TheProsecutor

1. Time alignment like in the Pioneer DEH-80PRS
2. FLAC compatible
3. 5.0v pre-outs
4. Under $800.00
5. Burr Brown 24-bit DAC

02BlownZ06

From what I am seeing, that would be a hybrid Pioneer/Alpine that possibly doesn't exist? I know the Alpines have Burr/Browns, but not sure on the others...

TheProsecutor

Found
and

Still deciding,

02BlownZ06

I have the Pioneer AVIC-7200 and I am thinking of switching to Alpine, possibly INE-W957. I just installed the Pioneer in January so might have a like new one for sale.

racebum

all junk if sq is the main concern. do you want features on paper or sound quality because if it's sound quality it's alpine.

sony is alright with the xav ax100, it's better than kenwood or pioneer

it's hard to really explain if you haven't tried various decks in your own car. pioneer has a very colored sound. what good is flac if you have cheap dac's and a cheap pre amp? even that pioneer prs is nothing special. it's a list of features but they just don't put the money in the dac or pre amp. i can play a 320kbs file on an alpine and it will smoke a flac file on a perfectly time aligned pioneer nex deck. it's sometimes hard to tell in showrooms but i have literally tried a sony, alpine, kenwood and 2 pioneer double dins in the past year and the sq difference is obvious

really, if sq is what you're after. forget reading spec sheets. buy an alpine 960, 957 or 967. for modern double din they are the more accurate and pure sounding decks on the market now. sony is second with their decent xav-ax100, kenwood 3rd and pioneer is a boat anchor with features. yes the nex decks do sound a bit better than the avh-x2800-7800 decks but they both are still colored

kenwood has a couple issues. one is with the decks you're looking at the gui is terrible. second is auto android really increases the noise floor and 3rd the volume stops at 15 and you have to manually tap one at a time above that. kenwood overall does sound better than pioneer though. the most current kenwood deck is the 9903s and it's better than what you selected, however

buy an alpine 960, 957 or 967 if you care about SQ

if you want features buy that nex 7200 above. it literally does everything, has a stellar gui and is beyond easy to use

02BlownZ06

I will probably have the Pioneer out in a week or two. I will hang on to it just long enough to demo the Alpine and then I will decide. Racebum is right, the unit literally does everything. It's a beautiful piece, but I still want to go back to Alpine and back to my roots.

racebum

you will be happy that you did. before you pull the pioneer run a mic to find your time alignment settings. the auto eq is worthless but the mic on that pioneer is great for exact time alignment. if you have a home av receiver that uses ypao or audyssey that mic will plug right into your pioneer HU and work. take a picture or write down the delay numbers in inches. when you get the alpine it will be in ms or cm however there is an alpine app for your phone that does inches so you don't even have to do the math. pioneer will set your sub further away to put it in front of the sound. alpine sets the subs at zero. what that means is you have to experiment a bit. you can use the pioneer numbers for the front as stated. OR you can put the sub in front by adding more delay. say your FL is at 30 inches, FR 40" RL 40" and RR 50" and sub at 100" on pioneer. on the alpine you can use the same numbers other than the sub which is just zero, OR you can put the sub forward by adding 10-20-30 inches to the above numbers evenly

02BlownZ06

10-4! I have the mic from my Marantz AV-8802 and my Onkyo TX-NR809 (back up preamp I use for outdoor sound) and I will get the time alignment done this weekend. Thanks for the heads up!