acubsfan
10+ year member
Cubs Fan
I currently have an Alpine 9835, but I think it might be ready to go. I got it off a guy on Craigslist a little over a year ago for 150 in awesome shape, but I have had a problem for a couple of months now and I think it might be the deck. Originally, I had a pretty half ass install with lots of slack wire in the trunk coming in contact with each other and to no surprise, had hissing without the car on and alternator whine with it on. I finally ripped apart the whole setup and ran 0 gauge power and ground both from the battery to the trunk on the driver side and replaced the the crappy rca's with fosgate rca's that they sell at best buy (hopefully less crappy at least) and ran all new speaker wire as well. Made sure everything was really clean this time around.
At first I thought it was the RCA's, but I disconnected them from both the amp and the headunit and I still get the noise. I feel like a ground to the battery should be solid from what I have read, that is where a ground to the trunk or anywhere else ends up anyway. I have experienced the noise with 3 different amps now (eclipse xa4000, jl 500/5, and eclipse xa5000) so I have ruled out the amp with that in mind.
I am pretty impatient sometimes and tend to add/remove rca's while the unit is literally turned on and have had got a nice POP noise several times while doing so, so I am thinking I may have done something to the deck. If anyone has an idea of the problem if it is fixable as is, let me know. In the meantime, I am looking for replacement decks.
Things I need:
Things I want:
My budget is sort of flexible, but I probably need to stay under $400, preferably under $300.
One obvious choice I am considering would be the Alpine 9887, not a lot to dislike about it. Only thing is I have heard some contention from others that Alpines especially post 2004 have begun to add a little something to the higher frequencies and are not as flat as before.
There is also the Eclipse 7200 and the CD5030. I don't they are necessarily in the same class, but the 5030 seems to have quite a bit of the features I am looking for.
Kenwood, I liked the features and reviews looked good on the Kenwood Excelon KDC-X993 and a couple of other similar models. However, the face looks insanely shiny and being able to see it in daylight is important to me.
One that caught me off guard a bit was the JVC KD-R900. It actually looks pretty sharp in some pictures I have seen and has a solid set of features, although some reviews still questioned if it is up there with the Alpine, Kenwood, Eclipse, etc.
At first I thought it was the RCA's, but I disconnected them from both the amp and the headunit and I still get the noise. I feel like a ground to the battery should be solid from what I have read, that is where a ground to the trunk or anywhere else ends up anyway. I have experienced the noise with 3 different amps now (eclipse xa4000, jl 500/5, and eclipse xa5000) so I have ruled out the amp with that in mind.
I am pretty impatient sometimes and tend to add/remove rca's while the unit is literally turned on and have had got a nice POP noise several times while doing so, so I am thinking I may have done something to the deck. If anyone has an idea of the problem if it is fixable as is, let me know. In the meantime, I am looking for replacement decks.
Things I need:
- Active crossover (2-way + sub)
- EQ (would really prefer 5 or more bands)
- 4v preouts minimum
- Some sort of auxillary input for external source such as ipod
Things I want:
- Ipod Integration (control from the deck, faster than the 9835 which really sort of ******)
- bluetooth built in (ready would be okay, but built in obviously would be preferred)
- solid number of color options for face to match dash
My budget is sort of flexible, but I probably need to stay under $400, preferably under $300.
One obvious choice I am considering would be the Alpine 9887, not a lot to dislike about it. Only thing is I have heard some contention from others that Alpines especially post 2004 have begun to add a little something to the higher frequencies and are not as flat as before.
There is also the Eclipse 7200 and the CD5030. I don't they are necessarily in the same class, but the 5030 seems to have quite a bit of the features I am looking for.
Kenwood, I liked the features and reviews looked good on the Kenwood Excelon KDC-X993 and a couple of other similar models. However, the face looks insanely shiny and being able to see it in daylight is important to me.
One that caught me off guard a bit was the JVC KD-R900. It actually looks pretty sharp in some pictures I have seen and has a solid set of features, although some reviews still questioned if it is up there with the Alpine, Kenwood, Eclipse, etc.
