Alpine losing build quality other brands?

yeah i think I know what you mean ... i chose an Alpine CDA9807 over that JVC ... I think its EXAD something - the black one right? anyway i just thought if I put a DVD player in my car i will spend too much money in the future - headrest TV's, Playstation etc... so I decided to install a very good sound-only system.

Although no personal experience with them. Most of our high end systems have been built with Eclipse head units. They have very good quality sound and are very reliable.

Question for Jeff @ Velocity. What Alpine products were manufactured in the USA?

tcss wrote: Question for Jeff @ Velocity. What Alpine products were manufactured in the USA?

Alpine Electronics Manufacturing of America, Inc., headquartered in Greenwood, Indiana, specializes in the manufacturing of car audio and mobile electronics for OEM markets.

Taken from the Alpine website: https://iweb.alpine-usa.com:7777/pls/isap_ap1/jps_run.benefits

Jeff

Velocity Custom Home Theater

Mobile Audio/Video Specialist

Morden, Manitoba CANADA

tcss, the Alpine name has been in high regards in my books ( I still run the F1 Status system in my show vehicle) , but the entry level and mid level products are not what they use to be like in the early 90's. I was a heavy Alpine fanatic in the day with the 3545 2 Channel amp and the Class A amplifier 3558 coupled with the 7909 CD HU. R&D is now split between the USA, Europe and Japan for it's own distinctive countires & it shows in the end product. IMO, I would sooner get an Eclipse or Pioneer for an entry level HU as opposed to an Alpine, but then again Alpine's high end stuff is still to be matched !!Jeff

Velocity Custom Home Theater

Mobile Audio/Video Specialist

Morden, Manitoba CANADA

I agree with everything you said except one thing, I was pretty sure that Alpine only made OEM stuff in Indiana and that's what your link said. All the good after market stuff you mentioned was made in Japan. Remember the 3520 mono amp? Speaker Works used 6 of them in the Buick Grand National show car. This is regarded as the first SQ car.God I'm OLD!

That makes 3 of us then. I sold my 3558 for $500.00, why oh why would I have done such a thing after winning such a nice amp..... I agree that Alpine of today is nothing but a distant shadow of the company they used to be. Funny thing happens when you start to lose marketshare, price points fall lower than a ho's underwear and build quality follows pricepoints. You get what you pay for. Now that Eclipse is being man handled by the big box store, it is only a matter of time before this once proud line, built on the backs of the hard working indipendent dealers like myself, will too find itself being sold at a cheap price and built even crappier in the future. Top Secret, I can tell you but then my wife will kill me.

Dave also chimes in. It really is too bad, that in this day of internet sales and eBay, the products of the once fine and proud Alpine, and now Eclipse, will all eventually fail to shine. The 7909 was, perhaps next to the Nakmichi TD1200, the best quality sounding head unit probably ever. Where are both of those companies now? In the dumper, and sadly, in the quest for profit margin, rather than selling a bunch of good stuff with narrower margin, Eclipse is following them. This is part of the reason I have so much trouble buying things new off the internet. Used, OK, but never new.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."

Besides the pure profit motive and the brand destruction caused by big-box and Internet retailers (comments above that I agree with completely) there are also a couple of other pressures happening here.  First, there is less demand these days for high-end sound quality.  The average consumer wants video screens and MP3 and wouldn't know "good sound" if it hit them in the face.  Plus there is a shrinking gap between the quality of low-end and high-end units.  Cheap gear sounds pretty darn good these days, and the difference gained by double the price is getting harder and harder to detect.  I think it is really sad to watch great companies go down the Aiwa rat hole, but watch for new stuff coming out of Japan from DMC and out of Korea from LG and Samsung and out of Taiwan from companies like Shang-Ling for the next wave of high-end car audio.  The next three to five years should be interesting. Support the12volt.com

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