *LOL* Alpine signed with best buy. The features have gone down a bit, and the quality looks to be lacking a little, but as always alpine is rock solid and I personally have always had great customer support even from Ebay bought goods.

 

[iagrdshaka 5,000+ posts]

probably user error

 

[SQBubble 10+ year member]

personally I never ever been an alpine fan, I just don't like their product... For the price, there is lot better than alpine, ---IMO

 

[LowZ24 10+ year member]

so is the mrv-f407 one of the last good 4 ch. alpines?

 

[bjfish11 5,000+ posts]

you said "even the display products were having problems?" What store has all perfectly working displays. At least the BB's and CC's around here, your lucky to find some that work.

 

[desertheat 10+ year member]

I had an MRV-f340 that I sold on here. Was a heck of a good amp! I used it for quite awhile and it never missed a beat. I would reccomend that amp to anyone. I think it was an 04-05 model. I would have kept it but it had some scratches and could not be used in a show car I am building.

And noob from Canada, what is allot better for the price than alpine, and please explane why the product you describe is technically better. I cannot wait to hear this and I am not even a die hard alpine fan //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[LowZ24 10+ year member]

that is true.....but thats what she told me. so she said that now they're starting to carry eclipse(entry level stuff).

 

[FoxPro5 5,000+ posts]

. For the price, there is lot better than alpine, ---IMO

You mean like Polk right? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

Alpine, like any other company, is driven by sales and is in direct competition with all the other supermarket brands. Therefore, they are primarily interested in marketing to their bread and butter - 16-24 year old males who have a few extra bucks in their pocket who are looking for some cool shit to throw in their rides. They probably spend more money on marketing every month than a company like Alumapro, for example, makes in a whole year.

Quality starts to drop as margin starts to shrink. They want to squeeze as many eye catching features [*think cool stuff like MOSFET, BassEngine, iPersonalize] per unit as they can so that you buy it and tell all your friends what a great deal you got because they know that word of mouth advertising is the best form out there!!! Take for example Alpine's '05 amp offerings. They put fans in all the heat sinks, included that cool blue top mounted display, and desigined some 'revoutionary' cooling system to keep the heat out of the internals.

Let me tell you someting, one of the first amps I ever owned was the MRV-f340. It was a great little amp with nice sound and features that surved me very well until I sold it for more power. Last summer I picked up the new and improved version of the 340, the MRV-f345. The 345 went in the exact same spot in my car, was hooked up to the exact same speakers and was fed the exact same amount of current and the amp ran so hot I could hardly even touch it!! And the kicker was that the 'revoultionary' cooling system didn't even kick in until it got hot enough to cook a t-bone on it!!

So long story short, Alpine is doing what Alpine does best - sell car audio! And what a better place to do it then Best Buy. Do you know how huge Best Buy is? Their corporate headquarters here in Minnesota is like the size of the Pentagon....and they have more buildings scattered around the country, not to mention more than 700 retail stores in the US and Canada.

BTW, Alpine is owned by ALPS Electronics of Japan who owns like 80 other companies.

 

[desertheat 10+ year member]

You mean like Polk right? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif
Alpine, like any other company, is driven by sales and is in direct competition with all the other supermarket brands. Therefore, they are primarily interested in marketing to their bread and butter - 16-24 year old males who have a few extra bucks in their pocket who are looking for some cool shit to throw in their rides. They probably spend more money on marketing every month than a company like Alumapro, for example, makes in a whole year.

Quality starts to drop as margin starts to shrink. They want to squeeze as many eye catching features [*think cool stuff like MOSFET, BassEngine, iPersonalize] per unit as they can so that you buy it and tell all your friends what a great deal you got because they know that word of mouth advertising is the best form out there!!! Take for example Alpine's '05 amp offerings. They put fans in all the heat sinks, included that cool blue top mounted display, and desigined some 'revoutionary' cooling system to keep the heat out of the internals.

Let me tell you someting, one of the first amps I ever owned was the MRV-f340. It was a great little amp with nice sound and features that surved me very well until I sold it for more power. Last summer I picked up the new and improved version of the 340, the MRV-f345. The 345 went in the exact same spot in my car, was hooked up to the exact same speakers and was fed the exact same amount of current and the amp ran so hot I could hardly even touch it!! And the kicker was that the 'revoultionary' cooling system didn't even kick in until it got hot enough to cook a t-bone on it!!

So long story short, Alpine is doing what Alpine does best - sell car audio! And what a better place to do it then Best Buy. Do you know how huge Best Buy is? Their corporate headquarters here in Minnesota is like the size of the Pentagon....and they have more buildings scattered around the country, not to mention more than 700 retail stores in the US and Canada.

