02BlownZ06

I felt compelled to tell this story and offer my humble opinion. I have had the pleasure of installing and trying out both of these head units on my system in my '02 Z. This is the original system installed:

Pioneer Avic-7200 head unit
Rockford Fosgate Fanatic 6.5" components, front doors
Rockford Fosgate Fanantic 5 1/4" components, rear pillars
Rockford Power Series 750s 2 channel beast to subs
Rockford Power Series 750x 4 channel beast to components
Sundown Audio E10, 10" subs, rear corner enclosures
Axxess wireless steering wheel control
Big 3 upgrade

Complete Soundskins sound deadening treatment

When I first got this head unit, I was blown away with the myriad of features it had. Dual usb inputs, sd card input, hdmi input, ability to read lossless FLAC files, navigation, time alignment and correction, and endless features to customize sound and screen looks, etc. The unit looked gorgeous in the dash with the custom modded double din bezel.

I spent hours playing with this new fangled gadget, tweaking the sound every way I possibly could to eek out the most performance. the system was loud and hit hard, with the Rockford amps delivering what they have always deliverd, awesome, seemingly endless power. I tried all the different sources and source material I had, music cd's, dvd's, mp3's, bluetooth audio, pandora, ipod through aux input, etc...

I listened to jazz, classic rock, hip hop, fusion, metal, bluegrass, alternative, hard rock about everything I could think of and this is my conclusion. Something was just not quite right with the sound. The low end hit hard, but was not accurate to my ear, with a way over the top amount of resonance in the 125 hz range (which is fairly normal in the acoustics of a car with a sealed box) that I could not get rid of, not by changing Xover points or with the equalizer. The midrange, OMG the midrange was messed up. It was so colored, muddled, and harsh, that it was like nails on the chalkboard to my ears. The highs were fairly consistent and not unpleasant, but did not possess the transparency and light airy but slightly crisp sound I love. Imaging and soundstage were mediocre at best with the overall sound quality, very generic sounding. Instruments do not jump out at you. Possibly the best quality was the mid bass punch. It was in your face solid and was by far the best quality of the sound which I attribute in part to the sound deadening of the door panels and quality of the Rockford mid bass drivers.

This was experienced with every source I had and I was starting to become a little frustrated and disappointed, already considering all new amps and speakers, placing the blame on them and then I finally got around to trying out a few concert DVD's. Low and behold, the system sprung alive. Beautiful quality sound, unlike any other source, smooth accurate, large soundstage and good imaging, with a softer more audiophile like sound. So I had a head unit that only sounds good with high quality concert DVD's. I was excited that I found good sound but disappointed in the overall SQ on all other sources.

I was just about to scrap my system and start over when I was given a suggestion to try out an Alpine. I had always ran Alpine head units since the late 80's, back when I managed an audio store and sold the stuff for a living. Alpine had never steered me wrong providing reliable solid sounding head units time and time again. I went away from Alpine based on advice from many different people and reviews and it came down to Kenwood or Pioneer and I chose Pioneer as I liked the specs and feature set. I was additionally told that if I swapped out my Pioneer for an Alpine, a W960 or W957, that it could be a completely different sound. So I thought what the heck, a W960 could be had for about 500 clams online, and though a bit of a downgrade in features, the price was right and worth giving a try. I ordered the 960 and swapped it with the Pioneer over the weekend. This is my conclusion:

It took quite some time to get this Alpine all wired up, but finally Saturday afternoon I was satisfied with every connection. I turned the key and she powered right up without a hitch. I went through all of the initial startup stuff, got the rear speakers and subs turned on, adjusted all the electronic Xover points to a baseline setting I thought would be a good start for the system I have and slipped in a Donald Fagen CD, some audiophile type quality tunes to see what she had. Immediately, the music jumped out at me, filling the cabin with clean, transparent accurate sound, instruments identifying themselves in various locations of the soundstage. the mid range was no longer brass and harsh, but smooth. My low end sounded good but not perfect and the highs needed a little boost. I tweaked the parametric EQ a bit and hit the electronic Xover and crossed out some of the 125 hz area and boosted the 50 hz region and then started cranking her up. Wow, the SPL was intense, almost to my limit. The low end was pounding straight through me, with saxophone and snare drum seemingly right next to me with vocals that were right on the money. This was good stuff, really good stuff. I don't know if it is the DACs that Alpine uses or what, but this sounded more like my home system only with punchier bass (which is my guilty pleasure in a vehicle).

Do I lose some in features? Oh, yes. The Alpine is a little more limited but after playing with it some I got used to it fast and it has been performing flawlessly so far. I took a road trip to my girlfriends on Sunday and logged about 3 hours with it. It switches sources quickly and I can navigate the screens with relative ease. I am still a little iffy on the gps navigation as I could not find my actual speed anywhere and the Pioneer would give a red flag if you went over the speed limit which was kind of cool, but in the end, I really don't care. I won't be buying for features anymore. I am still an old school music guy, who desired sound quality above all else. The Alpine hits a home run in this department. Man, if there was someway to take the Alpine sound and combine it with the Pioneer features, you would have something. I was worried about inability to play lossless files. Guess what? My MP3's on USB drive sound spectacular. Who needs that feature when the head unit sounds that good, MP3's in the Alpine sounding better than an original compact disc in the Pioneer.

All I can say is apple meet orange, night meet day. I recommend the Pioneer if you want ergonomics and something that does cool stuff and looks good. If you are a dedicated audio quality enthusiast, Alpine is the way to go. Back in the day Alpine and Eclipse were considered by many the top dogs for audio quality in head units. Alpine is the only one left standing of the two and, at least with this head unit, is still delivering. I feel like Alpine gets shoved aside like a red headed step child and the majority of folks selling this stuff push the Pioneer or Kenwood pretty hard. I have not heard a high end Kenwood so cannot comment on their sound, but I find it odd that Alpine gets mixed reviews unless no one cares about sound quality anymore. Yes, Alpine's screen isn't quite as bright and their feature set might not be quite that of Pioneer but if you demand the best SQ, you owe it to yourself to give the Alpine a shot. Just my .02 and I hoped you enjoyed my review. Rock on.

racebum

isn't it something what a change something like the deck can make? completely transforms the system

it's not really that the alpine is just a little better or slightly improved. it's night and fking day.

somewhere over the years car audio started being more about features than sound.

people read spec sheets and reviews, they don't listen to demo cars or talk to local audio nuts. on a spec sheet the pioneer is lovely. it has one of the easiest to use GUI's and most features. i don't blame pioneer for this. i blame the consumer. alpine has a MUCH better sounding product.....and they don't sell as well. such is life in 2017

02BlownZ06

That is what blows me away. The difference in sound quality isn't even close. I absolutely cannot tolerate an inferior sound, it drives me crazy and I would rather not listen to music than listen to a poor sounding system. I guess if you have never heard true quality, you may not know what to listen for, like many systems that the sub boxes are too small and the low end is punchy but not accurate with more of a mid bass sound. If I hear that and can't tune that out of the system, I would rather turn it off, yet I have heard a lot of "good" systems over the years with that awful sounding bass.

Alpine hasn't done themselves many favors in the double din department, though. The selection is limited and with the exception of the INE-W960 which can be had for around 500 bucks, the price jumps up steeply from there. I think a few more models, some without nav under $500 and some with nav between $500 and $1000 would boost their sales a bunch. Kenwood and Pionneer, it seems, have really capitalized on this market.

racebum

alpine has a heavy OEM presence. i don't think aftermarket car audio is all that profitable anymore. like it just doesn't sell all that well so R&D doesn't happen like it use to. pioneer has one of the easiest to use feature laden decks on the market but they are cheap. chances are this is where the profit is. keep the manf cost in the dirt and even if you only sell a few thousand it's worth doing.

i'm just glad alpine has some choices in the market so we can have real DAC's and a good pre out stage. like you can feel the quality in these even in the wiring. the frigin power wires are higher quality and more flexible than the other brands. there are no issues in playback. no quirks. they may not have all the features but what they do have works really well.

kustomkaraudio

I have to say I am a die hard Alpine guy. We sell both brands. One thing with the Pioneer units, and you have to turn off the " advanced sound retriever "

It does make a difference, with it on you don't have a flat output curve to your amps.

