I'll admit that I WAS an Eclipse fan not too long ago. Before I got the 4x4 bug I had a Honda and was on my way to building a 4000+ system in it and Eclipse had several products on the to buy list. But after listening to a few of their High Voltage decks, and a having a friend buy an Eclipse and having it skip all the time I decided against it. Numbers to me don't mean a whole hell of a lot. Numbers can be very misleading so saying that they have good specs isn't saying that its a great product. To me how the product ACTUALLY SOUNDS is alot better than how it should sound going by the numbers.
I like Alpine. Its a bit over priced in my opinion. The output voltage seems a bit low even on their higher end decks. I like the volume knob on some of the decks. I DON'T like that most of their decks only have 2 pairs of preamp outputs. If your running 3 amps it gets to be a pain in the butt having to use splitters/etc. I'd buy an alpine. Their low end decks are pretty impressive. And lately I've been finding I can get just as good of performance out of a less expensive less "feature packed" deck as I can get out of the 600+ decks.
The Sony C90 is very popular in IASCA. I haven't had the chance to hear one (bit too high priced to have one in any sound rooms around here) but I did own a CDX-m600 and was VERY dissatisfied with it. Skipped, introduced alot of noise into the system that wasn't their with my old pioneer. The ABP(active black pannel) was a good WOW factor but got annoying. The colors were ugly (red/blue/silver) and the remote was used maybe once a month. It did have 3 pre amp outs though and HP/LP filters. The sub volume sadly didn't do much though.
Greg72, if your serious about keeping your k5 looking original, find the most competent installer you can. Some good installers can install the CD case under the seat and mount the face plate up in the visor or an arm rest or something. It takes some work but it can be, and often is done. If I ever get the money to build a nice street rod I'll be learning how to move the face plate on the deck
As far as whats popular on IASCA right now. I see alot of Sony C90's. Eclipse does have some decks in there. Alpine does too. But another thing I've been seeing alot of is the factory CD player's with some modifications.
www.damnloud.com is a good example. The guy had an Integra with a factory CD player, changed it to a digital output and used an Orion 30+ band digital EQ. Factory appearance counts for points on the IASCA ciruit so I think thats a reason why so many people are leaving the decks alone now. Of course you get the guys with whole custom built PC's running their CD/DVD/MP3 systems, but those guys are weird
Dan, '86 K5, 5.0L v8, NP208, TH700R4, open 10bolts front and rear, 3.43gearing, K&N filter, 31x10.50R15 Trailhandlers
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