Audio/Visual Electronics - alpine vs pioner

what head unit should i get alpine or pioner... to run 4 speakers, sub and 4 ch amp powering 4 speakers ?

Alpine every time. Pioneer units only look pretty.

I personaly use an Alpine 7998R with phantom face. Lots of money but worth every penny if you like using things like mobile hub, DAB radio and MP3 playback.

personally, for me the head unit is all about functionality. The amp makes all the sound so the head unit doesn't really matter. All you basically need is a head unit with 1 preout. I got a cheap kenwood deck kdc3025. good enough for me.

Alpine all the way.

Much better quality.

my buddy had pioneer and it was a POS. all i have ever had aftermarket was Sony. and they have been awesome. but of pioneer/alpine its Alpine all the way

Pioneer or Alpine, you can't really go wrong with those two. I also like SONY stuff like speakers, subs even amps are pretty good. I have a JVC headunit not the greatest name brand but I had it for a while and works great.
Got that one cuz for 300 bucks it had the most features out there.

ive had a couple of pioneers and i dont like anything else. i never had a problem with my first one for over a year, then some jackhole broke into my car and stole it. then i got an old one from a friend and it worked good for over three years, it was about five years old, when it finally died.

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ECLIPSE

I've gotta vote Alpine. I've had their head unit and disc changer for a while now and i like em.

i had a pioneer. the cd player died after less than 2 years. i dont think i will buy another pioneer.

There is nothing better than Alpine. Unfortunately, there are very few things as expensive either.

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Never seen an Alpine die myself. Plus, they look and sound 100 times better.

I'm also trying to decide what to get for my BMW: Pioneer or ALpine. I'm leaning toward alpine, but i like pioneer too, because it sounds pretty good and is heck of a lot cheaper.

You drive a Bimmer and you're worried about how much you're spending on your CD player????

It's not like I'm loaded. I paid $2300 for the bimmer. I'm pretty much broke now, so thank God the gas prices dropped.

Oh, ok. That makes more sense. Sorry about that; didn't mean to judge...

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Hey, you get what you pay for. V-Drive is ****ing unbeatable if you actually wire it right... Plus, OEL looks like a super nintendo next to the Panasonic LCD display (I'm not talking about an in-dash monitor either).

Bottom line: If I wanted to watch movies in my car, I would buy a ****ing in-dash monitor. But I don't. I want the best possible sound I can get. Keeping that in mind, the Alpines still look way better cosmetically and visually.

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i have a pioneer deh3100 supertuner hu in my current car my 95 ford escort and a jts 8o basstube and roadgear 250watt amp it sounds awesome i havnt had any probs with my system :) i say go pioneer i love mine its going in my new honda civic when i get my new car :)

ive got a pioneer AVHp6600DVD in dash with build in dvd and cd and everything..even touch screen......i dont see how ppl are bashing pioneer they make some good ****.


Ive only had pioneer head units and i can not complain


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ive got a pioneer deh 6600 with a 4 channel fosgate 4004, and a alpine mono mrp-m350 pushing a fosgate 210 10" sub. sounds like what you want to setup basicly. as said earlier, the sound comes from the amps, so get a head unit for the features you require, price , and your asthetics, you have to look at it all the time, not us

i personally think either is a good choice. id base my decision on what your looking for in the head unit. do you really need features that the alpine will come with or do you just want something simple. ive personally ran alpine, pioneer, kenwood, clarion, sony. my sony faceplate quite working and i had to use the remote after about 7 months. pioneer and kenwood look really nice and work well. alpine has a bunch of different features and id recomend it to someone who wants lots of control. my current clarion is great and doesnt skip or do anything i dont want it to do and is going on almost 2 years strong.

this post is kinda old.

I personally have faith in pioneer headunits and components but their subs (from what i understand) aren't worth crap. I have heard some really crazy alpine subs though. A friend had 2 12" competition type e's and they hit harder than any sub i've heard. Standing a car length away you would feel your lungs shaking and your eardrums rattling.

Pioneer rules

Both are pretty good, I personally like alpine better for a few reasons. I haven't really been head unit shopping in awhile, but I know that the preamp voltage on alpine used to be superior to pioneers (I think it was 4.0 V vs 2.5 V) That makes a pretty big difference in sound quality with or without an amp. So thats certainly something I'd pay attention to. If you like being able to tweak just about everything with the sound in your car I know alpine head units offer a variety of stuff to adjust. Just my 2 cents

pioneer has quite a bit of tuning capabilities too. The one that i have has two equalizers, you can set the sub level output in hertz, and its got a few other things you can do also along with the normal stuff like hi's, low's, mid's, bass, and treble. Don't get me wrong i like anything loud enough to wake the neighbors up with and maybe get the cops called. I'm not really sure which version headunit i have. All i know is that it has the matrix screen, the one with the cars racing and stuff.

Preout voltage means absolutly nothing if you do not have an amp. Preout voltage is like wattage in RCAs.

In my old Pioneer 900 series it had a 13 band eq. Thats just nuts. My pioneer screen doesnt perform as well as Id like it too though. But hey, who can complain when you get DVD, and NAVI all built into one unit. The new Alpine screens with the pulse touch are pretty cool but the brain is freaking outragoulsy huge and then they have external power supply. Ridiculous that is doesnt even come with NAV and the brain is twice the size of the Pioneer. Also the face doesnt detach on the Alpine.

Although, in the Alpines defense when you pop in a DVD and the little menu comes up you can actually just use the touch screen to choose your option, not like every other brand that you have to use the up, left, right, and down thingy like you do at home. THats pretty freaking sweet.

yeah sorry...didnt mean to write that it makes a difference without an amp....don't know what I was thinking, but civiccrazy's plan was to run an amp...I think...dont remember what the original post was anymore, so it would make sense to pay attention to that when buying a head unit with plans of hooking any kind of amp up to it down the road.

Yeah preamp voltage is a huge deal when running an amp


To bad people arent making screens that perform well......................yet