02BlownZ06

I fiddled with the 7200 a bunch and must say I don't remember seeing an "advanced sound retriever" option. Where is that in the menu?

If you sell both brands, what is your opinion of sound quality between the two? (I am guessing Alpine by your first comment, but curious on a more detailed opinion.)

racebum

x2

i don't remember seeing this either on the 4100nex

kustomkaraudio

If you are on ipod ( not in car play mode ) or have a CD playing, if you scroll the banner on the bottom of the screen over to the right you see some more stuff. I think its abbreviated " s rtrv " when its on there will be a little green box light up underneath it. I have not been able to find out if its on during carplay and/or Android auto. I think that its bypassed in those modes,


That being said Im a Alpine guy. Pioneer is winning me over slowly. Pioneer packs more features per dollar than most brands.

If you compare a 8200 or 7200 to a INE 957, Pioneer beats it in features, and the Pioneer is faster to touch commands.

The X108U is a killer radio, and the operating system is very cool and easy to pick up, but if you need Carplay or disc drive, that can be a deal breaker.

racebum

sure

if you can stand to listen to them....pioneer does have features. very easy to use. they just make it impossible to create a decent sounding system with pre outs that are so colored. pioneer has been like this for a long time though. lackluster SQ and great features. alpine and eclipse were always the SQ decks and occasionally sony knocks one out of the park with a great sounding deck too. the rsx-gs9 is amazing. unless you move to a mcintosh deck it's probably the best sq deck out there now. does that sony have any features? mmmm basically none that are not SQ related

kustomkaraudio

I agree 100%. Alpine has a smoother sound, and I like how the pre-amp in a Alpine ramps up, linear from 0 to 28 and 29 to 35 ramps a bit quicker.

Even look at something simple like EQ. You can tune way better with a 9 band parametric versus a 13 band graphic. For some people this is splitting hairs, but if you are tuning with the tools you have on hand, Alpine wins.


But..... I have to offer what the people coming in the door are asking for. so in double din right now Pioneer has the edge.

Thankfully, there are a ton of good standalone DSP out now, use a more powerful tool= better sound

racebum

set up a display and let people here the difference. it's more how the frequencies are reproduced that is my issue with pioneer. they don't have a lot of distortion and may measure well...but they don't sound hi-fi. they don't sound real. tones are just a bit off

then again i'm not sure how much of that your average customer notices as they also put subs in too small of boxes, have high qtc's and a peaky response around 45-50hz that drives me bonkers as well

if you take even a half way decent home speaker and amplifier like a B&W 602s3, just a decent bookshelf like that and maybe a marantz integrated amp or something. it will absolutely pummel most car audio setups in SQ.

i think you can still make a car sound good but you're limited on what you can use. the short list is basically alpine decks, jl audio, morel, audison, high end sony, zapco, arc, steg. might be forgetting 1 or 2 but that's really all that comes to mind for new gear

02BlownZ06

I noticed that with the preamp section and I like the way that it's set up as well. In regards to DSP's, what do you think of adding the PXA-H800/RUX-C800 to my system? Would it help that much more or is there another brand of DSP that would do better?

