you have lots of options as far as speakers go. it depends on budget and room. I dont think the integra has room for tweeters stock so you may not have the option of componants without some custom fab work. 3 way speakers may be the easy option for you. think about placement of amps also if your going to run an amp for the speakers or you plan on running them off the head unit. :irock:

 

The interface is very cryptic. I have a hard time navigating through the artists and albums. When you first plug it in, it goes directly to song-by-song which the Alpine does as well. From there, It takes forever to get to the main menu to select from artist, playlist, genre etc.

Which Infinity comp. set do you have?? I've been looking into the Kappa Perfects. Hell, even the reference don't sound bad at all so I can see where your coming from. Alpine just has always sounded soo much more detailed to me. I guess I'm used to hearing them on some beat up old 6X9's we have in the department.

 

alpine cda 9835

/thread

 

I'm not a fan of any built-in headunit ipod UI's. Pioneer's is completely horrible. It's a bitch to scroll through the albums and artists. I'm a big fan of Pioneer as well, and I currently have the P80MP and I absolutely love it. The setup I did, and love to pieces is usin' the IPBUS RCA inputs.

You need
Pioneer Unit
Pioneer IPBUS RCA Input
Belkin Charger adapter w/ headphone jack
Headphone to RCA.

Set it up that way, use the ipod it self for the songs. I'm completely used to it and wouldn't have it any other way. Unless I could control it with my mind. I'm slowly working on that.

 

Please do tell us when you get that figured out, that'd be awesome.

 

I know that pioneers like the premier 860mp are perfectly capable in the sound area. It gives good sound as well as a ton of adjustments. Id also look into clarion. I dont know how good the ipod navigation but ive had good luck with their deck in the past. I think they are one of the most overlooked brands.

Speakers it depends how much do youwant to spend?

 

I, too, am a religious Pioneer fan. That's all I've ever had, and all I ever will. The internal tuning capabilities are outstanding... and the user interface is great. The Alpine, however, is still a great unit IF you're planning on external amplification and equalization. (IMO)

Enough ranting. If it were me, I'd go with November's ideas. Actually, many Pioneer units already have auxilary input, deleting the need for the bus unit. Controlling the sound of the music is far more important to me than being able to control the IPOD.

 

Doesn't it also depend on what you listen to? I've heared BS called so many times on both sides of that arguement, and for the most part it seems people say no, but I've got to say that when I used all Rockford components, it seemed to prefer to play music with a lot of mid, and didn't seem to perform too well on the higher highs, but it made rock sound pretty damn good. My Inifinitys... I have to spend the day with them tuning the sound to make them play certain rock right. They'll do it, but it's a pain in the ass to get them to. Pioneers seem to love anything acoustic, and blah blah, blah, it seems like companies sort of bias themselves more toward one side of the musical spectrum, like only however many would be capable of playing the full spectrum as intended...

 

i have the pioneer interface on a deh5800mp and it works but you can't really look through you ipod quickly it works with play lists. but it would take about 15mins to go through a list of 1000 songs

 

Humm yeah that can be a tough one. Heres another thought. Most of the time systems that play perfectly flat for an rta (measurement device) sound like crap with real music. So should be music be reproduced exactly, even though you dont like the way it sounds? Of course hearing isn't linear either but if the sound is reproduced exactly how it was recorded then you ears should apply the same curve as if you heard the music live (assuming no change in the mixing) or am I mistaken? Just a thought.

I guess different kinds of music will emphasize different parts of the specturm and because different speakers will also emphasize different parts it stands to reason that when you put the two together some will sound better with certain types of music. It takes a lot of time and effort to get a system that sounds good on a variety of music.

You also have to take into account the install is a huge factor in how the speakers sound. Some may be designed to work one way and another manufacturer may design to work in a different environment/placement. The two different speakers may need different placements to get the most out of them. I apologize if this has gotten a bit off topic. Again these are just my thoughts.