Clarion PXW1252 12-Inch Dual 4 Ohm Voice Coil Subwoofer Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a sub not for people that don"t want a true high quailty sub that produces perfect tone and super spl,iam a musician and have done live sound for over 27 year at 43 years old i have a good ear.for what true bass sounds like and a hard person to please with sound quailty because after years of being in the stage with guitiars and keyboards and bass ,witch is what i play ,so when go for what sounds real to me in low end reperduction i think i this sub kills!!
it has all the tone and punch. and kick this sub is being powered by a elcipse xa 1000 running this sub at a 2 ohm load the amp pushes 480 rms true watts ,. it is in a 1cubic ft sealed box made of 3/4 high densty mfd
.the quailty off this subb is aaaa+as you would expect from Clarion it shows why they are a leader in high end car audio
so if you like true bass and spl and over the top sq buy this sub it is a no brainer it truely kills and leaves other subs behind!! its in a class of its own...
SMALL SPACE KILLER BASS!!!!!!

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Alpine IVA D310 - DVD player with LCD monitor and AM/FM tuner Review

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(More customer reviews)Good unit with great sound. Great with radio and CDs. But the main reason I got it was to use it with my iPod. This is where this item falls flat. First off, you have to buy an adapter (KCA-420i) just to get the iPod controls to the head unit.
Once you've done that, you'll find out (I did the hard way) that the data transfer b/w the iPod and deck is ungodly slow. Not music wise, but music info wise. It's extremely sluggish scrolling through songs/artists/albums. So I've basically been playing it on shuffle.
But now and then, you feel like listening to a specific song/album. You can do that with this deck, but be prepared to take time to scroll to the item.
I will be switching this deck for the IVA-D106 which is much faster.
Cheers.

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Alpine eX-10 - Bluetooth hands-free car kit / iPod interface adapter w/built-in FM modulator Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this unit a few months ago and just found the time to install it in my truck. I had it up and running my iPhone in no time at all. It was real plug and play. As far as the one reviewer using the FM modulator feature, if you have an AUX in jack on your stereo, you can connect directly. That is what I did, and like I said, it sounds great!
I placed mine right on the dash, just a little off center. The wires and control box are buried in my dash. There is a supplied remote control wire with a sensor on it for use with the remote. I spliced into my cigarette lighter and put a 12 volt outlet on it that I picked up at a truck stop, it too is buried in the dash. Very clean looking install.
As far as the bluetooth? I don't use it on the Alpine. I have a Jawbone bluetooth ear piece that works much better than an external mike. Need that noise cancellation feature in my cab.
And the navigation seems to work fine. I just pick an artist and go from there. And it is nice not having to screw around with the iPhone while driving. The little Alpine monitor looks small, but is very readable and easy to navigate.

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Alpine TUA-T550HD - HD radio tuner Review

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(More customer reviews)Got one of these and it didn't pick up many stations but sounded great. Thought the reception was normal from the HD reviews I've read. But then it would not turn on when I started the car -- just dead. The regular tuner came on but had no antenna so it didn't work. Turning off the car and turning it back on "fixed" it for a couple of days but then it started getting worse. Got the unit replaced.
The new unit picks up MANY more stations than the first and worked good for a couple of weeks. Now its starting to have dead audio occasionally when I turn on the car. The difference with this one is that the radio comes on -- says 'digital' on the faceplate -- but there is no audio until you turn off the car. That's right, turn off the car, not the radio. Then it usually works when the car is turned back on.
This is very annoying. Alpine makes an amazing amplifier in the 9885 and it is awesome with my iPod connected directly to the radio. But the radio in the 9885 sucks, which is why I bought the HD radio, but the HD radio has its own kinds of problems.
Unless you really like putting up with problems, don't get this tuner until the bugs are worked out.

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Alpine PKG-RSE2 - DVD player with LCD monitor Review

