Got the Alpine 7998 in!

[Hit Man X]

I ordered it from this mail order place in Florida for around $550, which is a decent price. They are called Hookedontronics. I ordered it Monday and received it Thursday after chasing down the UPS guy (long funny story).

I was very impressed with this deck upon first pulling it out of the box. Heavy deck, very think preouts, just slick. I really like that biolight display and it doesn't dim when headlights go on either. Very visible in sun or night.

Lemme tell you this deck is a trip. It does soooo much more than the internet/store descriptions. It can control XM, DVD, changers, plays MP3s, reads CD-RW and CD-R, etc. Has a 5 band parametric EQ, tunable graphic EQ, and tons more.

Crossovers can go from 6-12-18-24 db/oct! This will allow me to bi-amp my 3 ways up front buy bandpassing my midbass with the highpass on the deck and low pass on the amp. My midrange is already bandpassed from the crossover and tweeters are already high passed.

I have a few things setup so far and the sound difference is pretty apparent from a 5 year old headunit to this one.

If anyone was in question about this deck like I was, it was well worth the plunge!

[00Silverado]

Originally posted by Hit Man X
I was very impressed with this deck upon first pulling it out of the box. Heavy deck, very think preouts, just slick. I really like that biolight display and it doesn't dim when headlights go on either. Very visible in sun or night.


I put a Alpine 9805 in my dads car. Its a really nice hu and has all the features he needed. The 7998 looks sweet. Congrats:D

[RedZ71]

ill give a second good opinion on the prices and service from hookedontronics.com. my alpine 7897, kenwood KAC-X810D amp, and L7 solobaric all came from there. an idea of the retail prices vs theirs...

headunit: $650 retail, got it for $427
amp: retail $750, paif $388
10" L7: retail $350, paid $178

i saved over $750 by purchasing thru them. ask for a guy named avi, he was polite, and definatly willing to help.

hit man x... get some pics up of your system so we can see how it looks in your dash! the one i have, the chassy looks almost exactly like yours, but my colors are slightly different, and i think your LCD is much more advanced than mine. here is a terrible pic of mine (almost totally blocked by the wheel, but you can see an example of my LCD colors). id like to see a pic of what your ID3 tags looks like when your playing MP3s.

http://www.dfwlp.com/~redz71/truck/interior-dash/DSC02134.JPG

and these alpines DEFINATELY light up good at night :)

[RedZ71]

oh, and here is another very important hint for making your MP3 cds for your headunit.

1) make sure all your MP3s have ID3 v1 tags. so far i dont think the alpine headunits supprt ID3 v2. nearly ALL of my 7500+ mp3s have ID3 v2, and every time i make a new cd for the truck, i have to go thru with winamp and make sure the v1 tag is there, otherwise the headunit displays "NO TAG" while the song is on.

2) at first i had a tremendous amount of headache making most every album play in proper order. they dont seem to recognize filenames outside the 8.3 standard. when i make a cd i phsyically rename all the files with short names so they will play in order.

01.mp3
02.mp3
03.mp3

..and so on.

3) the last confusing thing, is the folder layouts. folder 1 is the cd. folder 2 is the first folder on the cd. folder 3 is the first folder in the first folder on the cd, and so on, until the entire tree of the first folder on the cd is exhausted, then it moved on to the next tree of folders in the root dir of the cd.

[Hit Man X]

The price differences were tremendous. I was flabbergasted (sp?) by saving close to $250. I order pretty much every thing electronic I own via mail order. DVD players, home audio, computer parts, you name it I will find a far cheaper price than retail.

I haven't even begun to play with the MP3 function on there yet. I have over 200 CD's so I have been playing a ton since I have been digital-audio-less for like 3 months! I have somewhere around 600 MP3s on my computer.

I will have to take some pics with the old school camera, I just need to break down and buy a digital one sometime here. My interior is very plain and everything well hidden and installed by yours truely.

Yours has the colored display. I wish they made a colored biolight similar to the Organic EL on Pioneer Premier in my F-150...that would be very cool. Mine is in the dash pretty much like yours except my angle of view is flat. Once I figure out that MP3 ID tag thing I will get some pics up.

That's pretty much it for this stereo in this truck. I am pretty sure I am going to go with a 2500HD DMax/Allison/4x4 by October or so, hence I don't really feel like bi-amp the fronts.

I am also looking at a few small 6.5" monitors in the headrests in the back seats as my younger brothers are going to come live with me and need to stay occupied somehow. Use those with a DVD changer or player (can't decide what'd be better) and be set to do some clowning! :D But of course need a good Clifford Alarm before anything like this comes into play.

[942drYukon]

I love my 7897, it really made a huge difference on the overall sound quality. I picked mine up for around 360 off etronics a while back :)

[Hit Man X]

My sound quality is much improved as well. I really would like to hear this with some sound deadener to get the full effect.

Very different technology from years ago.