02BlownZ06

This is basically where I am at. Back in the heydays of car audio when I sold the stuff, we had a fairly elaborate board with all of our wares installed in it. There were countless times that I took a customer into the sound room who wanted to spend a few hundred dollars and after I A/B'd a number of different models and speaker configurations and then added in subwoofers and demo'd a better quality sound, the upsell began. It always started with an Alpine head unit. I guess the more things change the more they stay the same at least in terms of SQ in head units. People's tastes have sure changed though! It seems most are happy with simple bluetooth speaker systems in their home and feature laden HU's in their car, kicking SQ to the curb.

kustomkaraudio

The H800/C800 is a fantastic set up. The RUX controller will let you adjust all the settings on the fly, I prefer to use the laptop when setting up procs. ( I usually have my RTA program open at same time, so its faster for me )

The Alpine combo does some things that others do not, like decoding Dolby Digital and DTS ( if using optical in ) and the computer software is easy to pick up and use. It also sounds very good.

That being said my favorite proc. right now is the JL audio TWK 88. At 429.00 retail it is a super powerful part ( you can only tune with a laptop ) It does everything a proc. should do X-over, EQ, time correction, phase,etc.

My next would be Alpine or Mosconi.

I used most out there, including Audison Bit product, and the Zapco product, I stay away from the more no name stuff.


I will say if you run the Alpine combo, you wont be disappointed, but if you want to save 500.00 bucks ( maybe put that money towards nicer front speakers ? ), check out the JL Audio proc.

Jimnc

I have a Bit Ten DSP with the Pioneer 8200 HU. Sounds crisp and clean.

02BlownZ06

Interesting. Thanks for your input on this. It does not surprise me that JL or Alpine are one of your picks. I have been hearing more about Mosconi, also, who I had never heard of until recently and it seems they are producing some pretty good stuff. The real world input really helps me out as there is not really anyone around locally that has the level of knowledge to advise me on my system.

To get my system going in my C5 without busting the bank, I used some older components as you could see above to initally get the system started and now I will want to upgrade. I have the Alpine HU and my next upgrade is to go new front and rear speakers and possibly a sweet DSP if it will really help my system. My amps after that but it will be hard to part with those old school Rockfords as they sound pretty good. Are the amps of today better? Is it worth going to JL or another high end brand? The Power series Rockfords I have owned have been bulletproof and still sound dang good.

I like the Sundown subs, but may re-think my enclosures and go with JL there as well.

racebum

here's the problem with sundown. the SA10 is basically in infinite baffle woofer. if needs all of .35cuft to hit a qtc707, more than that just drops the q and bottoms out somewhere around qts. in short it gets no real benefit from a box with an ultra low vas and is going to be really stiff. the 10w6v3 also produces a whopping 4db more at 30hz with 1 watt of input both woofers aligned to qtc707

02BlownZ06

I actually have the E10 Sundowns.
How do they spec out with your software?

racebum

if the published specs from sundown are right it's similar to the sa10. enough so that a new graph wouldn't look different enough. i can work in a ridiculously small box, as small as 7 liters. .5 cu/ft gross isn't a bad fit and that's sundowns published spec. very good truck woofer as the low qtc often works well in pick up cabs and the small box is mandatory

woofer goes infinite baffle in the average c5 center box which is often 1cuft. it really looks to do best in about 12 liters net or .42 cubic feet which would be a .5 to .55 gross box

not 100% sure how accurate their specs are as fosgate models similar and they often sound fine in slightly larger enclosures even though like sundown they model realllly small

the w6 still has substantially more output, especially down low but they question you have to ask yourself is....do you need it? subs are usually the easiest thing to get right in a car.

02BlownZ06

Well, my Sundowns are in corner enclosures, each about .75 cf or so and they sound really good, the best low end of any I have tried and I had a pair of Hertz in there, too. W6's would never fit in those enclosures, so I would have to abandon them and go with center rear well enclosure or build something custom for the rear deck and I still want functional space in the back. That's why I have been trying to make the corner enclosures work. I have to do some more listening with my Sundowns and then decide. My C5 is not my DD so I don't get to drive around as much as I would like.