New HU decision...

[Blanco_Diablo]

Alright, decided to get an aftermarket head unit, a bit more useful than the spoiler right now. Think I am going to wait until March though...when this one drops:http://www.crutchfield.com/p_5...=5684Then I will make the call if it is worth the extra 40 bucks to buy that over this:http://www.crutchfield.com/p_5...wm=clSeems like the only difference is better resolution on the screen and updated iPhone capabilities (don't have an iPhone so...). Anyone on here have the iDA-X100 or know someone that does? If so how do you like it? Did you buy the imprint software? On-line reviews say it makes a huge difference just looking for someone with first-hand experience.Thanks for any insight.(edit)Found out that there is also an upgraded Bluetooth add on being released with the x305:• KCE-400BT PARROT Bluetooth® MODULEhttp://www.alpine-europe.com/h...400bt/Hopefully this solves some of the voice quality complaints with Alpine's past units. I may hold out for the x305, if nothing else to compare them in person and make a call then. Crutchfield thinks they will be released in March. You think the new Bluetooth module will work with the x100? That may help my decision.

[pdxmikey]

Maybe I am just way too picky, but for the features that I can see it seems overpriced (not that I am anything close to an expert). It would seem like a much better deal if there was an HD receiver included.

[Blanco_Diablo]

pdxmikey...nice to see another Portland vibe on here! Welcome!In the future when I get and amp/subwoofer set up, would I ever notice the difference sound-wise by going with mp3 over CD? (i.e. will the quality of the sound be problematic or is the difference inaudible?)

[Sublimewind]

Quote, originally posted by Blanco_Diablo »Alright, decided to get an aftermarket head unit, a bit more useful than the spoiler right now. Think I am going to wait until March though...when this one drops:http://www.crutchfield.com/p_5...=5684Then I will make the call if it is worth the extra 40 bucks to buy that over this:http://www.crutchfield.com/p_5...wm=clSeems like the only difference is better resolution on the screen and updated iPhone capabilities (don't have an iPhone so...). Anyone on here have the iDA-X100 or know someone that does? If so how do you like it? Did you buy the imprint software? On-line reviews say it makes a huge difference just looking for someone with first-hand experience.Thanks for any insight.(edit)Found out that there is also an upgraded Bluetooth add on being released with the x305:• KCE-400BT PARROT Bluetooth® MODULEhttp://www.alpine-europe.com/h...400bt/Hopefully this solves some of the voice quality complaints with Alpine's past units. I may hold out for the x305, if nothing else to compare them in person and make a call then. Crutchfield thinks they will be released in March. You think the new Bluetooth module will work with the x100? That may help my decision.I can't tell you on weather the BT module will work with the x100, but if that is what you are after, go for it... The Imprint is something better reserved for later down the road when you go with outboard amps and better speakers and whatnot.. It "may" help your sound, but I don't like the concept AT ALL... it's some sort of algorythm that reads and adjusts the sound FOR you... well, I want to know how the program knows how I like MY sound??? LoL... CD vs Mp3 always a interesting topic... in a stock system, it's not likely you'll ever hear a difference, unless it's a really crappy Mp3, otherwise if you DL or RIP Mp3's in 192kbps or higher, you'll likely never know the difference..

[audiovibe]

Sorry cant comment on the IDA units from Alpine, but I can comment on the Imprint. I agree with Aaron^^ about the use with outboard amps. I havent messed with imprint but have heard the difference after setup. I have a buddy (named Aaron also must have something to do with audio) he is a dealer rep for northern IL and central and southern WI for a firm that reps Alpine. He has the 505 with imprint and Type X components running active with a PDX2.150 bridged per speaker, with the speakers in stock locations in a GTI (05 I believe) Before any tuning you could really localize the speakers and they sounded blah and really dull, (didnt help Im not a fan of the type X speakers)we listened for about an hour and it really wasnt very entertaining. we ran the audyssey settings( took about an hour total) the difference is night and day. You could now localize instruments, visualize the singers. The sound appered to come from the center of the hood and spaned from the right to left exterior mirror; very impressive even better when you consider the $250 msrp of the imprint manager. I wouldnt hesitate reccomending that processor to anyone though if it were me Id still go with the Alpine 701 processor because of features and then complain becasue like now it took about 60 hours it total tuning to make me happy as opposed to the hour it took in his car..I also agree with the Mp3s and bit rate that it was ripped. I will also add that equipment will also make a noteable difference. As your equiptment starts to get better you will start to hear the little ticks and distortion that Mp3s are known for.Aron

