Motor Vehicle Tips

Alpine CDA 9857 Radio CD MP3 player Full DIN in dash 50 Watts x 4

The all-new CDA-9857 goes beyond traditional radio, with Full Speed Connection for iPod, SAT Radio ready, HD Radio, BlueTooth, and Windows PlaysForSure compatibility. Make room for plenty of music. In addition, this head unit is specially designed with Full Dot-Matrix Biolite for a sleek, easy to read display. Start off your sound system with this essential head unit, and expand is within your reach. Remote Control included.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Great CD player
I have this in my Scion tC and it’s been a great upgrade. It’s waaaaay louder than my factory stereo and has some pretty awesome features, too many to list. Controls are easy to use, and the iPod connectivity is great.

The screen doesn’t have any fancy animation, which is great cuz that stuff is distracting anyway. The display is very simple and straight to the point.

Very high quality item. It’s a great addition to any car.

5 Stars Good Head Unit!
I’ve been installing Alpine Head Units in my cars since the late 80’s and this Receiver is the best yet. Currently I’m using the internal amp, and the sound is really good considering it’s only 18 watts a channel. Eventually I’m going to wire in an external amp and I like the fact that I have front and rear outputs, as well as a pair of bass outputs. The controls are very complex, but it only took me a short time to memorize the ones I use on a regular basis. I installed this same Head Unit in my Son’s Kenworth truck with the optional Sirius radio box and an Ipod cable and both worked flawlessly. This is a great Unit!

5 Stars great product best for ipod
having looked and tried a number of headunits i found the ipod integration on this to be by far the best lighting fast… only gripe is that controls aren’t laid out logically… minor though different buttons do differnt things depending on artist, song or playlist but still not a deal breaker… had mine since may 2006 still luvin it oh and another small gripe the sirius tuner could show more info… not really a problem with the 9857 though but with the siralp1 tuner.

4 Stars Nice Radio
I really enjoy it. The menu buttons are a little confusing trying to figure the “enter” button. Lots of features and the display is cool. Good luck.

5 Stars Great stereo for the price
Great product. The ipod interface is great. My only warning is during the installation. This stereo was installed in a 2007 Subaru Imreza. Apparently there is a power antenna cable that is supposed to be spliced with the 12 volt power cable and wasn’t during the initial installation. Had to go back and it was fixed in 10 minutes. I am now in the market for 2 10″ subs and a single channel amp. I feel as though this head unit is not getting the justice it deserves with only 4 stock speakers…The stereo was packaged in a “Panasonic” cordless phone box which prevents someone from knowing what is actually in the box. Highly recommend!

Buy/More Info

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Alpine CDA 9885 Radio CD MP3 player Full DIN in dash 50 Watts x 4

More media, more control. If one helping isn’t enough, you can get seconds, thirds, why stop there, when there’s so much media available today. The CDA-9885 offers media playback for CD’s iPod, Bluetooth, Satellite Radio, HD Radio, and other portable players. The CDA-9885 specially comes with an attractive Biolite display, so you get a wider viewing angle and better visibility in all lighting conditions. Get more control from your head unit, and hook up more media to your system. The remote control is included.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Good iPod Ready Head Unit
I bought this for my wife’s Honda CRV after the in-dash CD changer failed (as they all do, in my experience). She is very happy with it, especially its control of her iPod which is tucked away out of sight. I prefer Blaupunkt’s approach where one uses the familiar iPod touch screen to control that unit, but this one is nice. It will also accept satellite radio and bluetooth add-ons.

5 Stars Great sound, nice Ipod integration
I bought this as a replacement for my factory system which had finally given up the ghost, and because I wanted a decent front end for my Ipod. As a receiver and CD player the Alpine CDA-9885 does a fine job. Being able to play MP3’s from a CDR is also a nice feature, something that my factory stereo couldn’t do. I didn’t upgrade my speakers or add an amp, and I think that most experts would recommend this. But it still sounds better than what I had before.

I was impressed with the Ipod integration. The only limitation seems to be that you can only see a few lines at a time. Feature-wise, it’s got everything that you need, once you get used to the interface. The Direct Search allows you to jump through the long lists of Artists or whatever you’re searching by, so you can zip down to what you want quickly.

Overall, this is still better than fumbling with the actual Ipod while trying to drive. It’s a crystal clear audio connection, vs. what you’d get using an FM adaptor for the Ipod. And it charges the Ipod, as you’d expect.

An Ipod purist might want to spend an extra hundred or so and get the Alpine model that has a full Ipod screen on it. But for most of us, the CDA-9885 is a good way to go.

