current reviews new gear

OK... While I was at Bob's place this weekend, I was roundly and soundly chastised for not mentioning the new headunit and it's performance versus the previously installed Eclipse. So here I am. The Alpine had noise. What the...? Yes, noise! After a short period of putting up with it, as I just had to have sounds in the car, I dragged out the PC, and went back to re-adjust all of the gains, both on the UCSs and the amplifiers. Everything went to minimum gain, or in the case of the electronic gains, 0dB. (I just this long weekend swapped out the busted RCA cable that I had in there, for a new set of Tsunamis, and the system is COMPLETELY silent, now...) All the gains are presently set to minimum, and there is no noise... On to the review. The differences between the units are not much, really. With a DVD Audio disc in the Alpine, (which the Eclipse couldn't see) I am VERY impressed. Frequency response is flat. FLAT. From DVD-A the sound is a good as I have in my house, and that's no slacker. The outputs (IMO) are maybe not as perfectly clean as the Eclipse, but DAMN good. I might have actually been hearing minute differences between the two, due to the lower output voltage and the higher output impedance of the Alpine. With the new RCAs in place, though? Even better. CD sounds exceptional. I am very impressed. FM smacks the Eclipse in the proverbial "male member". I've never heard FM sound this good. I have not used the iPos input, even though I have the cable. I bough the cable just for passenger convenience, I don't even own one of those things... Here's where I was MOST surprised, and even better than marginally impressed with the performance: MP3s. I put some music on a DVD, and put it in the player, truly not expecting much. Boy, was I mistaken. I can't find anything in the literature regarding noise shaping or anything of that ilk, but I am sure there is a better or somehow different decoding algorithm possibly, or some sort of high frequency noise shaping happening in there. It actually sounds really good! I didn't suffer any kind of listening fatigue, and I listened for a good long time. All my MP3s are ripped with the same software I have always used, (Easy CD-DA Extractor, v10 - I just like this one's interface the best) and as per the usual, always at 320K, fixed bitrate. The Eclipse came nowhere NEAR the playback quality on compressed music. The high frequency digital ringing and artifacting was always PAINFULLY present on the Eclipse... TOO accurate a representation of the source! Overall, a significant change for the better. Add to all of that the portable NAV (Blackbird), and "Inspector Gadget" is happy! Already have "Lotus of Siam" (very HIGHLY recommended, a 5-star Zagat rated, Thai restaurant in Vegas...) and my hotel in Vegas mapped, just 'cause I can! LOL BTW, anybody else going to Vegas for the CES? Dinner at the Lotus, Monday night. Call me, if you want to go! It's the only place I have ever eaten, that took "Hurt me." literally when they asked how hot I wanted it. The pain was exquisite, but it tasted SO good, we couldn't stop eating it! Minced habaneros throughout the sauce! Ask your waiter "What does the chef like to cook?" You will be impressed, I think! Say, Bob? How does one get new maps and software updates on to that Blackbird? It somes with the USB cable to do it, and it even mentions updating it in the manual... You can get back to me, it's not a huge rush. I'll probably call Alpine anyway! It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."

Sounds like a killer HU Dave.  Now if only you had remembered to tell us what it is...  Support the12volt.com

Oh... Did I forget that little bit of info? It's the IVA-W205. Sorry, I thought the "Blackbird" reference might have given it away. It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."

The Joker in Batman:  "Where does he get those wonderful toys?"Build the box so that it performs well in the worst case scenario and, in return, it will reward you at all times.

haemphyst wrote: BTW, anybody else going to Vegas for the CES?

Sadly we have to be at the UCLA Medical Center Tuesday and Wednesday. So please take pictures! Espeacially of the Alpine car. And if there is going to be a replacement for the 310...And And and.....

I'll be sure to take as many pictures as my 2GB card can hold, of every Karmann Ghia I see, Jack! Just jabbin' at ya!It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."

Well, kids... I "drank the Kool-Aid". I spent lots of money on the IVA-W205, and the Blackbird, and I even bought the iPos cable, with every intention of it only being there for passengers who might want to bring along their music... Ya know, common courtesy, as it were. Well, you all know that CompUSA is closing. All the stuff is DRASTICALLY reduced. I thought I'd take a bite of the "iPod Apple", as it were, so I started searching for what was in the store... Lo, and behold, they had both the 80G and the 160G online! Sweet! (Well, SORTA sweet...) Rode to the store, about 5 minutes away, by bike. Asked the girl behind the counter which "real" iPod they had, and she keeps grabbing the Touch... Geez, I have that much mp3 space on my CELLPHONE! "No," I said, "a REAL iPod." Oh, she said, and grabs an 80G Classic. Dammit. An open box, and a return - it said so right on the back. "WAIT!" she said, and grabs a 160G Classic! Only 40 dollars difference, and twice the space! "Sold!" I said. I hate "impulse buys", don't I, Bob? I almost didn't buy it once I got to the register, as all sales are final right now... But I got it for 314.00 out the door. Not bad for a 400 dollar gadget, huh? Now... I HATE iTunes. It is bloated, resource hogging, security compromising software; it doesn't work, and it's ugly, to boot! I just spent 300 bucks on a device I wasn't even sure I wanted, and I can't return it, so I guess I'd better make it work, right? I knew there were many alternatives to iTunes, and while I was plugging it in, John from Harman called me, and I asked him what he had seen or used in iTunes alternatives. He had seen several, but Anapod was his favorite. I went to find it, and it's reasonably priced for the performance features I would want, so I downloaded it to try it out. It doesn't work with 6th Gen iPods. Crap, now where to? Wikipedia has MANY answers! I love it. I donate to it, you should as well. (And the12volt.com) I found most all of my answers right here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_iPod_managers I eventually found the page for MediaMonkey. They had a download, and it's free, so... It WORKS!!! It works really well, too... I can highly recommend this particular proggie, kids! Now, for a lossless encoder, that will give me files that the iPos will understand... I have used Easy CD-DA Extractor for as long as I can remember. I love it's interface, it is fast, it has always been stable, and the home page always said it would support Apple Lossless. Well, it turns out it doesn't support Apple Lossless. CD Quality m4a files, yes, but lossy versions, not the lossless. Back to the internet. Eventually I find dbPoweramp Music Converter. There is a plug-in available for it, that DOES do Apple Lossless. Guess what? Those are both free, too! So now I have ripper, encoder, and manager all for my new, shiny, bargain-basement-priced, 160GB Silver Classic iPos. (More wonderful toys, stevdart!) I would be pretty happy with lossless, because I have a pretty decent pair of headphones, and I'd be OK with plugging into the aux on the D205, but I have the cable... Hmmm... Sa-Wheet! The full-speed connection to the back ALSO READS LOSSLESS!!! I am in HOG HEAVEN. So there you have it kids... My entire system: IVA-W205 Blackbird Tsunami Elite Signal and Monster Speaker Cabling Verizon Voyager Cellular Phone (yes, the iPhone killer) iPod 160 Classic Media Monkey iPod Management Software dbPoweramp w/ Lossless Plug-in CD Ripping Software (2) AltoMobile UCSPro Alpine PDX 1.1000 (2) Alpine PDX 4.150 JLAudio VR series Silk Tweeters Vifa custom 4 inch mids Adire Audio 6.8 woofers TCSounds TC1000 subs in iso-loaded TL Gawd, can I call this thing DONE yet? See you guys in Las Vegas!It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."