Alpine CDA-9805 Car CD / MP3 Player

I bought his unit to replace a Toyota factory installed cassette deck. I wanted to get rid of cassettes, play Mini Discs and CDs. I also wanted more and cleaner power. The moment I turned the Alpine on I was blown away. Sound quality is as good as a decent home stereo. Everything is adjustable, so plan on spending some time with the instruction manual. Operations are not always intuitive, but knowing how to work this thing pays off. The FM radio picks up all the weak public radio stations clearly and at as far a distance as any I've seen. It is able to keep a clean lock even when other stations try and step on them (it is clearly better than the factory unit). The CD player remembers where you stopped listening for days no matter what else you do. The AUX function is activated through some fancy menu manipulation and requires a $15-$20 cord. I dangled it through the plastic case below the unit and it makes a nice Mini Disc input. Once set up it stays that way. If you have an electric antenna you will be pleased to know that this unit operates it properly. It goes up when the radio goes on, down when the CD goes on. The unit stays on whatever input you selected. No loud nasty commercials out of the radio when your CD is over. Since speakers are what you listen to, get them before or at the same time as you get this unit. There are cheaper units if you just want to get rid of your cassette and more expensive units if you want fancy frills like CD text, MP3 playback or other compressed audio encoding. I advise against compressing music signals because the sound quality suffers and at this level of player you will notice the difference.