BTW, Alpine is owned by ALPS Electronics of Japan who owns like 80 other companies.

Yep *LOL* I have a pic of alpines being made right in the same factory as kenwoods back in the day, was funny as heck to see them being assembled in the same building. Also totally agreed. Alpine goes in quality waves they pump up the features to sell and make a name for themselves, then out of the blue they drop most of the features, build cheap as heck amps to make a huge amount of cash. Then when the hardcores start to catch on the features come back very slow. For example, I feel they peaked with the 7909, then took awhile and peaked with the 7949, then went flat with crappy preouts and then rocked with the 7915.. then went to crap and made a wicked comeback with the 9835 and 7998... then signed up bigtime with bestbuy and dropped features like mad, had them massproduced to a whole new low level to make demands and now it is back to not so good again. But I venture to say the product should last. My mrv-f340 ran very cool and nice. Nothing harsh or hot. I have not messed with them after the f-340 but it was a rock solid little guy! Which leads me to beleive the higher power older model f540??? would rock as well.

 

[SQBubble 10+ year member]

I had an MRV-f340 that I sold on here. Was a heck of a good amp! I used it for quite awhile and it never missed a beat. I would reccomend that amp to anyone. I think it was an 04-05 model. I would have kept it but it had some scratches and could not be used in a show car I am building.
And noob from Canada, what is allot better for the price than alpine, and please explane why the product you describe is technically better. I cannot wait to hear this and I am not even a die hard alpine fan //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

You tell me what Alpine HU would you buy with exactly 225$US that would be BETTER than a Kenwood MP828?!?

As for amplifiers.. tell me what Alpine 4-channel amplifier would be BETTER than a Polk C400.4 with exactly 360$US?!?

I really dont think you would find something better for the price so dont bother checking it out..if you really think there is.. name them! haha:

now I aint saying they aint good or hating on them or anything... but they are over-priced just because its...Alpine...IMO

 

[FoxPro5 5,000+ posts]

Yep *LOL* I have a pic of alpines being made right in the same factory as kenwoods back in the day, was funny as heck to see them being assembled in the same building.

Now that's funny. "Hey check out my new AlpWood...errr wait is it a Kenpine?!?!" //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif That very fact alone just says a ton about the homogeneity of the whole industry. They are probably using the same **** components and everthing...it's just a different shaped heatsink or a prettier faceplate.

Now I'm more motivated then ever to give my money to companies like Zapco who put their money into the products, rather than into millions of dollars worth of marketing campaigns.

 

[desertheat 10+ year member]

You tell me what Alpine HU would you buy with exactly 225$US that would be BETTER than a Kenwood MP828?!?As for amplifiers.. tell me what Alpine 4-channel amplifier would be BETTER than a Polk C400.4 with exactly 360$US?!?

I really dont think you would find something better for the price so dont bother checking it out..if you really think there is.. name them! haha:

now I aint saying they aint good or hating on them or anything... but they are over-priced just because its...Alpine...IMO

Ok lets take these one at a time. For $225 for the deck brand new... hmmm... I would take an alpine 9853. Feature for feature your Kenwood "which is a nice deck" just got owned in control and ability. Found on ebay for $239, close enough for a deck than whoops another feature for feature. Just does not have the super bling bling screen the kenwood has. But I shop for performance, not bling.

For the amp, since you are running a 75w x 4 amp which is not cea certified to my knowledge and has a ghetto silk screen print on the front that says and I quote "975w peak power" in bright red on the front cough "gay shiz" cough... I would hands down chose an alpine mrv-f545 which IS cea certified to put out 125wpc x 4 and does not remind me of... pyramid with the 975w peak power super blinger logo on the front. Also has allot better features at $309.00

And I am not even an alpine fanboy and I understand your a noob. I forgive you //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif Also I asked for you to tell me "technically why" you think the gear you have is better than any alpine gear //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[Randy Savage 5,000+ posts]

Alpine left CC...not the other way around...//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

 

[FoxPro5 5,000+ posts]

You tell me what Alpine HU would you buy with exactly 225$US that would be BETTER than a Kenwood MP828?!?As for amplifiers.. tell me what Alpine 4-channel amplifier would be BETTER than a Polk C400.4 with exactly 360$US?!?

I really dont think you would find something better for the price so dont bother checking it out..if you really think there is.. name them! haha:

now I aint saying they aint good or hating on them or anything... but they are over-priced just because its...Alpine...IMO

There is one fundamental flaw in your arguement....you have neglected to define "BETTER"...//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/tongue.gif.6130eb82179565f6db8d26d6001dcd24.gif : //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/tongue.gif.6130eb82179565f6db8d26d6001dcd24.gif