Nitewing911

I'm considering returning my Pioneer DEH-P8400MP (while I still can) and getting the Alpine 9815. The main reason is the time correction, which I fully utilized with a previous Alpine deck in my previous car (rollin' with a P5 now). So...got a few questions:

1) I read that you're supposed to have a 10 guage wire going direct from the head unit to the car's battery. Maybe I'm just ignorant, but how do you go about doing that? I've done plenty of head unit installs before, and I'm not about to pay upwards of $40 and up to do it when this is my only concern. So you take a 10 guage wire and....do you run it through the firewall? Where do you run it through to reach the battery? Any information on this would be greatly appreciated, especially if anyone out there is using any Alpine deck with the V-Drive 60x4 internal amp.

2) What do you think of this deck? The green buttons on Alpine's lesser models are really ugly, though they have a late model, CDA-7894, that you can choose between green and amber. Actually, I'm also considering going with the 7894, but I'm wondering if all the added features on the 9815 are worth it.

walight01

alpine makes awesome HU. as far as the wire, its just like running the power for a amp, hook one end up at the battery, and run it through the firewall, through your dash and to your radio, not that bad

SILVER1

Nitewing911
I got the cda 9815 a few weeks ago. I like this deck but I am giving you real deal. I added the upgraded 10-gauge power to the deck, but it depends if you are using the deck power or not. I used the rear deck power to factory speakers it sounds a lot better (louder, and a little cleaner because of the x/o) I will eventually upgrade the rear door speakers. The time allignment is ok it basically is like a fader and balance but with some time delay to balance out the sound. As far as the display goes the leds are a cool blue when you are messing around with the time correction the leds turn orange. The display is a bit boring compared to the pioneer hu you have. The Alpine display can be turned off to provide a cleaner power signal according to alpine. The 4volts preouts are great if your adding an amplifier. The tilt button you probably won't use and the eject cd is a tad slow because of the motorized faceplate. The bass focus provides an easy adjustment for baassss if you have an amp. It is a good deck to work a good system; clean sound, 4x60w, it has a built in x/o, a very basic eq pre-selection, a fan to keep itself cool, 3 4v preouts...and cool looks. Here is a link to my pics
http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4290458533

Protege52003

There is a good place to run power wires through above the pedals on the driver side. If you look under the hood, there is a black rubber oval gasket about 2 inches by 3/4 if you look down to the left from the master cylinder in the engine bay that has good access above the brake pedal in the car. There is a black wire going through the center of it with plenty of room to run wires to the left and right of it. Just be careful when poking something through the rubber so you do not puncture any wires in the area. I have my two power wires going through this spot. One for my alpine HU and the other for my rockford amp.

Not sure what you drive, but I used the same place on my 01' ES and my 03' P5.

Hope this helps.

Nitewing911

Protege52003, I also drive a black Protege5 2003! Anyways, after running the wire through the gasket, where on the battery do you mount the ring terminal? There's a plate next to the battery that the positive terminal is coming from, but I think that's the ground (isn't it?), and from what I understand, the power wire is supposed to go directly to the battery. How've you done it? Thanks in advance.

Does anyone know if it's worth getting the newer Alpines, compared with last year's model. Specifically, I'm looking at either the CDA-9815 or 9813, and last year's CDA-7894. The 7894 only has 4 channel time correction, as opposed to 6, and it doesn't have the parametric EQ. But it does match the interior amber lighting (which I would really like). And it's cheaper than the 9815 by about $100. What do you guys think?

alexatwork

I've been running a cda-7894 without running a seperate 10 gauge power wire. I used the factory harness/power wire and have had no problems over the past 2 months. I'm also running all 4 speakers (plus the 2 factory tweeters) off of deck power.

SEA_P5

Just got this installed today...very clean and neat.

Currently I chose this because of the MP3/WMA and the vast options that the deck allows with modifying the settings.

I had installed Infinity Kappa's for the front and back before and it was being powered by the stock deck...just say I was afraid of frying the speakers or head unit.

I installed the deck thinking that I would have to buy an amp at the same time...listened to the sounds coming from the speakers and was very impressed. It sounded pretty good off of deck power. I think I will get the cd/mp3/wma changer next. The amp can wait a few months when I get a sub.