Alpine 9855 & iPod Adapter - HELP!

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Boulderguy

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Please choose the appropriate forum for this topic. Thank you. Hey all -

I've just ordered the new Alpine CDA-9855 with the kick-butt display. I've used the older 9835 with Alpine's iPod adapter, the KCA-420i, and hated how slow & confusing the search function was. I ditched it after a week.

Wondered if the iPod adapter is significantly different with the 2005 headunits, if at all. Looking for specifics -

Is searching 400 artists quick or painful?

Does the Biolite display still gray out 2 of the three search choices the way it did with the 9835? (that was so annoying)

Does the GlideStrip scroll faster than the older volume knob did?

The 9835 Id3-display choices only gave me Artist/Album or Album/Song, but not Artist/Song (what were they thinking?) Is this still the case?

To find an artist, do I need to pull over & play with the headunit, or is it friendly enough to keep me from driving over a kid in the street?

With the 9835, I decided I was better off tossing the adapter & going with a direct aux-in. Is this still the case?

The more detailed info you can give, the better. Thanks in advance!
 

DuSStyBottoms22

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I have the 9853, not the 55 but If i were to use either of your words I would use painful.

I'm pretty sure it also displays artist/song, not 100% though.

Compared to the ipod searching through playlists, albums, artists or songs is very very slow and if you needed to pull over to turn the knob you might have to pull over and pitch a tent and start a fire cause I'm sure this is even more distracting.
 

Boulderguy

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Replying to my own message...

So I got the headunit yesterday and spent the better part of the afternoon & eve playing with it. I'm going to post my thoughts hoping you may benefit from them.

The display has improved over the 9835, makes searching easier. Still won't display Artist/Song combo - what's up with that? Doesn't gray-out 2 of 3 songs in search list anymore, thank the Lord.

Searching is NOTICABLY faster now. It now will jump thru tracks very fast - up to 60 at a time - but there's a trade-off. Using the Glidestrip speeds things up, but you lose some precision when trying to lock onto a certain folder. This may improve as I get more accustomed to using this Glidestrip thingy, as I'm pretty clumsy with it so far. Dusty - not sure why yours is so slow...?

As for usability, I could still run over a kid looking for something if I'm not careful - it sucks my attention that way. Just not nearly as bad as last year's model. Had they allowed for fast searching with the Glidestrip & also precise searching with the volume/rotary knob we'd be golden. Next year?

Scrolling thru 20GB of music on the iPod & locating a particular album probably takes twice as long compared to just using the iPod. Again, I expect this to improve. Even if it didn't, the ability to skip tracks thru my steering wheel controls makes up for it, IMO. Also not having to hit "play" on the iPod everytime I get back in the car is a bonus.

This Glidestrip is awkward so far, but getting better. Not as mindless as a laptop's integrated mouse touchpad, but it may just take some getting used to. Jury's out.

Sound quality from the iPod is as good as it gets. Alpine's come a long way in this respect, I'd put them just behind Eclipse & Nakamichi in sound quality. That's pretty good.

Conclusions - it still ain't the cat's meow, but much better than last year. I'm going to keep the KCA-420i for now over using the AUX-IN, I think it's useful enough to overcome any shortfalls. The headunit also has a port in the back to plug in a 3.5mm headphone jack to accept steering wheel controls - a godsend.

Hope that helps. I may post an update after I'm more fluid with it all.

Alex.
 

jbirney

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thanks Boulderguy as I was trying to figure out which of them to get (55\53\51)
 

bighairy

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I'm hoping to spend some more time with my D310 at the weekend because I want to see if there is a way to skip multiple artists quickly. At least with the big screen you can see 4 lines of artists, albums, playlists or songs. There is a sort of slide type thing on the left of the screen but it acts more like an up down toggle switch. Haven't really tried to see if holding it down starts skipping quickly.

I should confirm (as I may have said the wrong thing somewhere else) that the D310 displays artist, album and song name while playing along with the first few characters of the song name on the sub-display.
 

DuSStyBottoms22

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I don't know why it's so much slower than the 55 Alex...

I definately know I can't jump 60 in advance, I'm going one by one or maybe i can scroll two in advance if i hit the strip right.
 

marcobabyo

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Hey Boulderguy, when you say that the headunit has a port in the back to plug in a 3.5mm headphone jack to accept steering wheel controls, how do you control the unit with the steering wheel through this jack? Is there an extra piece that it needs?
 

Boulderguy

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you'll need some type of "interpreter" between your steering wheel controls & the headunit. I'm using the PAC IR adapter, the one that converts steering wheel controls to headunit IR signals using the headunit's remote control. Here's the trick - you can cut off the LED transmitter from the PAC converter & connect a 1/8" headphone jack to the end (call them, they'll give you specifics), then plug that into the Alpine.
 

lillaney43

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where is the ipod connector on the alpine cda 9853 i cant find the the input hole
 
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