alpine ida x100 and the cda 9886

I'm looking for a single din receiver to put in my Mazda 3 and like both the X100 and the 9886. I'm not looking for anything really expensive, and I'm able to purchase either of these for $200. I don't care about the CD drive, as I'm going to be using both with my iPod anyway. I'm most concerned with sound quality, my experience in the past with the X001 is that this series of radios aren't as good as their higher end CD receivers. Does anyone know if the X100 improves on that at all? Is the sound quality and EQ tunability going to be a lot better in the 9886? Any thoughts on the subject would be great. I'm looking at these two radios and these two radios only. http://www.crutchfield.com/App/Product/Item/Main.aspx?i=500IDAX100 http://www.crutchfield.com/App/Product/Item/Main.aspx?i=500CDA9886

The x001 sounds fantastic, as long as you are using lossless encoding. MP3's will sound like MP3's, which SUCK. To build a deck with such a nice D/A stage and VERY nice output stage, specifically to reproduce such a CRAP format, is beyond me.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."

haemphyst wrote: The x001 sounds fantastic, as long as you are using lossless encoding. MP3's will sound like MP3's, which SUCK. To build a deck with such a nice D/A stage and VERY nice output stage, specifically to reproduce such a CRAP format, is beyond me.

I agree with you, but that's a little away from what I'm really asking. Let's say given the same input from my iPod (ranging from lossless aac to crappy mp3) what will give me the best sound between the two? Is there going to be a big difference between the two given eq differences, internal amp and circuitry differences, etc? Given those two radios, which would you buy and why? Just looking for a good comparison.2000 BMW 540i 6 speed

I personally don't like the idea of NOT being able to listen to CDs, so I would choose the 9886, if I had my druthers... IIANM, they have the same 24 bit D/A, and probably similar output stages... Acoustically, I'm thinking you won't be able to tell the difference between the two, using the same source.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."

haemphyst wrote: I personally don't like the idea of NOT being able to listen to CDs, so I would choose the 9886, if I had my druthers... IIANM, they have the same 24 bit D/A, and probably similar output stages... Acoustically, I'm thinking you won't be able to tell the difference between the two, using the same source.

Beautiful. Just what I was looking for. Thanks!2000 BMW 540i 6 speed