[kunkstyle]

Quote, originally posted by Sublimewind »CD vs Mp3 always a interesting topic... in a stock system, it's not likely you'll ever hear a difference, unless it's a really crappy Mp3, otherwise if you DL or RIP Mp3's in 192kbps or higher, you'll likely never know the difference.. Depends on the source material. I actually prefer digital copies from itunes straight from the ipod over cd's now. Find they sound a little clearer.

[Blanco_Diablo]

Not really sure what to do now. As a designer I admit that I am aesthetically drawn to the Alpine units I listed earlier, love the ipod navigation and they felt very sturdy...BUT...I do not want to fall for the flash if it means a major sacrifice in quality down the road. They do both have the ability to operate a CD changer though My final system (eventually) will consist of the following:HUUpgrade door speakersAmpSingle sub mounted either like audiovibe's or truckin's (hidden in M&T location)No competitions or anything but do enjoy bass (had a Clarion HU, 12-disk changer, cheap amp, and box with two 10" MTX Thunders and two 4" Tweeters in my old ride)I liked the Pioneer 7000BT on paper, hated it in person... wanted to like it because of the features. Wide open to suggestions. Still want a good bluetooth set-up as well as iPod/USB capabilities. Sorry I'm being such a pain in the a$$ just don't want to regret this purchase.

[kunkstyle]

I haven't used the alpine myself, so I'll throw in my $0.02http://www.crutchfield.com/p_1...=5684Have it in the 911 and just love it. Fully loaded, ipod/HD/bluetooth ready. Aux and USB in. It's not quite as geared to the ipod as the alpine is, but a great all around deck, IMO.

[Blanco_Diablo]

Interesting, need to go check that Kenwood out, thanks for the tip. One more question...Lossless files, are they really as good as CD quality? Apparently the Alpine units can play Apple Lossless Encoding files.

[kunkstyle]

More or less. They sound better than most MP3 files. Although I don't agree with the 'lossless' moniker. No compression is lossless. Although I would assume that any deck that has an ipod in can play the AAC files. It's the ipod that's decoding it, not the deck. Unless you're burning AAC's to disc, I guess.

[tribalman]

lossless is better than cd quality. lossless has all the data, where as cd's get rid of some of the extreme subtles that can very hardly be noticed. you have to be looking for the differences and have good hearing to notice the differences when cd's are made there is some data that is lost due to compression, format, and being digital over analog. if you want amazing audio you should get a turntable in your car, that provides the best sounding audio. j/k on putting in a turntable. i started to write a whole thing on lossless vs lossy and digital vs analog but here's the wiki link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...sound

[Sublimewind]

Quote, originally posted by tribalman »lossless is better than cd quality. lossless has all the data, where as cd's get rid of some of the extreme subtles that can very hardly be noticed. you have to be looking for the differences and have good hearing to notice the differences when cd's are made there is some data that is lost due to compression, format, and being digital over analog. if you want amazing audio you should get a turntable in your car, that provides the best sounding audio. j/k on putting in a turntable. i started to write a whole thing on lossless vs lossy and digital vs analog but here's the wiki link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...soundI have to dissagree. This could be true, if everyone had acess to masters of everything, which most people don't... Lossless is just that though, a 1/1 rip, much like a .WAV.. It really doesn't matter though, the difference between a CD and even a 256kbps Mp3 is bordering on most peoples ability to tell the difference, put that on a stock, or mildly upgraded system and you'd be hard pressed to tell any difference IF it's a good Mp3 without a lot of errors.. I think we've all herd garbage Mp3's but good ones, yeah, you won't hear much difference.. Lossless better than CD quality, I highly doubt..

