I have decided to upgrade my headunit to an aftermarket. I am extemely torn on this one guys. I have been trying to figure out which one to go with. The Alpine CDA 9885 or the Eclipse CD 3100. They both seem pretty comperable in specs and features. The only difference is that the Alpine has "time alignment" . That and also, if I trade in my LC6, I can get the eclipse+plus the exspensive wiring harness+ trim kit+installation all for $320.00 out the door. The radio alone retails for $299.00. If I get the Alpine, it will be cheaper with my trade in but it will still cost more and I am rapidly running out of money. I have never had a radio with this feature before so I don't know which one I should go with or if I will even be missing out by not having it. Everyone that I have spoken to has pretty much chosen their sides and left me with a 50/50 answer, so now I turn to you guys. Please give me all the opinions possible and some thoughts to consider. I want to buy something by monday morning. Thanks guys. Oh and here is the link to compare the two side by side.
http://www.crutchfield.com/*-BZpVvIb...D3100&x=18&y=2

alpine looks better, and appears to perform better (higher RMS watts)

Alpine. Period.

do you think its worth possibly spending more money in my situation. I have amplifiers so it doesn't matter how much power it puts out.

ok I personally like both, but with that said it boils down to if you want to go for looks or performance. They both are very good but if you are really into audio and you are going to amp a sub and amp other speakers in the car, I would go with eclipse because it has the 5 volt preamp outputs, which are amazing when using external amps. Alpine make very nice headunits too, it is hard to say with the rms ratings on different products from different companies, some judge a little high, others are lower. I guess it boils down to what you are wanting to do, if you want the fancy screen go with alpine and if you are planning on being an audio junkie and add more stuff to your car go with the eclipse. I'm sure with either one you will not be disappointed.

you are paying for the name with Alpine

Eclipse has better features for less of a price

and you can get te Eclipse in Red lighting also

whats the deal with this time alignment feature? does it make that big of a difference?

time alignment in a car stereo application is completely useless.. i did the math one night and there is something like a 1/200th of a second delay from front and rear speakers.. something that you would NEVER EVER notice. its a gimick


Eclipse is by far a better headunit than Alpine, but for some reason the majority of teh world is in love with Alpine... i havent figured out why yet....

Time alignment is kind of a cool feature to have. It changes the timing of speakers according to if you have a hatchback, van, car, or whatever else, and also has adjustments for if you have tweeters and things like that. It can give you different effects and give you slightly different fill sound. It is nice since adjusted to your taste. It is hard to tell the difference in some applications.

Time Alignment is actually a very crucial aspect of any stereo audio system. It applies mostly to the front speakers as true SQ vehicles don’t have much for rear fill. One of the biggest problems of having door mounted speakers is that the path length of the right speaker is between 2 and 3 times the distance from the driver as the left. Building custom kick panels under the dash helps this issue by attempting to keep the speakers within 1.5x the path length of each other. Time alignment is very important, but as to how well this feature works on this head unit is another issue. It may be just a gimmick, but there IS some truth to it. As far as which head unit to go with, you’ll be happy with either, but definitely check how the menus work on it, some head units are easier to use than others. I think the alpine looks better personally.