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(More customer reviews)We bought the Alpine PKG-RSE2 DVD player for our 1997 Chevy Astro AWD, specifically for a family road trip from Wisconsin to Florida in February 2009.
Before buying the player we did a lot of research online and in stores. At one point we actually purchased a different model (not from Alpine) at a local store. I'd commented to the salesperson while we were purchasing it that I was concerned the screen was too small and the picture wasn't incredibly good (but the price was about $100 less than the Alpine). His actual response: "Well, what do you expect? It's not an Alpine." Ugh.
That night, after purchasing the lesser model I kept thinking over what the salesguy said. In the morning I decided it was ridiculous to get such a low-end model just to save a relatively small amount of money. We returned the DVD player that day, and bought a new Alpine online from one of the sellers through Amazon. The seller we bought it from was selling it new for $499 (January 09). I see the price from current sellers has shot up again (June 09) but I suspect if you shop around/wait a bit you can find a similar price.INSTALLATION
The instructions that come with the player aren't very clear which made installation fairly frustrating. My husband is extremely handy with cars and electronics, and it still took him about 6 hours to install the player, so keep that in mind if you're installing it yourself. It's likely you can find a local electronic store or car shop to install it for you if you don't want to tackle it on your own.PICTURE & SOUND
Once my husband installed it he and I hopped in the back seats and put in a movie. The picture is excellent and the screen is huge. The sound - through the car speakers and/or through the wireless headphones is terrific.
It came with one set of wireless headphones. We purchased 3 extra sets of headphones, so all 4 of our kids had a set. They range in age from 6-11, and none had problems handling the headphones, keeping them on their heads or manipulating the volume control. The only time the headphones didn't work well was when I tried one from the front seat. Apparently you need to be facing the front of the player (meaning, sitting in any of the back seats) for them to work well. I bought the 3 extra sets of headphones on another website as I couldn't find them currently for sale on Amazon. If you buy headphones make sure they work with the player. As far as I can tell, the only ones that work with the PKG-RSE2 are the headphones called Alpine SHS-N103.
You can easily view the picture from the middle bucket seats and the back bench seat. We were concerned the kids wouldn't be able to see the picture from the far back because well, they're kids and kind of short, but it turned out they could view movies with no problems.
We set up the DVD player so the sound comes through on FM station 88.1, and set that station as one of the defaults in the van. We've heard no static at all when using the radio as speakers for a movie. You can have sound coming through the speakers or through the headphones, or through both the speakers and headphones at the same time. You can also have the headphones on and have the radio playing other stations.SCREEN
A button on the player pop-unlocks the screen. Once it's unlocked you can pull it down for viewing. I'd advise anyone with this player to make sure the screen is closed before anyone in the back gets out...we've had a couple kids conk their heads on the screen when exiting the van. The screen appears to be well-made and strong, and the few head-conks it's gotten haven't affected it. (Sorry about your heads, kids!)
The screen can be pulled down to about a 95- or 100-degree angle for viewing. It can't be pivoted to the left or right, but this has caused no issues. We've had no complaints of kids not being able to see the screen, even in bright sunlight.CONTROLS
DVDs load in a slot that faces the back of the van. There is a fairly large On/Off button and Eject button on either side of the slot, a dome light switch, and an Open button that when pressed, unlocks the screen so you can pull it down. Once you figure out where each of these buttons is you can press them from the front with little problem, so you can handle most of the major controls without needing the kids' help. There's also a Menu/Select button underneath the DVD slot. This one works fine but you can really only use it if you're sitting in a seat facing the player.
There are dome lights on either side of the player. They are fairly bright. We don't use them, however, as the van has a lot of other overhead lights. If you 'lose' some lights when installing the player the ones on the player should suit you well.
The DVD player also comes with a remote which works pretty well from the front seats -- you just have to point it towards the player. We rarely use this but when we have it works fine.
The awesome button is the 'Mommy Button' (I've also read this called the 'Mum Button') on the other side of the DVD player -- the side facing the front of the vehicle. The Mommy Button is a Play/Pause button there which is great when you want to stop the movie and get the kids' attention. There's also an FM button facing the front seats that allows you to toggle whether the movie sound comes through the speakers or not. If you're ever driving and FM radio stations are suddenly coming through staticky, chances are you need to press the FM button. If you're trying to hear a movie through your speakers, you're sure you have the right radio station on (and you're sure the player is hooked up correctly) chances are you need to press the FM button.
When we turn off the van, whatever video is playing stops. As soon as the ignition is turned back on the movie starts up again exactly where it left off. My husband said there is way to wire the DVD player so movies can keep playing off the car battery when the car isn't on, but he didn't hook it up that way -- personally I'm glad about that because I could see us accidentally draining the battery if we were able to watch movies when the van wasn't running.OBSTRUCTION IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR
The screen is 10.2"...amazingly big for a vehicle. Because of this we were expecting to be mostly using our side mirrors when DVDs were playing. The DVD player is mounted high, and it turned out that the driver can easily see out of the rear view mirror with little problem. There is some obstruction -- when the screen is down it blocks 1/3-1/2 of the center of the rear view mirror, but it hasn't caused any real difficulties seeing.
One of the pieces of mounting hardware -- the only piece we didn't use -- would have made the DVD player sit lower. Not using this extra piece may not be optional when you install the DVD player, so more of your rear view may be blocked. If you're not already, become friends with your side mirrors.SKIPPING
The kids watched numerous videos down and back from Florida, and have watched many since. Of all the movies, of all the literal bumps in the roads we've driven on, we've had maybe 4 or 5 times where a movie has 'skipped' for a second. I say 'skip', although the movie doesn't actually skip. What happens is the screen goes blue for a moment, then the picture and sound come back on in the same spot it left off. I don't think one 'skip' has occurred from driving conditions...I'm not sure if it's because there was a scratch on the DVD, if the player loses the signal for a second occasionally or what. Frankly, we're not worried about it. Occurrences haven't increased over time, and it probably happens once out of every 6 or so hours of viewing. It hasn't bothered the kids because they know the show will be back on in a few seconds.WORTH THE MONEY?
The DVD player was an absolute godsend for our road trip, which included at least 50 hours of driving in an one-and-a-half week time frame. I don't think we heard one "Are we there yet?" during the trip. The great kid movies kept the kids in really good moods, and also helped by giving them 'breaks' from one another during the drive. Sometimes we'd tell them all to use the headphones so we could listen to the radio, and all we'd hear out of them for an hour and a half is occasional laughs during a movie. Amazing! The kids remarked at 'how fast' we got down to (and back from) Florida.
If you're going to go through the expense and trouble of having a third-party DVD player installed, it seems to make sense to get one that's going to work well and make everyone happy. If it's in your budget, the Alpine PKG-RSE2 is a great player to get.