[tribalman]

Quote, originally posted by Sublimewind »Lossless better than CD quality, I highly doubt.. firstly, i agree completely that at the higher bitrates it is very hard to tell the difference. as i said before you have to be really paying attention to the audio, have decent equipment, and be in an area without ambient sound. "Several bit rates are specified in the MPEG-1 Layer 3 standard: 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 144, 160, 192, 224, 256 and 320 kbit/s, and the available sampling frequencies are 32, 44.1 and 48 kHz............By contrast, uncompressed audio as stored on a compact disc has a bit rate of 1,411.2 kbit/s (16 bits/sample × 44100 samples/second × 2 channels / 1000 bits/kilobit)."as you see, the highest an mp3 can do is 320 kbit/s while a cd is 1,411.2 kbit's. but at about the 320kbit/s it is impossible to tell the difference.

[Amtron]

A buddy of mine has the Alpine iDA-X100...amazing!

[Sublimewind]

Quote, originally posted by tribalman »firstly, i agree completely that at the higher bitrates it is very hard to tell the difference. as i said before you have to be really paying attention to the audio, have decent equipment, and be in an area without ambient sound. "Several bit rates are specified in the MPEG-1 Layer 3 standard: 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 144, 160, 192, 224, 256 and 320 kbit/s, and the available sampling frequencies are 32, 44.1 and 48 kHz............By contrast, uncompressed audio as stored on a compact disc has a bit rate of 1,411.2 kbit/s (16 bits/sample × 44100 samples/second × 2 channels / 1000 bits/kilobit)."as you see, the highest an mp3 can do is 320 kbit/s while a cd is 1,411.2 kbit's. but at about the 320kbit/s it is impossible to tell the difference.Oh, I was pointing out that you said lossless is better than CD, which it can't unless you have the masters, because usually you are ripping from CD to lossless.. Quote »lossless is better than cd quality. lossless has all the data, where as cd's get rid of some of the extreme subtles that can very hardly be noticed.I think we confused each other... Did you mean to say lossless was better than Mp3. maybe??

[kunkstyle]

Quote, originally posted by Sublimewind »Oh, I was pointing out that you said lossless is better than CD, which it can't unless you have the masters, because usually you are ripping from CD to lossless.. Assuming you're buying the music on line (ie iTunes), wouldn't it be ripped from the masters, not a CD? Just to play devils advocate...

[Sublimewind]

Quote, originally posted by kunkstyle »[QUOTE=Sublimewind]Oh, I was pointing out that you said lossless is better than CD, which it can't unless you have the masters, because usually you are ripping from CD to lossless.. /QUOTE]Assuming you're buying the music on line (ie iTunes), wouldn't it be ripped from the masters, not a CD? Just to play devils advocate... Not likely, how many record companies would be willing to provide the masters so iTunes can undercut them in music downloads? More DL's, less CD sales..

[audiovibe]

IDK these days they might get more from Itunes then CD sales. Thoes might be some interesting #s to compare. Still think not likely because of the chance of anything happening to the master, but then again being the digital era if the master is backed up on the labels server there is no reason they cant release an extremly high bitrate version of a given album. But that would take up more room on the target audiances Ipod and P.C for storage, potentionaly lowering their year end sales numbers. Now that I think of it how nice would it be if they offered raw version of the master copies not compressed in any way shape or form. I think I would pay upwards of $40 for the CD or DVD what ever they would have to put it on. I might even go back to buying a couple CD's here and there. But what do I know, I'm just a consumer with a hobbie frowned on by civilization and miniscule in comparison. (Car audio) Im sure some home audiophiles would be all over this as well.AronP.S. Sorry BlancoI think we have taken this discussion way off topic.

