The Edge
Junior Member
Greetings from Down Under (New Zealand!)
I'm a longtime Alpine car stereo fan, going back to the early 1990's. Just can't beat them for reception and sound quality in my opinion
The last one I had was a CDA-9847, in a VW Golf. Unfortunately that car was stolen along with the stereo inside it. I purchased a Mazda Demio but it had some horrible dashboard-built-in radio that you couldn't change, so I had to suffer with a band expander (it was a Japanese radio that didn't use the regular FM band) for two years. A pity, as I had purchased a CDE-103BT but was unable to fit it. I ended up onselling it unused.
Finally I have a new car and earlier this week my car stereo expert installed a CDE-133EBT. Very nice stereo, and the handsfree Bluetooth (something I've never had before) is a great feature to have.
Just a few little issues that niggle at me however. On every single Alpine stereo I've owned previously, there has always been a stereo indicator on the display, either "ST" or a signal indicator or something. This one doesn't have it. Doing a little research, it seems that none of the new Alpine stereos have it...anyone know the reason for this? I travel to a lot of rural areas and sometimes the signal can be a bit weaker than usual. It's useful to know when I'm receiving a correct signal or not.
The other thing is RDS. I had a rental car earlier this year with another built-in dashboard radio. This one was good though - proper frequency band and everything - but it also had RDS. In all my searching, there are only a few Alpine RDS radios I have come across - the Alpine CDE-126BTi
is one example, but unfortunately this model is now end-of-life.
So, I guess I have two queries:
- are there any new Alpine head units with the FM Stereo indicator on them available, or is there any reason why this indicator has been removed?
- why are there so few Alpine head units that support RDS?
I'm sure I'm not the only one with a query like this.
Thanks so much //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif
I'm a longtime Alpine car stereo fan, going back to the early 1990's. Just can't beat them for reception and sound quality in my opinion
The last one I had was a CDA-9847, in a VW Golf. Unfortunately that car was stolen along with the stereo inside it. I purchased a Mazda Demio but it had some horrible dashboard-built-in radio that you couldn't change, so I had to suffer with a band expander (it was a Japanese radio that didn't use the regular FM band) for two years. A pity, as I had purchased a CDE-103BT but was unable to fit it. I ended up onselling it unused.
Finally I have a new car and earlier this week my car stereo expert installed a CDE-133EBT. Very nice stereo, and the handsfree Bluetooth (something I've never had before) is a great feature to have.
Just a few little issues that niggle at me however. On every single Alpine stereo I've owned previously, there has always been a stereo indicator on the display, either "ST" or a signal indicator or something. This one doesn't have it. Doing a little research, it seems that none of the new Alpine stereos have it...anyone know the reason for this? I travel to a lot of rural areas and sometimes the signal can be a bit weaker than usual. It's useful to know when I'm receiving a correct signal or not.
The other thing is RDS. I had a rental car earlier this year with another built-in dashboard radio. This one was good though - proper frequency band and everything - but it also had RDS. In all my searching, there are only a few Alpine RDS radios I have come across - the Alpine CDE-126BTi
is one example, but unfortunately this model is now end-of-life.
So, I guess I have two queries:
- are there any new Alpine head units with the FM Stereo indicator on them available, or is there any reason why this indicator has been removed?
- why are there so few Alpine head units that support RDS?
I'm sure I'm not the only one with a query like this.
Thanks so much //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif
