Help rating these Eclipse head units

[HD RACING 10+ year member]

Hello all I am a noob here and am looking for some more info.

I have posted in the WTB section for an Eclipse head unit. I have read the many posts about all of the units that I am interested in by using the search feature. I have further questions though. In what order would you rate the following head units ( I would prefer if only those that have owned them or have intimate working experience with them reply). Also maybe a line about why.

8053,8443,8445,8455,5000,5100,7000,7100

The 7000 can be had for $259 brand new off the internet which is kind of appealing so you don't have to deal with someone else's nightmare.

The 8053 is nice due to it being a dead head, which I am a fan of.

A friend has the 8455 and he absolutely loves it.

Some more info: I was into car audio over a decade ago and have been bitten by the bug so I am planning on utilizing some equipment I have stockpiled already to assemble a decent sound quality system. Here is what I have:

Rockford Punch 4 channel (200W) I believe

Directed 1100D

(2) Kicker Solobaric or C-12's ; will most likely only use one of them sealed

PGRsd 6.5" thanks to a site recommended on here!

And of course whatever head unit I buy

I have a 99GTP and the trunk will house the two amps in a false floor and the sub and nitrous bottle will be integrated into the trunk behind the passthrough. The components will be in the stock locations using fiberglass panels that I construct. The rear fill will be left open until I hear the system and determine if it needs anything. I have an Ipod but am not totally set on needing it in the car. if the head unit will accept it then great, if not it is not a deal breaker for me.

I am looking forward to using drawer number 3 in my tool box again! It is the drawer with all the car audio tools

Thanks for any help above what I have already found here.

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[HD RACING 10+ year member]

Can someone please respond? I'm beginning to think my posts are in Captain Crunch decoder ink.//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crazy.gif.c13912c32de98515d3142759a824dae7.gif

 

[whitemax 10+ year member]

I've had an Eclipse CD8454, CD8455, and a CD7000. If I were to go back and get another one of those units, I would pick up a CD8455. The CD8454's controls were a little slow, the CD8455 did not have this issue. The CD8455 also has a 7 band PEQ for both front and rear speakers if you choose to use them. There were a couple of things that I did not like about it though. The CD8455 used a wheel to change tracks. At times it was too easy to pass up a song, specially while driving. This was not so bad with the CD8454 because the wheel had more resistance to it, the one on the 8455 had a more loose feeling. Since the remote control on all these units are pretty slow, I never used them. The other thing was that once you went into the advanced mode, to use the non-preset TA features you would loose the sub volume control option. You could overcome this by having different attenuation settings for the sub through the PEQ memory settings though.

The CD7000 has some nice features, but the whole jog dial inside the knob makes it frustrating to use at times. If you want to adjust the bass you have to push the jog dial in the middle. The problem with this was that it was too easy to switch the track, or the folder you were in. Same thing would happen if you switched tracks, sometimes you would get into the sub volume/balance/fader modes. What the CD7000 had that was nice was the addition of a shortcut button. Made it very easy to change settings for me. I could push the button get into the PEQ menu, hit the setting I wanted (it also had the x-over values, and time alignment settings stored along with the EQ ones) and be on my way.

All these units were very nice HU's. Even though I pointed out some negatives, they had alot of nice features. There are some things that I don't like about my current HU too. One other thing I should mention is that the CD8454 and the CD8455 had a lower noise floor than the CD7000. Those are a few things that come to mind.

 

[HD RACING 10+ year member]

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

If everything goes right I will have either a CD8053 or CD8455 in the next few days.

I have a 8053 for $300 BNIB and also a used 8455 for $250 with 1 year left on the original warranty on the table right now..........

Choices

 

[johzp 10+ year member]

Im also thinking of getting the 8053 or the 5423...hmm...ill keep an eye out on this thread.

 

[Hoot 10+ year member]

Take the 8455 - hands down it is the best unit and I've used. Whitemax hit the nails on the head regarding the two issues of note, but both are miniscule, really, and you'll not find them continually annoying. You'll get used to the fast advance track dial, and so you advance two tracks... just go back. Then the sub output control in pro-mode - sure, it would be nice to control the sub volume for various tracks, but most of us set and forget this. You don't have to use the EQ to bump sub output - use the time-alignment and bump up the db.

 

[IgnoreMe 5,000+ posts]

all i know is i love my cd5000

 

[Geezerpoop 10+ year member]

as do i