[Blanco_Diablo]

No worries, helps me to better understand what I need to be looking for functionally in a HU.

[Blanco_Diablo]

How important is preamp voltage. Looking in my price range some are 2v some are 4v, considering my plans with this system, will the preamp difference matter?

[kunkstyle]

Basically, the higher the preout voltage, the less gain needed (thereby less chance of noise) on the amp. Anything higher than 2v is fairly recent. As far as I know the 4 and 8 volt pre-out voltage is a fairly new development. If you're using your future amp to drive your door speakers, it might matter. If you're using the HU to power them and the amp only to power the sub, I wouldn't worry about it.I can't take credit for this, but it's a good writeup:Pre amp voltage is the amount of voltage that the head unit can send through the pre-amp outputs. Most head units are between 2 and 4 volts, and almost every amplifier has a wide enough input gain variability to accept anything within and somewhat beyond that range. The benefit you get from having a higher pre-out voltage is that it will allow you to turn down the input gain on the amp, thereby lowering the amp's noise floor a tad. That's great, except that a good amp will have a very low noise floor to begin with, so lowering it by 3dB by doubling your pre-out voltage is going to basically be a non-issue. Also, the higher voltage that's running through your RCAs, the less noise it's likely to pick up, but remember that the 2 or 4 volts is the peak output (i.e. it's maximum output at maximum volume) and that during the vast majority of the time, you're at a very small fraction of that. In most listening cases, you're probably only pushing 50mV or less through the RCAs, so if you double that to 100mV, you're still talking about very little voltage and a high noise susceptibility either way. Proper routing of your RCAs will have a far greater impact on noise than your pre-out voltage.

[Blanco_Diablo]

Great explanation, thanks

[kunkstyle]

[tangent]Quote, originally posted by Sublimewind »Not likely, how many record companies would be willing to provide the masters so iTunes can undercut them in music downloads?Maybe, but I also can't see some intern at Apple going shopping for 615,000 CD's at the local record store and sitting in his cubicle ripping CD's to the itunes store. Quote, originally posted by Sublimewind »More DL's, less CD sales.. I was under the impression that the labels made similar profits for DL content vs. CD sales, and it was the artists that got a smaller cut.[/tangent]Quote, originally posted by Blanco_Diablo »Great explanation, thanks No problem. I'm just glad I'm not the only one awake and on the forums at 3am. (Guess that's 2am for you.)

[Sublimewind]

Quote, originally posted by kunkstyle »[tangent]Maybe, but I also can't see some intern at Apple going shopping for 615,000 CD's at the local record store and sitting in his cubicle ripping CD's to the itunes store. I was under the impression that the labels made similar profits for DL content vs. CD sales, and it was the artists that got a smaller cut.[/tangent]No problem. I'm just glad I'm not the only one awake and on the forums at 3am. (Guess that's 2am for you.)that is all plausable, I've yet to bite on the iPod craze though...

[Blanco_Diablo]

Quote, originally posted by kunkstyle »No problem. I'm just glad I'm not the only one awake and on the forums at 3am. (Guess that's 2am for you.)Yeah, I have a strange genvibe addiction Thanks to everyone who has shared their insight so far, much appreciated!

[Blanco_Diablo]

As you can see I'm still on the search for a HU Anyone have or heard either of these Kenwood HU's? Thoughts?KENWOOD EXCELON KDC-X991 http://www.crutchfield.com/S-B....htmlKENWOOD EXCELON KDC-X993http://www.crutchfield.com/p_1...=5684Not sure if I can afford the KDC-X991, but it seems like a monster of a unit. I like the full color screen that can be customized, that's why I still have not nixed the Alpine IDA-X305. I love all of the options that come with the KDC-993 for the price. Alpine vs. Kenwood? Still looking for bluetooth and ipod/thumb drive compatibility as well as a sound upgrade with the ability to build a decent system in the future.