cda-9885 and PXA-H701

[mendon99 10+ year member]

no prob!

 

[Babs 10+ year member]

This subject does seem to come up a lot about the H701.. It is indeed confusing.

The way I understood the 701, it's best performance is from an optical digital input from it's source, be it a DVD head unit that has optical-out or changer, etc.

Otherwise, you'd have to connect to the H701 in analog, which I'm not a fan of because you'd have a D/A conversion in the head unit, then another A/D/A conversion in the 701.. signal gets minutely degraded with each conversion and I've heard noise can be introduced running analog to the 701.

So I'd say:

For best performance, run any optical DVD alpine that will work with the 701.

For cleanest install (if you can go 2-din), run a touchscreen Alpine DVD that will also control the 701 as well as feed it optical.. The 200 or 205 is nice.. 105 also for a 1-din dash would be cool I'd bet if it controls it completely.. probably does. Plus the 701 control screens on a 2-din screen are very nice.

Me too.. same boat.. waiting on the CDA-9887 but entertaining other options for good TA and Active Crossover processing.

 

[jluv 10+ year member]

Plus the 701 control screens on a 2-din screen are very nice.

On that note, as a former W200 owner and a current W205 owner, the way the W205 displays the graphic equalizer from the H701 sucks. On the W200, it actually shows a graph. You can move the points for each frequency up and down a line and the values are shown out to the side of the graph. Each frequency point is right next to the other so the overallpicture actually shows a curvy line, giving you a great overall visual picture of what you are doing with your sound.

On the W205, it does not show a graph at all. Instead, it lists each frequency and then has the value for that frequency next to it. It looks like this, for example:

20 hz -6 db

22hz -6 db

25 hz -2 db

28 hz 0db

31 hz +2 db

And so on....

WTF? I mean, isn't a graphic eq, by definition, supposed to be displayed as a graph?

Oh, and the W205 does not have a MUTE button. Ya, they took it off but added a "visual" shortcut button on the panel (not the touch screen). The only way to mute the unit is with the remote.

Still, I like the W205 better because of the better bluetooth functions and it does multicast with HD radio. And of course, the main reason I bought it is because of the ability to dock the new Blackbird once it finally comes out. If those things don't matter to you, and if you can save a lot on a used W200, go that route because it has a better display when used with the H701.