I got news for you the Alpine 7998 is not a SIMPLE deck. Better make you you get or download the user manual for it because it is not easy to setup. Once it is though it is breeze to use.
Yea, i kno the 7998 has some tuning option that I need to play around with but the CD7000 just overwhelms me and I'm running passive set up so don't really need 11 band of EQs, etc.
I had a 7998 at one time. The stupid face plates on it would jamb or quit working for no reason. I had it replaced 3 times and the 4th time I had to send it to alpine. They sent me a 9835 back. I love the 9835.
The CDA-7998 is a very nice HU. I had two of them, and never had any issues with them. While I like the CD7000 more for SQ reasons, I preferred the ease of use that the 7998 provided.
My sister actually has one that is brand new, never used. I have thought about asking her if she wants to sell it to me //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif.