I guys I currently have a Alpine 9815 and I want ot get another cd player. I have been lookin at the Alpine 9835 and the Eclipse 5444. What do u guys think of these. I have never heard a eclipse but how much differ do they sound?

 

If your setup can take advantage of the Alp '35's time alignment, I would go with it. I think the 8454 would sound better than the Alpine, but I think you can get better results with the Alp 35 than the Ecl 44.

OF course, if you have rear fill, you aren't really about sound quality anyway ~

WHo puts SPX's in the REAR?

 

I do, not everyone is building a system only for SQ competitions - I have my tweeter mounted low by the mid, so the rear speakers really dont come into play. I put them in for my rear passengers, and I had alot more money back then...

 

Eld...can rear passengers still hear the highs very well, when you're on the freeway and in noisy environments?

I always hear you talk about how rear fill is not necessary, but I guess I don't understand how someone in the back seat of a TSX is able to hear the mids that are mounted in the front doors. It just seams like it would be too low for the sound to carryover or you would have too turn in up extra loud for the people in the back to hear.

I've heard you talk about this quite a lot...I've heard others back in up on this...and I was just wondering how it all works.

 

I am not going to a SQ comp. I put rear speakers beacause I also have people ride in the back. My front speakers where going to be alpine F17m and a JL 450/4 but then I change my mind and got the 300/4 and the 500/1.

 

REAR FILL......

go to caraudio.com forum and search rear fill. they will explain everything ull need to know. and the TSX...do u have after market high quality component speaker as a front speaker? if u have the right setup, even with out speaker in the back ull be able to hear everything clearly even people in the back. i tried it and it sounded awesome with my sub. (assuming that u guys have subs cuz rear fill is for people with subs and good front speaker setup).

but for some reason i still have my rear speaker. time to time i juss mute my back speaker using my alpine 9835 headunit. even though i have good front component speakers (infinity perfect 6.1) i dont think its good enough setup for no rear fill. most of my mid comes from my rear speaker cuz i dont have the right setup so i do rear fill. but i heard if u do have the right setup, not having speaker on the back will sound so much better then having speakers.
fuck..i think im jibberishing now, im at work and exhausted......blah

hope this helped.

 

why are we talking about rear fill.


Well heres my next question will I even be able to tell a differ from my 9815 to a 9835 or a eclipse.

 

i would only upgrade if you are going to use the features of the apline 9835 or eclipse 8454. no point in upgrading to either HUs if you dont use the features.

both are of good build, but the eclipse gets my nod b/c of a better EQ.

 

To answer your questions, the F speaks in my TSX sound great from the back seat. THat's not just my opinion, I've had others try it out and say the same thing.

A lot of that result I think is using the F OE tweeter locations with a tweeter that plays convincing midrange... if I were using a tweet crossed over at around 4.5K it would not work as well, but since the SCanSpeak tweet has a resonance around 850, Alpine crosses it over at about 2K, and there are a lot of voices coming out the top of the dash.

I know that there are people who say "never put your tweets that far from the mids".

Well, I would abide by that if I had kick panel speaker installation - but with the OE door spots, I wanted to avoid what I call "headphone stereo" - where you have good L and R separation, but no real front to the front stage, and a hole in the center.

This is why soft domes that play low have a "real-world" application which stiff metal domes with higher resonances just don't... you can make them sound better in real-world applications. IMO.

 

I'm sure Eld will be along soon with a long answer, but here's a short answer( remember, I'm the short answer guy).... In reality, if you're truly looking for SQ in your car, you DON"T CARE about the passengers...If I have 4 people in the car, we're talking anyways, not listening to the stereo....At least this is my opinion..

As far as an on-topic response, I'd say you can't go wrong with either Alpine or Eclipse, and I've had experience with both, but not recently...In the past, Eclipse was a little better, but not by much. Sorry, I'm not up on Eclipse as much as I was, but I have an Eclipse 5301 in my closet, hehe....

 

The reason we are talking about R fill is that te time alignment features of that Alpine are just about useless in a R fill system. If you used half of your 300/4 for F tweets, the other half for F mids, and the 500/1 for the bass, you could gt the benefit of the time alignment.

EVEN THOUGH you can play with time alignment in F/R/Sub mode, it doesn't help much - why eliminate time delays in a car when the same sound is coming at you from more than one spot? Thats a MUCH bigger SQ problem...It's a waste of the feature and then a waste of money...

 

You know my take on it. I think Eclipse builds the best head units, period. Are you really going to hear a difference? Maybe, maybe not. That depends on how critical of a listener you are. With the two units you are considering, it really comes down to features. Which one will work best for what you need, feature wise. Sound quality wise, they are both great units.


As for no rear speakers, it would be pretty hard for me to have theater sound in my car if I did not have rear speakers for surround. For music, maybe you do not need them but, again, it is a personel choice.

 

No, it really isn't, not if you are looking for "theater" sound.

Theater sound is multichannel (ie., more than two channel) sound, NOT stereo two-channel sound. You need DVD-Audio or SA-CD recordings mastered specifically for the multichannel musical listening environement to hear multichannel music (few of us have made that step, and I don't think many of us have that kind of HU). Without that, you don't have high fidelity sound, you have special effects - like adding another wah-wah pedal.

A two-channel system with speakers behind you accurately recreates the sonic experience that the guy wearing the SECURITY jacket has with his back to the stage the entire time. That's not what stereo was invented for...

I didn't define "stereo" or how it works, K? That was done many decades ago. I'm just telling you how it works. You can muck it up if you want, that's personal choice, but it's NOT stereo, and the recordings most of us listen to are stereo recordings, and as such they don't sound they way they are supposed to with F and R stereo speakers.

I think that the Alpine '35 can yeild great results, that the next Eclipse up, the 8-something, can also give you, and that's the basis for my answer.

I don't make the news, I just report the news...

 

Oh, and the '05 Eclipse stuff looks so boringly panasonic-ish as to make an original Eclipse dealer cry... lost all respect for them this year.

 

And this is the kind of head unit I have. Sorry, I did get a little off topic from discussing STEREO sound.

 

Yeah sorry for the thread jack!

Thanks for the info everyone. This is very interesting. I wonder if I could take out the rear fill in my TSX. Right now...my speakers all don't match because I brought a bunch of stuff over from my old car. Anyway though, I have Diamond Audio Hex 6 1/2 coaxial mid/tweet components in the front doors and JL audio tweets in the factory tweeter locations. I bought some cheap Infinity Reference 6002i for the rear fill. When I have some time after tax season I will try to disconnect them and see what happens.

Back on top-ic: I would say the Alpine deck myself. The two decks are pretty close and eventhough I think the Eclipse will probably sound a little better. I really like some of the cool new things Alpine is coming out with. They already have an Ipod Ai-Net adapter and I think they have a new Sirius Ainet adapter coming out. They also have a DVD/mp3 changer already out too. If you're interested in adding more things to the deck later, then Alpine has a lot more extra accessories you can add than Eclipse.