Big display, ease of use.

Inadequate amp.

This is, or soon will be, considered a legendary head unit! I bought mine used and needing reoair. After a VERY QUICK trip to Long Beach, Alpine returned the head unit completely restored, tested, and warranteed ($95 flat fee).
Ease of use tops the long list of advantages on this unit. I am no techie, and I had little difficulty navigating through the features and settings.
Overall, if you have the time and a little patience, get one and have Alpine go over it. As long as the LCD is intact, and it has not suffered water damage, you're good to go.
Be sure to use an external amp with this unit, as the built-in one is weak.
I believe we have not seen the last of 'Fantom-face' technology! Too cool!

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Old school Cassette Alpines, Clarion (junk)

Time Correction, 5 Band Adjustable Eq, Crossover, Fantom Face, a lot of power, and an overall great layout and easy to use.

More with the company than with the cd player. If you skipped my above reserch paper description, I basically had a comparitivly long problem with quality controll and overall quality of the unit and service to repair it. Worth the money if you get a good one.

The CDA-7897, in theory, is a great CD player. There are a lot of very usefull features for the sq enthusiast. With time correction, 5 band adjustable, parametric eq, crossover, and overall great sound quality, it is hard to see why anyone in their right mind who has the money wouldn't by it. That is, untill the quality controll, or shall I say lack there of, sets in. This is a true story that happend to me. I bought the reciever from Etronics.com in December 2003. I was extremely satisfied. The reciever sounded great, I loved the time correction, it had a lot of power, and the 5 band eq, which by the way I was originaly skeptical about (aka-not very many bands), was incredibally adjustable. It was great and I my loyalty for Alpine was building. Then the lack to quality control set in. The first problem was one day when I fired up my car and the Fantom Face opened up, my cd was no longer being played. I thought maybe it being a burned CD had something to do with it, so I tried a boughten disk. That worked neither. There must have been a certain alignment of the planets at that very moment, because from then on, no CD's would play; I would only get an "Error" message. From there I contacted Alpine and they graciously repaired it and sent it back to me. This is where problem no. 2 comes into play. I dug into the CD player like a kid in a candy store upon recieving it. It was great; CD's ACTUALLY played! Who would have thought? So as I began to experiment with it to make sure everything was in working order, I turned off the ingnition so that the Fantom Face would fold up. I then turned on the ignition again. Nothing happened!! The deal was that everytime the ignition was turned off and the Fantom Face was allowed to fold in all the way (yes it did make a difference compared to turning it on partway closed)it would loose all the memory settings and I would have to start from scratch. Theoritcally, every time you turned on you car you would have to adjust your settings. For me it was the Time Correctin, EQ, balance, fade, and possibly time if I felt patient that day. Needless to say, this didn't go on for very long. Once again I contacted Alpine and the customer service rep. understood that I was send back a CD player that was STILL defective. He said that because of their obviouse fault, I would be send a BRAND NEW CD player 2nd Day Air. Well...Neither one happend. I recieved the same CD Player back, fixed, shipped via ground freight. This time it worker again and I tested it all the way through and everything worked great! I was starting to build a loyalty toward Alpine once again figuring that in all mass production and mass service repair there will inevidabally be improfections and problems. The thing worked great up untill 3 weeks ago. Imagine with me if you will, you are driving down the road listening to your favorite CD and one bad ass CD Player and you are jammin' full force when the unthinkable happens! There is a break in the music that you know isn't supposed to be there. And then again! What is happening? Again! and again! and again! Now my bad ass CD Player is skipping uncontrollably, reguarless of disk condition and road condition. At first you think maybe there was a large pothole or something you hit that you don't remember, because you can't forget, you were jammin' hardcore and were off in your musical "happy place," so you let it go and see if it happens again since it seems to have stopped. Sure enough! It still does it, and at the seemingly best parts of a song or album. Of couse it couldn't happend between songs in the silence! Oh no! That is not how this works. It waits until you are really into it then !POP! Once again I contacted Alpine; by this point I know the automated operator by name. The custome service manager, with whom I spoke, said that they will send out a factory refurb. unit as soon as mine was recieved. That is the long grusome story of the defective CDA-7897 and I have yet to build up the energy to tear apart my dash (2002 PT Cruiser) once again and temporarily wire up my old JVC which has proven to be a faithfull old friend through all of this. As a short recap, the reciever is theoretically a great unit if you get one that was assembled in the afternoon, when the assembly line workers were awake. If you decide to buy one, I wish you luck, just be warned.

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JVC (2)

Too many to lists, but I'll try! Phantom Face, Time correction, 2 way or 3 way built in cross over (your choice, switch on side), 6 position eq, sub controls, phone interface (nokia only)

Havent ran into any.

This is the best headunit I have owned. Before this, I owned a CDA-7894, but wasnt satisfied with it. So I sold it and bought this. My favorite option is the phantom face. Its HUGE, easy to see everything, takes a little bit to get used to, but once you learn it, its a breeze. The Internal amp is pretty good, just have to mess with the cross over settings to get it right. Also, the built in phone is too hot! My friends cant believe I can control my cell thru my radio face! The radio reads mp3 disks quickly, and skipping is not a problem. You can also save all your settings (time correction, eq settings, x-over) and they are easily recalled by using your remote control! No fumbling with buttons while driving. In my opinion, it was well worth the price I paid, I'm considering upgrading to the 7998 simply for the display. If you're considering this deck, by all means BUY IT!!!

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Kenwood, Alpine, Pioneer

phantom face,alpine sound quality, 5 band parametric eq, 3 4 volt rca outs,built in 2 or 3 way crossover, lots of bells and whistles !

internal amp not that strong. takes a while to learn how to work everything,you have to push and hold some buttons to access features which could be dangerous while driving

alpine makes the best head unit period. the phantom face is very large and easy to navigate and looks cool when opening and closing. looks like face plate is removed when closed, to many fetures to write down.

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alpine, alpine, pioneer. alpines the best hands down