Alpine HU 9857

[dtolb05]

I am looking to put in an Alpine 9857 to finally power all of my polk audio. Has anyone put the 9857, if so how does it compare to other head units of the same price.

Overall it will be pushing the MM6500's in the front MM650's in the back,
2 12" polkmomo subs, the 500.1 and 400.4

[Greg Peters]

Depending on what price you're paying for a 9857, I'd look at comparable priced Pioneer and Eclipse head units over the Alpine.

While I'm a big fan of Alpine, the new '06 units are really lacking for features compared to what they used to be (unless you're an iPod fanatic and really want to use it in-car), and they have much weaker pre-out voltage as well. You could do much better going with a different brand.

I've spent some time playing with both the 9856 and 9857 installed, and wasn't really impressed with the capability. Sound quality was OK, but these are really stripped down compared to the '05 and prior models.

If it were me, I'd pass on the new Alpines. Some new JVC and Kenwoods are pretty nice as well.

[MacLeod]

I guess Ill chime in here and agree with Greg again.

The 06 Alpine line up aint the greatest if youre wanting a lot of tuning features. They dont have any. Theyre setup for Ipods. Unless you want to buy the $750 H701 processor (for which Id kill for) youre going to be stuck with pretty simple tuning options.

Panasonic is making some very feature heavy HU's these days. They dont have all the prestige of Alpine but they still make a great little HU. Worth checking out.

[1996blackmax]

I was an Best Buy with my oldest daushter yesterday looking at i-Pods. Aferwards I said, lets take a walk to the car stuff. I saw a guy there asking a salesperson some questions. He was not really being helped. I then began talking to the guy. I answered his questions, and then asked him a couple. It turned out he mainly wanted to use his i-Pod, and play MP3's burned on CD-R's. I told him that while Alpine's HU's have slipped some (mainly not kept up in the SQ department with other companies), they are still the easiest HU's to navigate that I've used. I think he was going to go with the CDA-9857.

If the only tuning ability you want to have is bass and treble controls, and ease of use is the main concern, it's a nice HU to have.