1. Can you put in a RED background for the screen (anyone have a pic?)

2. Does the sub out have a crossover setting, is it a fixed freq, or is it full range out?

3. What are the center freq for the bass & treble controls, and are they shelving, or peek/dip?

Thanks...

 

1) Check my recent thread for a pic with the red background (which is one of the default selections). You can also upload a custom background from a USB drive (I think, although I haven't bothered to try this yet).

2) I don't think there's a crossover setting in the head unit -- just a on/off setting. You're going to need an amp to power the sub anyway, so just use the one built into the amp (and I can't think of any sub amps that don't have a crossover setting...).

3) The X001 has very limited tuning capabilities. You can either a) have bass/treble controls (with no center freq or Q setting), or b) select from about 10 different EQ presets (which I'm guessing are just different bass/treble presets). For b), you lose the bass/treble controls on the unit (as the EQ setting "fixes" them). It still sounds pretty decent (compared to the CDA-9857 I had before), but if you're looking for more control, consider getting the Alpine H701/C701 processor setup (it isn't cheap, but gives either a 7-band PEQ or 31+10 sub GEQ, time correction, phase settings, active crossovers, etc. -- check out my link above).

Basically, if you're looking for a unit with excellent iPod control (i.e. very fast, ability to see several rows when scrolling, ability to display album art, etc.), there's nothing else to compare with. The CDA-9857 I had before was nice, and had the "percentage search" for iPod where you could use the preset buttons to go fixed percentages through your songs. But the X001 is soooo much faster, and you can also search by things like Genre (which the 9857 wouldn't let me do).

If you want more tuning capabilities and can give up some iPod functionality, the CDA-9887 is supposed to be very nice (time correction, pretty nice EQ, etc.). It also has a CD player if that's important. I had the option to get that instead, but went with the X001 for the iPod capabilities (and the 9887 is pretty similar in looks/function to my old 9857, which I wasn't too happy with). Finally, the X001 is the only head unit out there that transfers music digitally to the head unit (AFAIK, according to the caraudio.com forum), so you are really taking advantage of the 24-bit DACs when using the iPod...