Need to replace a stolen Alpine. Looking for ideas

[JumboAg99]

Last week, somebody decided that they liked the Alpine CDA-7894 that I had in my F150 as much as I did. I came back to my truck after lunch and it was GONE.

I'm looking for ideas to replace it.

Vehicle info:

2003 F150 Ext Cab

Speakers: All aftermarket Infinity

Sub/Amp: MTX 2150 Amp bridged to 2ohm powering an MTX 10" Sub in a custom enclosure.

When I bought the Alpine back in '02 that model was the best thing Alpine made that had a built in amp. The next model up was over a grand and required an external amp to run.

Since I have good speakers and a subwoofer, I'm not willing to just go back to the stock Ford stereo. Having said that, I'm not sure I'm wanting to spend a ton of $$ to buy a mid/high end quality head unit after just eating my insurance deductable.

One thing I do want (OK, consider it a requirement...) the new deck has to support RDS (which knocks out the current Alpines among others. I find it strange that just about every stock radio out there these days is RDS capable but it seems that very few aftermarket units are). I'll probably buy on E-Bay (bought the last one on ebay and saved a fortune, so will do the same again. My target price is $200-$300 (preferably at the lower end.) I would also prefer something that's HD ready, so that in six months to a year when the prices come down a bit more, I can buy a HD tuner add on for it.

First blush, I was looking at the Kenwood X790 or X890, but am far from making my final decision.

Ideas/suggestions?

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[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

lol i forget what rds is! lol kenwood has gotten better over the years as far as durability and sound quality. back around 2001-2003 the faceplate mechanics imo were suspect but i havent seen nor heard much complaint since and more serious people are using them

 

[JumboAg99]

RDS - Radio Data Service (or something like that). Most radio stations broadcast a small data stream with their signal that lists out the artist/song information which is displayed on your radio. That way you know exactly what you're listening to

 

[Suomi 10+ year member]

Are there any HUs with RDS? I would really like that too. As is, I'm leaning toward the Pioneer 880. I don't believe it has RDS though //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

 

[Ctminime 10+ year member]

get a nice 05 alpine like a 9855 or 9853... somthing like that might not have RDS but they are all around great headunits.....

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

i think xm and sirius kicked rds out of the aftermarket ring. i never listen to the radio however. get the best you can afford while taking into consideration how it can help you/hurt you as you up grade your system..if you plan on upgrading

 

[2LouDFoRThiS 10+ year member]

look at a clarion

 

[JumboAg99]

I got the info I was waiting on from my insurance company today and they're going to give me what I paid for my old Alpine deck. (about $330). I'm still set on something with RDS, so the more I look around the more I think I am going to go ahead and get the Kenwood.

Price wise, (based on what I've seen on Ebay stores) it looks like I can go ahead and get the x990 for this price range. Anybody have this unit (or the x790/x890) that wants to try to either agree with me that it's a good deck and I should get it, or convince me that it's garbage and I should look elsewhere....

 

[Prowler573 5,000+ posts]

As a die-hard Kenwood loyalist (I currently run an XXV-01D) I'd have to say any of the optioned models you're looking at are very capable units.

Kenwood, I think, is the only manufacturer currently building RDS decoding into their headunits and I haven't found anything posted in this thread to disprove that assumption so I'll go right on thinking it.