Home > Consumer Reviews > Alpine CD-R/-RW/MP3/AAC/WMA Receiver, CDA-9886

This unit currently (2-25-08) has problems with some iPods (won't work with my 30GB video). Also XM will not work due to software glitch. Buy something else or wait till problems are fixed.

I have had the stero for less then a year. I have the same problem as another user. Error 01. Nobody knows how to fix this, except get a new radio. They (Alpine) don't seem as good as they used to (quality that is).

Fundamentally, the sound quality is great. I like the 4 volt pre-outs because I'm using a separate crossover and two amps. Overall the sound is excellent. But the menus--ugh, not at all intuitive. I have three major gripes: 1)No mid EQ--WTF? Both of my former Blaupunkts had treble, bass, AND mid EQ and for less money. With this thing, you need to buy the extra "imprint" system for lots more $ just to have a mid tweak. I always prefer a slight cut in certain harsh mid frequencies and now I can't. 2)Ipod navigation can be brutal on a big collection--for instance if you know the name of the song but not anything else, you can go to percentage search with the numbered (radio station preset) buttons and narrow it down to a section of the alphabet, which can be a pretty broad section, say A-G. But now you have to scroll through all the A to G titles one at a time with the dial, which seems endless. Who has that much patience? Couldn't they find a way to let you go to a LETTER? Also if you're down the hierarchy of folders, say, from artist to album but want to go back up to artist, you have to start all over again from the beginning of search mode--no way to just "go up one level" (left) as on ipod navigation itself and as on my last blaupunkt. 3)Most frustrating: If you are navigating and hesitate a bit too long, it times out and you have to go BACK to the beginning of the whole process. Grrrrgh! In short, I didn't buy another blaupunkt because I had two of them die an early death but they definitely had the more intuitive and functional menu nav. All things considered, I'd rather just have an aux in (which this lacks--it just offers the high speed ipod connect and a USB cable, no aux jack) and just use the ipod itself to navigate.

This head unit lets you play music from an Ipod or a USB thumb drive. It displays the song and artist from both and allows you to setup folders and playlist. It has six channel pre-outs (4 channels plus the subwoofer) It has Imprint and is infinitely adjustable. I was able to fine tune my system and it sounds great. Now, throw in Satellite radio, HD radio, Bluetooth, and the BioLite display. The display looks great and is easy to read in any light. The menu is easy to navigate and the sound quality is the best I have heard in any car. This is the reason I choose an Alpine. I is the best. As expected.

MP3/Hard Drive issue :

I have always been an owner/user of Alpine recievers. Before I purchased this model, I wanted to make sure that the reciever I purchased had a usb input and had the ability to play mps's straight from a hard drive. It plays them just fine; the problem lies with how the unit navigates the file structure you have set up on your hard drive. I have a hard drive with about 80GBs of mp3's with standard Group/Album/Song structure, and instead of displaying only the base files, it disays every single one all at once, in a chaotic order. While connected to a hard drive full of mps3's, trying to find a particular album or song using this reciever is painstakingly annoying, and in some cases it won't even display certain folders.

For mp3 purposes, I think it's time to say goodbye to the hard drive idea and say hello to an ipod; at least with this reciever.