Changed out Head Unit

1996blackmax

I just replace my Alpine CDA-7998 with an Eclipse CD8454. My only regret is that I did not do this a while ago. The way the Eclipse sounds reminds me of my older setup, an Alpine CDA-7949 paired up with a PXA-H600, this is something that the 7998 was not capable of doing. Try and try I could not tweak it to sound like it. I just don't understand why Alpine would charge $800 dollars for the 7998 when they first came out and not use better DAC's. The Burr Brown DAC's is what made my older setup sound so good. The Eclipse 8454 has 24 bit DAC's, cost a couple hundred less than the 7998 did, and it sounds better.

MacLeod

Yeah, Eclipse makes some damn good units. Not to mention theyre usually priced below comparable gear with less features.

With Alpine youre paying a lot for the name. Like Nike, a $50 pair of shoes will cose $30 extra just cause theyre Nikes!

I would really like to have an Eclipse unit but the thing is they are so damn fugly. I dont know why they wont put some effort into making a more attractive unit.

1996blackmax

Originally posted by MacLeod
Yeah, Eclipse makes some damn good units. Not to mention theyre usually priced below comparable gear with less features.

With Alpine youre paying a lot for the name. Like Nike, a $50 pair of shoes will cose $30 extra just cause theyre Nikes!

I would really like to have an Eclipse unit but the thing is they are so damn fugly. I dont know why they wont put some effort into making a more attractive unit.

I agree with what you say. My Alpine HU did look better than my Eclipse. The thing is that once I heard how much better (more detailed sound) the Eclipse sounds, I learned to like it's look more and more . The one I bought I think looks better than the new ones they are coming out with.

neomagus00

when shopping for my hu, i had it narrowed down to eclipse or pioneer, bout $700 for either, and i picked pioneer cause the digital controls on the eclipse were too slow - i don't want it to take ten seconds to turn my volume down! if it weren't for that, i'd have picked the eclipse (well, it was a very un-intuitive interface, too... i mean, why do i have to push the 'unfold' button and then the eject button?).

MacLeod

Eclipse defintely has the high quality inards but they really need to redesign their "user friendliness".

1996blackmax

Originally posted by neomagus00
when shopping for my hu, i had it narrowed down to eclipse or pioneer, bout $700 for either, and i picked pioneer cause the digital controls on the eclipse were too slow - i don't want it to take ten seconds to turn my volume down! if it weren't for that, i'd have picked the eclipse (well, it was a very un-intuitive interface, too... i mean, why do i have to push the 'unfold' button and then the eject button?).

I know what you mean about how it can be a little slow to turn it down, but the mute function works great . Also I thought the same thing about ejecting the CD, but I guess they did it because of the memory card. The SQ that this HU provides more than makes up for these things. I am just happy that I have something now that sounds like my previous setup (Alpine CDA-7949 paired up with a PXA-H600 processor).

I also have tried Pioneer, it was the DEH-P8600MP. I was looking for something better than my Alpine 7998 in SQ. The sound I liked, but I thought it was too difficult to navigate trough the menus & submenus for things like just turning down the sub woofer. I was shocked that a $500 dollar unit did not have a seperate wire for the power antenna, Pioneer only provides one wire for turning on power amps and powering the antenna. Everytime I turned it on the antenna would go up, even if I was listening to a cd. I do not listen to the radio that often, so for me this was unncessary wear and tear on the antenna motr. Also the bling factor was too much for me.

spwuinmk67

Originally posted by neomagus00
when shopping for my hu, i had it narrowed down to eclipse or pioneer, bout $700 for either, and i picked pioneer cause the digital controls on the eclipse were too slow - i don't want it to take ten seconds to turn my volume down! if it weren't for that, i'd have picked the eclipse (well, it was a very un-intuitive interface, too... i mean, why do i have to push the 'unfold' button and then the eject button?).

Which HU do you have?

neomagus00

hehe... the premier 8600 . i chose it because i thought it was easy to navigate at a glance . but i admit, having to install an antenna switch was vaguely annoying.