This is for those who are interested in or who are considering the Alpine DVA-9860 for it's MP3 on DVD capabiltiy.
I originally had the CHA-S634 changer which played MP3's from up to 6 CD-R's. It was great. The sound quality was excellent, the track skipping was the same as with conventional CD's and the folder skipping was about as fast as the track skipping. The only downside was skipping from disc to disc. It was pretty slow. Changing disc to disc was a bit of a hassle after awhile. OK, I'll admit it...I was spoiled and getting way too lazy! =)
So anyway, when Alpine came out w/ the DVA-9860, I had to have it. I thought the idea of having the equivelent of 6 CD's worth of MP3's on one DVD was just too cool. However, instead of doing my research, I went out and bought one (retail no-less at $450+). I didn't even go the eBay route to save about $100. What's more, I put my old units (CDA-9825 and CHA-S634) up for sale before I had the new unit installed! Another mistake.
Well, long story short...I now have the DVA-9860 installed. It runs fine...everything is as advertised. However...big however... both the track skipping and folder skipping is DOG SLOW! Really slow! For example...you can't be on track 01 and skip over to track 04 simply by pressing |>> three times. No... you have to:
1) Hit |>> once ...then wait until track 02 is registered and just about to start playing then... 2) Hit |>> again ...then wait for track 03 to register and almost start playing... then finally 3) Hit |>> once again to get to track 04.
I'm NOT kidding. It is really THAT slow. To me, that's just plain ridiculous. Folder skipping is no better and depending on how many folders you have can be much more painful. I keep my albums in seperate folders seperated by genre's. If I'm in my Rock folder listening to the album in the first folder, but want to skip over to my Old School folder which is two genres up, I have to skip to each rock folder to get to the next genre. When skipping folders, you again have to wait as long as it takes for the next track/folder to register and almost start playing and skip again. Skipping folders is even worse than skipping tracks! DOGGY DOG SLOW!
What upsets me is the unit is not smart enough to know if you are on track 01 and hit the forward skip button |>> three times, it means you want to go to track 04. No, it will only skip one track at a time. There is no memory for how many times you've hit skip. With a normal CD player, if you hit skip three times, it doesn't bother to access track 02 or 03...it simply goes straight to track 04... boom your done. The DVA-9860 has a very very poor interface for DVD-MP3 audio.
I made the mistake of not researching or sampling the unit on display with one of my own DVD's before buying. I also made the mistake of selling my old units before making sure I liked the new one.
I went the DVA-9860 route, because I didn't have an iPod and thought that buying the DVA-9860 would be cheaper and more convinient than buying the iPod, then having to buy the Alpine KCA-420I iPod interface, etc, etc.
So now I'm stuck with an overpriced DVD HU which didn't meet my expectations. I do however now own an iPod that I just bought from a co-worker. Now I need to research the response time some of the HU's out there have with tracking skipping on the iPod interface. I don't know if I'm going to stick with Alpine. I have to research.
Anyway...I just wanted to get the word out that anyone who is considering this unit for the same reason I bought it, may want to reconsider or at least do their own research before buying.
After talking with a couple stereo shops, I'm learning that pretty much all of the HU's with iPod interfaces simply treat the iPod as a CD Changer. The iPod is new to me, but anyone who has one knows that the interface is far more robust than a simple folder to folder or disc to disc CD Changer. With the exception of the Clarion VRX755VD (ebay $700-$1000) and another brand (the make/model escapes me), the rest are not all that great.
With that knowledge, I think I'm just going to go the ghetto way of connecting an 1/8" to RCA cable to the AUX input on my Clarion EQS744 EQ and call it a day. My EQS744 has a seperate volume for the AUX input and I can just use the iPod controls/playlist/etc., to manage my music. What'dya gonna do? Unless anyone else knows otherwise, this seems to accomplish my goal without costing another small fortune on a new HU.
I only wish I didn't spend the cash on the DVA-9860. If anyone is interested, I may be selling it on eBay for a fairly reasonable price. At this point, it's useless to me as I don't listen to the Radio and I tried Sirius Satellite and thought it rather poor (CD quality sound my eye!!) For now, I'm good to go with my MP3's!
Ahh, so you were playing mp3 files burned to a DVD, right? I would expect that to be slow as well...
I'm not sure what Sirius does, but I do know XM has all of their media recorded to mp2 @384 kbps. Though some of their waveforms (from speaking with DJ's who work there) look like bricks-and the DJs can't control the source material's sound. So it's only natural that it wouldn't sound as good as a CD. It still sounds a great deal better than FM, however...
The 'ghetto' way of just hooking up the iPod without a specialized adaptor isn't all that bad. I've done it, but my XM radio is currently using the headphone connection (It's a plug and play type unit).You might need to try some different EQ settings on the iPod for it to sound right with your car system...
Spr1t3
Unregistered guest
Posted on
Why would you expect it to be slow? My current CD mp3 player is fast as lightning. I would expect DVD to be nothing less than that. Even if it is more songs, more memory for an index, etc. It should be the same or better than a mp3 cdplayer.
Thanks for the review though. I'm doing some heavy research on what is best. If anybody has any good experiences, I'd love to see them posted! Thanks again.
Even if it is more songs, more memory for an index, etc
That's why it's slower...It has to decode so much more data. 4.7gb is a huge jump from 750mb.
KhanMan13AK
Unregistered guest
Posted on
go with the IPOD interface on the Alpine
It is sweet... responds instantly and 20gb worth of music means you never have to change a CD again. I have that with the CDA-9855 and lovin it
allende5
Unregistered guest
Posted on
How's the interface with the Alpine KCA-420i? It advertises "Search Mode Selection (Playlist, Artist, Album, Song Title)". Is it similar to the iPod itself. Would you say it would be worth using the KCA-420i ($100) over simply connecting the iPod directly to my EQ AUX input? I'd rather use the head unit to control everything...it's just cleaner that way. But not at the expense of losing the great interface on the iPod. I'm just a little upset with Alpine right now. I rather not give them anymore money. For $500 retail, they should have equipt the DVA-9860 with whatever it needs to provide acceptable performance for what it advertises, or not do it at all.
memphoman
Unregistered guest
Posted on
I love having this, but I agree with the original post. My unit tends to get confused, and will repeat tracks, and getss stuck on certain songs and WILL NOT release this until I've done an update, and then it still tends to get hung up.
Scrolling through the song lists takes F O R E V E R. Also, evertime I boot up, it requires going back in and setting it up to shuffle. With discs it remembers. With iPod, it starts (usually) where it left off, but if you were on shuffle, you have to di the 3-click, 2-button process to set it up again. A real PITA.
It's still nice to have, and since I've spent all this money, I will stick with it.
allende5
Unregistered guest
Posted on
In all fairness to the DVA-9860 I realized that the search by folder/search by file feature works much better than by skipping from track to track as I was doing originally. When selecting song using the search feature, the response time is fairly quick. I'm just a little old school, and I'm used to flipping through tracks by just skipping to them. I guess in the day of MP3's, I have to get used to using menus and search features...probably not good while driving though. =)