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Easy install, great sound, iPod controls meh... |
November 3, 2008 |
| Reviewer:
Ben
from Houston, TX
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Just hooked it up and popped it in last week. Installation was a breeze, as always with Crutchfield. Sounds great out of the box, needed minimal setup (although for the first time EVER I've had to open the manual to set the time), and looks great in the dash. The iPod controls are decent. Only major complaint I have is that you have to contort your arm while searching through your library, otherwise your hand completely blocks the screen. The center search/volume knob is the culprit. The resistance on the knob is also a little to much, although I'm guessing it'll ease up over time.
Overall a great upgrade.
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October 13, 2008 |
| Reviewer:
Andrew
from Minnesota
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First Off When Purchasing I Thought WoW This Is Cool No CD Player, HD Radio, Sat Radio, BlueTooth But They Mean Spend Another 1k Dollars On top Of The Money You Just Spent To Add All These Features, 230 For A HD Tuner Box ??!! HD Radio Is Free Why Do I have To spend Another 230 To Get It To Work, It Should Be Built In THe Head Unit!!!!
Second The Interface With The iPod ??!! And Now I Gotta Spend More Money For A High Speed Cable So The Song Won't Skip 2-3 Times Per Song, With My iPod Touch. Alpine Audio Is Great But Everything Else Is A Pain
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Xtreme Inconvenience |
July 14, 2008 |
| Reviewer:
Aphi
from Fort Worth, TX
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Pros:
1. The x200 sounds great.
2. No CD. Why bother anymore, do people still use
those round things?
3. Big bright display easy to see in any light.
Cons:
1. Tiny display, only 11 chars across. Can't see
"Stairway to Heaven" on ONE LINE without scrolling? What is this 1999?
2. No playlists for usb thumbdrive.
3. Controls make no sense. Bass/treble/balance and Sub/HPF menus operate differently.
4. Volume should be only volume, never shared with other controls. It's inconvenient.
5. Changing folders shows 'folder up' for 3s. Want
folder NAME.
6. Big Honker control knob has to be pushed and turned to change folders, inconvenient. It isn't cool, its annoying.
7. USB skips songs/folers when there's other data
on the drive. Worked fine after I removed the data.
8. No EQ on a digital tuner? Ripoff.
9. No radio channel buttons. Takes 2 buttons and a knob to change channels. Xtreme Inconvenience.
10. The 88 page manual is a mess. They tried to merge with the x300. The words "Double Action
Encoder (iDA-X200 only) or Rotary Encoder (iDA-X300
only)" appears 142 times!
Can't see "Have a Cigar" without scrolling?
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Fantastic Except for USB Annoyance |
July 9, 2008 |
| Reviewer:
Tom
from Madison, Wis.
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Excellent sound quality, 3 pre-outs, easy-to-use controls. Works with iPods and USB storage devices, but it is designed primarily for iPods. When you connect a large USB device, it spends several minutes (over 5 minutes with my high-speed 16 GB flash drive) to "bank" all the songs. While it is banking, "BANKING" appears on the display and you do not have access to all your music (however, it does start playing music right away, while it is banking). After turning the car's power off and back on, it will remember the last track you played but it will NOT remember its index (banks). In other words, every single time you turn on your car, it has to bank all your songs. So if you have a large number of songs on your USB device, you cannot turn on your car and immediately select the song you want to hear. Very frustrating.
To clarify, this does not affect iPods. When you connect an iPod, it reads the iPod's internal index almost immediately and thus all your songs are available right away.
The USB device banking issue is a serious shortcoming but otherwise it is probably the best MP3-only unit available at this time (besides the IDA-x100). Hopefully Alpine will address this. It would be simple for the headunit to write the index/banks it creates to the USB device, thus avoiding the need for banking after the first time the device is connected.
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Good....but not great |
July 8, 2008 |
| Reviewer:
whiticar
from Los Angeles, CA
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I must temper my review with the following. I had extremely high expectations of this head unit and I only used the iDA-X200 for about a week. I love the idea of not having a CD player combined with a head unit specifically designed for the Ipod. However, the iDA-X200 is not the pinnacle of design. The large multifunction dial is stiff and cumbersome. Additionally, since this head unit is specifically designed to work the Ipod I expected the center dial to act more like the pad on the Ipod. So I traded the iDA-X200 for the CDA-9884 and am happier as a result. The Ipod interface is virtually identical between the two head units. You may ask how I can be happy with the 9884 but not the X200 if they have the same interface. The reason is the 9884 does not sell itself as a "digital media receiver for you iPod lovers." The center control dial on the 9884 is much easier to rotate and the 9884 is happy to be a CD player with Ipod controls and not try to sell itself as a Ipod control unit. Boooo to Alpine for not creating a flawless Ipod interface in a head unit specifically designed to control the media player. Do not be misled I love Alpine so the 9884 is the perfect head unit for me, but I am still intrigued by what possibilities lay ahead for Ipod friendly head units.
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