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Alpine iDA-X305 - Radio / digital player - Full-DIN - in-dash - 50 Watts x 4 Review

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(More customer reviews)This review will be pretty in depth, but will focus primarily on the important things. I'm going to start with the iPod/iPhone stuff first, since I would imagine this is a big reason why many people are looking into this deck.
I will preface this by saying I bought this because I needed a deck that could play music from my iPhone 3G.
*****
UPDATE: I can confirm that the iPhone/iPod 3.0 OS Software is compatible with this deck. In fact, it makes the experience a TINY bit easier because the iPod app no longer launches when you plug in your iPhone/iPod, which means you can be doing something on your phone and not worry about it getting exited when you plug the phone in. It still switches the source to iPod/iPhone, but at least the iPod application on the phone doesn't launch.
*****[iPod/iPhone/USB Stuff]
*******************
This deck supports an impressive amount iPods, iPhone 2G and iPhone 3G, Flash Drives, and most likely many other USB based players. It has a USB port in the back of the unit that screws in to avoid it coming unplugged during normal road bumps, etc. The USB cable they provide you with is nice and long. In my case, it would run almost all the way to the back of my SUV (Buick Rendezvous). It comes with a special iPod/iPhone connector that will charge the iPhone while you play music. Using a normal iPhone cable does not work, the deck gives you an error and throws a fit.
The iPod/iPhone functionality is very solid. It offers most all the sorting types of the iPod (Album, Artist, Song, Playlist) and even will show album art. Though the album art shows up fine when it is smaller, changing the view type to the album art only screen results in blurry/pixelated art work. I was slightly disappointed that there is no "Genius" functionality here, but that feature is pretty new, even to the iPod.
You can advance songs, go back a song, pause, and turn on song or album shuffle on the deck itself.
I personally find it difficult to use the deck to scroll through music, because of how unresponsive the knob is. Turning the knob is very similiar to setting your 10 speed bike to the highest speed. Even though you are pedaling REALLY fast, the tires are moving at a slower pace than if it were at a low speed. If you turn the dial really fast, it only advances 2, 3, maybe 4 spaces on the screen. This makes it hard to scroll through lots of artists, albums, or songs.
Additionally, plugging the iPhone or iPod touch into the stereo cuts off your use of the iPod application, so controlling the song play through your iPod (which I would prefer) is not possible.
Here is the bad part: it is very inconsistent and stubborn when it comes to recognizing my iPhone. If I have the iPod application up and running, then I plug it into the stereo, it will either give me an error on the deck, or tell me the device was not made for the iPhone. This means I have to close the iPod application, then plug it in to the stereo. This wouldn't be so bad, but it also seems to react differently based on whether or not a song is playing, paused, or no activity whatsoever. If I am playing a song when I plug it in, all sorts of crazy stuff happens and I end up having to unplug and replug and then pause and then quit out of the iPod app, and unplug again, then replug before it will work.
Again, wouldn't be so bad, but I find myself spending alot of time just trying to get a song playing instead of just plugging it in and driving.
Also, there is no option to not automatically switch to the iPod source when I plug in the phone. This sucks because if I just want to charge my phone, it will automatically switch the radio to the iPod source, forcing me to push source again to get back. This wouldn't be so bad, but I sometimes listen to Pandora Radio Application through my stereo, and if I am listening to it on my headphones while walking to my vehicle, plugging it into the stereo causes the application to quit, effectively cutting off my music, forcing me to relaunch Pandora and wait for it to buffer my song again. (This may be a personal problem, but it is relevant). It would be nice to turn off Auto Switch as far as the source goes.
Other than no Genius support, not being able to control from the iPhone/iPod itself, and the auto source switch, the iPhone/iPod functionality works well. I just wish I could get in my truck, turn it on, plug in my phone and leave. Instead, getting a song going is a chore. I end up sitting in my truck fidgeting with the deck instead of getting on the road.
[General Use]
