All-About-My-Truck Week: Alpine iDA-X001 Review
By Kevin Whipps
Although my ‘95 Silverado came with a CD player, it was pretty trashed and it needed some work. I decided to push my investment along by purchasing a new deck with Sirius satellite radio, so I could be happy cruising around town. After some research, I settled on the Alpine iDA-X001, which is pretty revolutionary — it’s not a CD player, but rather a radio/iPod player, and you can upgrade it with a CD changer or other components. This makes the deck fairly shallow in mounting depth, as well as super-functional for a guy like me who hasn’t listened to a CD for three years.
At my local Ultimate Electronics I purchased the deck, an Alpine Sirius adaptor, Sirius tuner, and full-speed iPod cable, all of which set me back about $530. It took a little while to get the install done, but once it was complete the deck looked awesome in the dash and sounded great. I can hook other MP3 players up to the deck, too, through a USB connector in the back. In fact you can plug a USB key into the deck and upload new wallpapers for the screen — it’s a neat feature.
The deck isn’t perfect, though — to access a preset radio station, you have to click the “Preset” button, then scroll through the selections with the wheel, then hit enter when you pick your option. I’d rather just push one button. The other irritating thing I blame more on Ultimate than on Alpine. Ultimate’s display featured “Bluetooth” prominently, promising that you could wirelessly connect to the deck with your phone. But you need an additional accessory to get that “Bluetooth” — it’s not included with the kit.
Otherwise, I’m loving the deck and the Sirius receiver — the controls are pretty intuitive, and the display is amazing. I can’t get over how good the images look. I recommend it.
iDA-X001 [Alpine]
May 21st, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Do you use the controls on the deck to navigate the iPod’s structure or is it just aux in? How well does it work with playlists?