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

alpine is the greatest looks perfect in my 98 dodge ram and the bright led lights make the stereo look great and so many features greastest head unit ever and i bought it from audioline super low price and fast shipping and it work great the head unit sound great with my new kappa infinty speakers

Overall I like this player. I replaced my 7894 with this unit so the install was seamless and even the wire harness was identical. The sound quality is good and I love the USB interface. I subtracted 1 star for lack of some features my 7894 had. Being the same price range as my original I expected comparable features The two particular features is the output power is lower and Media Xpander is missing, although the Media Xpander is available via an add-on module (For $150 list). I subtracted a second star for what I feel is pure laziness on Alpines part, although I have seen this same attitude used on other MP3 Players.

From the manual:

"Files are played back in the order that the writing software writes them to the disc. Therefore the playback order may not be what is expected. Verify the writing order in the software's documentation"

Now for a CD this is somewhat acceptable dues to the fact most software will show you the order before you burn this disc, BUT for the USB interface this is just annoying. There is no OS "manual" that says how the files will be arranged on the USB stick, and short of dropping one file at a time on the stick. Alphabetical sort has been around for 20+ years in software.

I don't use the iPod very much but it seems slow and unresponsive compared to the USB and CD interface.

I do like the interface and ease of use and navigation through large file and directory structures via the search.

Over all it is a good solid player but leaves me wanting just a little more effort on Alpines part.

I bought this unit to replace the stock bose in a Maxima. The receiver plays my mp3's beautifully from a 4GB flash drive as advertised with no noticible lag. The USB drive cababilities is why I chose this one, and I haven't been disappointed in that. I am however disappointed in the lack of sound adjustments that can be made without shelling out the additional $150 for the compatible EQ system. For this type of deck, I expected more than a bass and treble control. Even a short list of cheesy pre-sets like rock, jazz, etc. would help out. Ultimately I ended up buying a sub because the bass couldn't be adjusted to an acceptable level, without loosing the highs. If you buy this unit, plan to invest in an EQ and possible a sub and you'll be happy - I am!

I installed this radio in my 2000 Celica. I love it. This has the most powerful high quality built in amp of any radio i have used to date. To bad i am not using the built in amp. Right now I have a Soundstream Reference 200 running the stock front speakers (MB Quarts are on the way) and an alpine 200w digital mono amp running an Anthony Gallos 10'' subwoofer. The sound quality of this radio is amazing. Well worth the $100 over the 9884. The D to A is the best i have heard in any car radio under $1000. This radio makes MP3s and 4s sound like CDs. The Ipod adapter works great but i use the usb and store my music on Compact flash (sounds a little better than the thumb drives).

Very easy to operate the basic features.

What i don't like: The blue lights (what happened to alpine green) you only get green lights on the top and the bottom of the line alpine singal din radios. I refuse to spend $100 more for green lights. I had to change my consol lights to blue not easy.
Everything is $200 extra bluetooth, xm and so on.

This is far and away the best car cd player I have owned. When I put in a CD in it blows me away. Any CD. If you can work your way threw the menus. Defeat the tone controls it sounds better. Black out the display it sounds better. When using an external amp turn of the internal amp and it still sounds even better.

A real high end peace. Someone at Alpine is listening.

Franklin