which deck would you choose?

[M SPEC]

Looking to upgrade from stock deck to either Alpine or JVC single DIN deck. They are in the $400-500US price range.

http://www.hifidirect.com.au/product.asp?product=JVC-KD-SH99

OR

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/ever-li-sg/2125065876.html

Both are CD recieiver/CD changer conroller.
Both have minimum of 4 Volt pre out ( Apline has 4.8V preout)
BUt the JVC can play MP3's and the Alpine one can't

Points to note:
I'm after sound quality.
I dont have A CD burner.
Just started a MP3 collection on my computer.
Looking to upgrade with amps, better speakers etc later on.

which one would you guys pick? opinons? Thaks in advance.

Jason

[Need4Spd]

IMO, Alpine.. no question about it. I think JVC is crap. If you are stuck on MP3's, save up some coins and go for the Alpine MP3. If not, consider maybe a Kenwood and save some cash for a 30 gig Phatnoise Phatbox. http://www.phatnoise.com Check out that link.. that thing is the ****. Even though I'm not a fan of Kenwood, it's the first aftermarket brand supported by the Phatbox. The Phatbox should be supporting more brands in the future.. Sony to come first I believe. The Phatbox was released to the general public yesterday.

[00GTS]

The JVC deck is not crap, but it's not a $400-$500 deck either. I got mine for $290. For that price, it's a pretty good deck.

If you've got $400-$500 to spend, you can definitely find something nicer (though meybe not with MP3 playback). I will say that I think the JVC has the best MP3 features so far....

-Josh

[Impulse]

If those are the only two you are looking at I'd go with Alpine. They always get good reviews and from my experience with them in friends cars, they have good sound quality. You should look at some other head units though like kenwood, pioneer and eclipse. You may find one with extra features you may want within your price range.

[Need4Spd]

Well, my feeling is still that JVC is crap. I think if you spend some time on the boards with diehard audiophiles and bassheads on sounddomain.com, caraudioforum.com, elitecaraudio.com, etc etc you'll see that this is a general consensus. Everyone, of course, is entitled to their own opinion :)

[00GTS]

Maybe you should take your own advice and spend some time researching this deck (KD-SH99) before calling it crap?

http://www.mattomedia.com/jvc/
http://pub56.ezboard.com/fhighwaymp3frm10

-Josh

[Gride01]

Get the JVC because it has a 6 channel output .....droool..... The power of the Alpine is tempting but personally i think Alpine is a little pricey for what it actually gives you. You pay about the same for the JVC and get more features, functions and performance.

[GranPaGTS]

I just had the 7873 CD Player installed. Sounds GREAT! and ~$300

JMO

[nyoneway]

I got the Kenwood Z828, very clean and nice sound. A lot of customizations and ****s you can do to optimize your sound. Plays MP3's and reads pretty quick. You can customize what you want to display, like artist, ID tags, filenames, etc anyway you like and its one of the few that displays more than 8 characters. It reads subdirectories flawlessly and long filenames are no problem (although it only display up to 32 characters for long filename).

I got it real cheap at $405, no tax, no ship, in Chinatown NYC, sold in Crutchfield for $600.

[ctkrider]

If I were to only chose between those two, I'd say alpine. I've heard similarly priced alpine decks and jvc's and alpine displays the highs a lot more crisp. But they arer right, alpine is pricey for the amount of features they will give you. I personally would get pioneer 9200r for that amount of money. U get a ton of features that allow u to tune ur'e system and nice ass display and good sound filters.

[M SPEC]

Thanks to everyone who posted a comment. I had made up my mind to get the JVC deck, then my Girlfriend today bought me a Alpine CDA -7878R which is even better than what I was planning to get. I love early christmas presents! hehe

Getting it installed this week.

Jason

[Shortchange14]

go with the Alpine my buddy has it in his lexus and I like it a real lot I may wanna pick up one of my own but I was also debating on a Eclipse 55430 so I dunno