Got my Alpine 9835 :)

[Justin B]

So yeah. I got a "pretty good" deal on it, the seller ended the auction early for my offer and we both got something out of the deal. I myself got a great price for a nearly brand new - with EVERYTHING that came in the original box down to the warranty card. The seller said he used for only a few months, and I believe it, just like in the auction he said it is in perfect condition and if I didnt know any better and didnt look closely enough (the faceplate wont give it away at all) I would almost believe this was a new open box display item. I am stoked. Now I have to wait for my CDT EF61-NEO's that apparently were in a shipping container stopped by customs in socal (??) :|

Here is a picture I took of my deck about a half hour ago now, something else which is kinda cool is that it will control my alpine 12cd changer in the trunk instead of a separate FM controller like I have now -


Not sure if I want to have rear speakers or not either and that is stalling my amp selection. I doubt I'd put a subwoofer in immediately either. As its looking right now I wont have any (new anyway) rear speakers, so an external amp would just have to be 200W (100x2, the CDT's RMS). If I use any rears at all I'll probably keep my stocks turned low on the deck amp, but is kinda unlikely. As far as <200W amps go, what do you guys suggest? Ive been back and forth between all sorts of channels and wattages Ive nearly lost track of my own research.

[Jarvis]

That remote's bigger than the one for my TV.

[Justin B]

LOL. its really not that bad. It looks huge but feels really nice in my hands.

[KenC]

Justin,
If you're going to use a 200 watt amp for the CDTs, I wouldn't even bother running rears off of a deck. I don't run any rears in mine and it sounds great. If you come up to the pnw picnic I'll let you take a listen.
As far as amps go, look for an older Rockford Fosgate or Phoenix Gold. You might even want to go with a 4 channel and bridge it down to two channels for more wattage. I currently have an a/d/s/ PQ10 bridged to my components. Hit me up on AIM or somethin if you wanna talk more about specific amps.
Ken

[StereoInstaller1]

Justin, you have a 12 disk changer running RF? Weird, in that usually RF changers are "M" bus, not "Ai-net" like your deck is.

I can't remember ever seeing an M 12 disk though, only Ai. M bus is discontinued this year, BTW.

As far as the sub/amp thing goes, you will be amazed how musical and powerful your deck power sounds in high pass mode.

If I were you, I would use the 3 way setting of your "Bass Engine Pro" to run the mids and tweets in your car, even if they are stock premuims.
This is different than any other setup you will ever do, but basically you would run the tweeters as fronts, the mids as rear, and add an amp and subs for bass. When you switch BEP to 3 way (look for switch on bottom of deck) your front output becomes tweeter power only, the rear speaker outs become midrange only, and you must use a seperate amp for sub, as the deck power no longer makes bass.

Your deck has the ability to adjust tweeter, midrange and woofer levels, crossover points, and crossover slope in this mode, just like a "real" crossover should.

You will have to run new wires to the kick panels, but that is no biggie.

Screw using the rear speakers altogether if you do this setup, BTW.

Further questions? Call 1-800-ALPINE-1.

HTH,
Luke

[Justin B]

Yah, its a CHA-1214 12 disc AI Net changer, with unknown wiring (I just havent pulled anything out yet) to the controller CRA-1655RF, which I assume is actually what is creating the signal.

Considering its a cabrio, Im not sure if I want to bother with a sub or not, initially anyway especially if its only in the trunk. Getting bass through that sounds good seems like a pain in the ass. How would I get any significant bass through without chopping out some of my double firewalls? I'd rather not do that at this point....:( That would shoot the idea of using the bass engine too I think with the stock premiums if I get no bass at all. Im sure it would sound nice though. If I can get my CDT's to fit decently I'll just use them with an ext amp, as I kinda already bought them. If I end up using a sub in the back too I'll just get two amps. Its still in the air at this point though what I'll do initially, I just got an email telling me that the container is about to be cleared from customs and that the speakers will be shipped within a day or two :| At least I still have a little left to do with my suspension stuff.