5 Stars BEWARE! No Factory Warranty On this Product!
Alpine DOES NOT sell through Amazon. I recommend you go to Alpine’s website (www.alpine-usa.com) and VERIFY the person selling is an authorized dealer. Be warned that unauthorized dealers DO NOT have a factory warranty. In many cases the serial numbers may be removed and/or altered (thus ownership of electronics with serial numbers removed/altered is in violation of most state laws). DO NOT BE SCAMMED.

Buy/More Info

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Alpine CDE 9874 In Dash Radio CD MP3 Player Black

Play CDs, iPods, and other portable media players! You?re looking at a full-featured deck, that?s easy and intuitive to use. This one-stop music player comes with a sleek LCD Display with fixed red and classic blue illumination. Alpine?s signature rotary knob makes controlling all your music a breeze. This unit also comes with a convenient Front Panel auxiliary input ? so you or your passenger can plug in your portable media player as an additional source

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Alpine radio CDE-9874
This is a great product at an extremely competative price. When you buy alpine you know that your getting the best in car-audio quality, and this satisfies that idea to every extent. Great deal, Great Product.

1 Star Dont buy
This product was a total disappointment. Sent it back. There was a problem with the RCA outputs. It caused a loud clunk sound in the subwoofers, when changing soure inputs. The seller stated Alpine never has a bad receiver. I am telling you, this one was! I bought a Kenwood afterwards, great sound, no problems.

4 Stars Great for the price; good iPod control
I replaced the factory stereo in a 2001 civic with this unit. I am very happy with my decision — made after hours of Internet research, store-room testing, etc. One thing I don’t like is that the word “Playlists” on the display shows up with a space so that it looks more like “Playlist 5.” Every time I scan for a playlist (or song, or artist), I keep thinking, what is playlist 5? What is song 5? Etc. But other than that, it’s a great stereo… and that’s something I can live with.

Pros: simple to use/learn, good ipod control, percentage search

Cons: textual display (see comment above), can’t quickly switch from a song that is playing to another song in the same playlist/album (you have to go through the whole menu system again)

Buy/More Info

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Alpine CDA 9884 In Dash Radio CD MP3 Player Black

If you want a great-sounding head unit, with flexibility to add on and control multiple sources - the CDA-9884 is it. The CDA-9884 is an Ai-NET head unit, so you can connect to various media sources and formats - including HD Radio, XM or SIRIUS satellite radio, Bluetooth connectivity for hands free calling, CD changers, and other auxiliary sources. Whatever your choice the CDA-9884 will make all your sources sound great using its high quality 24-Bit DSP to make sure you get every musical detail from all your favorite digital media. This unit also offers blue-red selectable illumination and a crisp dot matrix LCD display to show off all your song info.

User Ratings and Reviews

2 Stars Looks like a childs toy.
I installed this radio in my 2000 Celica. When i purchased it i thought the lights would change from red to blue. Only the main 6 buttons do.

The built in amp is not that great and the sound quality for some reason dose not sound as good as the bottom of the line 9872 or the next model up the 9886.

I did not like this radio. My be she is so ugly i did not get a chance to know here. Unless you have a Pontiac or a porch the red lights are horrible i could not get pass them. They are not amber they are red like Christmas lights. It looks like a childs toy. I returned this 2 days later.

If you use an external amp and you have red dash lights this may be the radio for you. I believe Alpine made compromises on sound quality to get all the features they wanted at this price point.

I hated it

Franklin

2 Stars TERRIBLE DISPLAY!!!
HAS A TERRIBLE DISPLAY!!!

Uses a display with little dots which cannot be seen on a bright day, and ESPECIALLY if you are wearing sunglasses. These dots are set to SEEM bright enough in a indoor display area, but get it outside on anything except a perfectly straight angle (who has a radio at eye level?) and forget it! The display cannot be seen!

Also avoid Al and Ed’s as they will sell you this knowing it cannot be seen, then charge you a second install fee to replace it!

5 Stars good but needs ad ons
It’s a great unit but, all the features are ad ons. It’s set to except only apple ipods and I know there are fifty other brands. I had to use an fm transmitter.Sound quality is good . A little tricky setting a station.

3 Stars Nice unit, good sound, poor display, limited ipod connectivity
I bought this unit because I had another Alpine unit in my other vehicle and really liked it (CDA9857). Although the sound is what you would expect from an Alpine it still needs some work to make it an excellent product.

My complaints are 1) The display only shows one line for the song or artist or album, you cannot get artist/title which my other unit does.

2) It does not shut off the iPod when you turn the ignition off on the car. I drained the ipod twice before realizing this. I have a 4th generation iPod, so it may work correctly with newer ones. My understanding is that there may be a special cable that fixes this problem.

Buy/More Info

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