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-   -   advice on upgrading my sony system for my zen?? (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/car-entertainment/7332-advice-upgrading-my-sony-system-my-zen-10.html)

Sony 7710 has 3 pre outs of 4v each, as opposed to Pioneer 7750 which has 3 pre outs of 2.2v each!

thanks for that info aseem..so gunbir whats ur take on this one now..

Gunbir, I will be meeting you on the weekend as we had discussed. You can check out the sound of Sony 8800 than that I have in my car and also be able to check out Alpine 9833 that Preet has. However I listened to Pioneer 7750 today, I was disappointed. I find my sony much easier to use, better sounding, and much much better display! But thats just my take on this...

My friend has an all sony setup (7710+504amp+12insub+bostonfront +sony tweeters+6*9 5 way explodes in rear).
He tells me that my system sounds much better compared to him...guess part of the difference is explained by the 2amp versus 1 amp setup....but there is considerable amount of distortion in his system compared to mine...
btw...the 7750 is very good in reading CDs...very quick and efficient...and plays mp3s of almost all sampling rates.
Lot of persons (on this board plus the person who installed my amp) are complaining about the unreliability of Sony lenses...the seem to fall down / stop working quickly...since heard from two different sources..inclined to believe this...anything that you heard on this...
dont like sony anymore...my digital camcorder failed after just 15 hrs or so of recording and very high amount of TLC.guess sony is not the same anymore after Akio Morita...
my 5.5 year old Pio cassette player in my uno (done 70k+ on not so good roads) still works like it was new......only had to go in for one service till now to clean up the drive belt..

Well I guess we have no way of judging which is better unless we compare different HU in the same vehicle and speaker setup. Untill we do that we can just guess on which one is truly better. Below are some pros and cons of the sytems:

Sony 8800/7700
Pros:
Much better display compared to the rest of them
Much easier to navigate tham the competition
Three 4v pre outs as opposed to Pioneers 2.2 V pre outs
Least noise compared to the other HU's
Excellent radio reception

Cons:
Sony isnt a big name in car audio
Lens problems that we all have heard about. Dont know if 8800 and 7700 are guilty of the same

Pioneer 7750
Pros:
VFM coming at 10k
Good display compared to the Alpine
Easy to navigate menu
Great sound (from your experiences)

Cons:
Conflicting news whether we can buy them with B&W or not
2.2 V pre outs as opposed to 4 V.

Alpine 9833
Pros:
Brand name carries vintage value
4 V pre outs
System smart and loaded with tons of information
The system tells you the rate at which the cd is burnt
Internal amp

Cons:
CD eject problems in Alpines
System/Model discontinued
Information/settings to hard to set
Menu to hard to navigate while driving
Radio reception poor
No easy settings to increase treble and bass

In the end... final decision is that Sony 8800 is the best HU available out there, caz I own it! lol:

The CD burn Rate (if you mean bit rate of MP3s) is also displayed in the 7750 along with a 64 bit scrollable title / artist / album info. It also gives an easily scrollable mp3 list. In addition it also plays .wav, .wma (windows media audio) and .aac (apple itunes /ipod). dont know if 7710 plays all these or not...but the cool part here is that you can just copy all your ipod on a CD and play it DIRECTLY without any format conversion///

Can you search your MP3 disc for songs with 7750? you can do this on the Alpine.
Regarding playing additional formats... I know Sony can play the ATRAC and the ATRACplus format. I have never tried though, MP3s are fine with me.

Yes

U can have folder list song lsit etc.

The bthe reason I got it was it has a specail algorithm to read them fast ( less than 1 sec) It is signifivantly faster not only to the competetion but to comparable pioneer models.

U see It is made for people who have all three types of songs Mp3 /WMA(windoes /MS supported) and Itunes(apple/Ipod supported) in their collection

U can even have mixed mode CD"S- All three types on ONe CD- and change between formats. Advantage- Playlists. clap:

I can have my bryan adams in WMA, Wifes Lata in Itunes and daughters nursery rhymes in MP3. on the same CD and the same folder . By simple click of button in changes from Rock/Lata/nursery rhymes.


I feel Sonly /Alpine may sound better but as Overall pacakge Pioneer plays better. At the end of the day That is wat everyday user like me likes. Hassel free experience. and simple pleasures of life.

what do you mean by search...it sorts the list in alphabetical order and given it to you...then on it is easy to scroll DIRECTLY to the title you want..there is a search mode too where it plays first 10 sec of every song in case titles dont make sense to you.in any case 7750 is more like a middle of the road model in pioneer....maybe models like 8650 are a better comparison with more expensive models

Buffet, Aseem, Pranil,

1stly you must evaluate a systme not a HU. A good Hu with bad speaker wont sound good.
2ndly. Buffet. the Sony tweeters in your friends system are not highly rated and those 6x9 explods could also be upgraded.
3rdly. Aseem the CD eject problem seems to happen with teh new generation 9853 and 9855 not the 9833 and this i guess might be due to glidetouch messing with the logic. There will be no easy fis to this but there are 2 workarounds i know off (a) use external amps and switch of the internal amp and (b) connect both wires to battery and while this might allow your deck to come on with teh car off your CD will eject. Me thinks it has to do with the new Power control IC they have used in the 9853 and 9855. If so it would be a very expensive proposition for Alpine to fix these HUs but my guess is they way Alpine presently functions they will probably fix this in the next generation HU.

True... You can truly compare 'sound' of these HUs if you have used them in the exact same system in the very same car. We have done that with the Pioneer 8650 and the Alpine 9833. Separately, we have also dome similar comparisons of Sony with Pioneer.

In my opinion, the Pioneer and Alpine HUs are way ahead of the Sony HUs...

actually what i was trying to say is that even in an enviroment where the amps and the speakers are the same 2 Hus cannot be compared.

for example HU1 might sound better than HU2 with ABC amp and XYZ speaker while HU2 might sound better than HU1 with XYZ speaker and ABC amp. Audio is a funny thing. 1 part science, 1 part art, 2 parts voo doo. shaken AND stirred. :-)

You can only compare systems. To keep atleast one constant I look at comapring 2 systems with a particular budget/cost.

guys any idea if the pioneer GM-515 5-channel amp is available in india..atleast the shops tht i enquired didnt seem to have..and whats the gray market price should i be looking at if i can source one..

even if is it might be not be cheaper or nicer than a sony 504/502 combo.

I have used GM-D515 and i beats out any amplifier in that price range. Forget about the ones costing less.