***********
You WILL need to read the manual (comes on a CD in the box) in order to figure out some of the functions of this stereo. Though some of it is pretty straight forward, other functions are hidden, or are a string of button presses and knob turns to get to. They managed to make even simple tasks like setting a station preset slightly difficult.
I found it strange this unit does not support RDS, so you will miss out on the useful information that radio stations have to offer in the way of song artist and title, etc..
The clean face plate comes at the price of having to use menus to get to everything, but I expected as much, and boy are there alot of menus.
Two of the front buttons are dedicated to functions that are not even built into the deck itself, so this is kind of frustrating, especially since these addons will cost you upwards of $150 each. It seems like something better could have been put in those 2 slots (but maybe it's just me who may not be buying both addons).
All the buttons and knobs are easy to use and control, though I wish the knob itself was a little bit "stiffer." Turning the knob has inconsistent functionality. Turning it very slowly ensures you advanced to the next item in a list with every tick (clicks are very close to each other), and turning it very quickly has mixed results (sometimes it will advance you only 1 list item, sometimes a few more). Whatever the case, it is cumbersome to scroll through long lists, even with the inclusion of the "percentage" scrolling type set on, which lets you advance to a specific percentage in your music list, etc. This is kind of useless, since I don't memorize, or care to memorize what percent Metallica or any other artist is at...
Additionally, the ring of the knob can be pressed in and turned a quarter of the way to the right or left. This functionality has different uses depending on what menu, feature, or functionality you are using from the stereo.
All buttons are easy to press and sturdy. The face plate itself is very light (a good thing in my opinion) and only the button portion comes off, the LCD stays attached to the unit, making it easier to carry, but the screen itself may still be enough to tempt somebody. The back button is pretty useful and works well, especially when you are new to this unit, because you WILL venture into the wrong menu several times.
You can change the color of the interface from Blue to Red, as well as change the background using the ones built into the unit, or via a flash drive by downloading wallpapers from Alpine's media website.
[Sound]
*******
The deck sounds great. I can crank it up pretty loud (with lotsa room to go higher) and everything still sounds crisp and clear. There is a ton of room for turning volume up and down on this unit, so you will be able to find the volume level that is JUST right all the time. Has separate controls for subwoofer volume and all the fun equalizer stuff you could want (gotta look in the manual for how to do it).
[Expandability]
************
This thing can do pretty much anything you need, but it will cost you big money. It is ready to accept HD Radio, Sirius Satellite, Bluetooth Connectivity, and even an Imprint Sound Processor... but each accessory will cost you $150 plus. It is great they have support for these things, but they are expensive and probably could have been included in the stereo itself, especially when you consider the price tag this baby has. I knew it didn't come with these things when I bought it, but still, when they dedicated 2 of the very few buttons on the face plate to items that are not available in the unit by default, it is kind of frustrating.
There is no CD player built into this unit.
[Final Word]
**********
This is a great unit and has much to offer in the end of owning something fresh and great looking. It definitely stands out and has a nice LCD screen that is put to pretty good use. I wish you could adjust the size of the text on screen, as I like to have more words on screen over having it be more readable.
I hope there is a firmware update to add in genius functionality for the iPod/iPhone and fix the difficulties that can occur with plugging the phone in and getting it to be recognized.
I would definitely suggest this unit to anybody looking for a good deck that supports iPhone/iPod and is looking for ease of use and nice LCD screen space and use. Although it can be a difficult adjustment changing songs with the deck itself, it is stille very likely the best implementation of iPod/iPhone use in a deck to date. Hopefully we will see a firmware update that lets you control the unit from the phone.
If you are looking for expandability, then this is also your unit. You can do pretty much anything you feel if you are willing to pay the price for the addons. It has a nice lengthy USB and all the connections you need for your iPhone or iPod.
*************
* 4/5 Stars
*************

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