Oooooook so I think my alpine CDA-7894 took a massive crap and I'm looking for input.

Basically, it's a motorized face, it's an older alpine but I've had it since new and loved it. Anywho, haven't had any problems up until now and here's what happened.

So I'm driving home today, and my cd had an error, so i said weird, whatever, pressed eject, had it pop out, and popped it back in. About halfway through my ride home I decided to change cds, so I took this one out, and the faceplate went down fine and all that, and I grabbed another cd to put in. So I pop the cd in, it takes it, then 2 seconds later shoots it back out. I put it back in, again it comes out. So i figured weird, whatever, and press the eject button to close the faceplate again. It won't move, lol. So I drive the rest of the way home with no music.

Anyways, I get to my gfs house and start dicking around with it, including power cycling my car, pressing the reset button, turning it on and off, and detaching the faceplate and putting it back on etc etc etc, and the damn thing will not close no matter what I do. It's super annoying, and since I pressed the reset button the little red light beside the power button doesn't turn on anymore. Basically when I turn it on you can hear the motor going, but nothing happening.

Did it finally just crap? I mean I can't force the faceplate closed either, which I find odd because if the gears were stripped it should move no problem at all....

Thanks guys!

And if this thing did take a crap, whats a newer alpine similar to this I won't hate? I value my 3 pre outs since I'm using all of them :\


There will always be someone faster than you, but thousands slower and dumber than you.

i deal with kenwood. good stuff if you look into them.


03 cavalier
us amps 100hc running at .5 ohms
digital designs 3512
yellow top g34
kenwood ddx-8019

Pioneer isnt a bad choice. Im happy with mine. Id wait until JL posts up. I think he has some Alpine heads. Hed probably be the most help.

Alpine has been my head unit of choice for a while. I have run a 9830, 9831, some older non-motorized face unit, and now am running a 7949 circa 1998

Anyway, I personally wouldn't mess too much with it. Sounds like it is just getting old and tired and might just keep having issues, even if you fix those ones it has now. I would suggest researching hard into new head units and the features you really want to have. I think Pioneer and Alpine are still at the top of their game in their price ranges with Pioneer having slightly more features for the buck. New Alpines are nothing like Alpines of say 1998-2004 IMO. They just don't measure up for the price. My 9831 was my favorite "mainstream" head unit I have ever had. I personally still would try to stay away from motorized face plates. The new Pioneers and I think Alpines have both moves away from motorized, and just have a release button and manual flip.

So, if you do end up replacing it, what features do you require that it have, what features do you not necessarily need but would like, and of course, what price range are you looking at? I have fiddled with the Pioneer I installed for my room mate a bit, and don't hate it. To press the main scroll button directly in the center is a bit touchy while driving, but the menu's are simple and straight forward. I have not messed with an Alpine since my 9831 though. Those menu's were more of a hassle, but not too bad. I'm sure Alpine couldn't have gotten harder to navigate over the years.

After checking out those 2 brands, I would look into some of the nicer Kenwood Excelon's and maybe even some of the nicer JVC's. On a budget those 2 brands seem to be fairly reliable and have a couple good features. I wouldn't expect as many crossover settings out of a JVC, but the menu's are the easiest to navigate I have ever dealt with.


On the other hand....you have other fingers.

In my family we teach that boys have a God-stick and girls have a Shame Cave. -John Stewart

Thanks for the input JL,

My gf fiddled with it while I was driving and managed to get it closed again, it plays the radio but when you try to play a cd it says "LOAD" and plays whats there, but doesn't show the tracks etc and when you try to change the cd it gets stuck again. Seems like it just doesn't know anymore if a cd is in it or not, lol.

Anywho, I'm probably going to get another alpine, I haven't had the greatest experiences with pioneer so I'm not a huge fan of them... Are the ipod control alpine decks worth while? at 320KBS is the sound half decent since it's actually d/ling the file off the ipod to play?

I know for some reason on my current deck since it was an early mp3 deck, MP3 cds always sounded worse than if I burned the mp3 files as .wav as a normal audio cd....

And any differences really between a 2 volt preout and a 4 volt preout? I'm assuming just slightly more prone to noise? Because I noticed most of the new stuff is all 2 volt.

Thanks again!


There will always be someone faster than you, but thousands slower and dumber than you.

Youll get slightly more noise but you can get a line driver but really it shouldnt be an issue. I would stay away from The iPod ones due to the fact that thats all they do. And an mp3 will never sound as good as a CD. CDs are at like 24000 kpbs as opposed to 320 for even a high quality mp3.

What problems have you had with Pioneer? Mines worked perfectly for me besides the blown grounds but thats my fault.

TheSundownFire wrote:Youll get slightly more noise but you can get a line driver but really it shouldnt be an issue. I would stay away from The iPod ones due to the fact that thats all they do. And an mp3 will never sound as good as a CD. CDs are at like 24000 kpbs as opposed to 320 for even a high quality mp3.

No I know what you mean about quality loss, but a 320KB/S mp3 isn't really that bad too me... I'm just running a 4 channel amp (old kenwood like maybe 40WRMSx4?) and a 600W RMS Infinity Amp for 2 12' Infinity Subs. (I know, infinity amp, bad choice, learned my lesson. I like infinity speakers/subs though because audiophiles consider it worthless and there's so much of it I can always get it cheap second hand). I usually try to rip everything I have in lossless format, just because I like the crisp sound, and when I'm picky I'll just burn to a cd(as lossless)/use an original.

This accepts both an ipod, and a thumb drive, it has a USB slot on the back, which is pretty cool imo.

I ended up finding a guy locally selling a CDA-9886(which also has 3 4 volt preouts, yay!) and I really like alpine as a brand, so I hope this one makes me happy... No motorized face which is nice.

As for the problems with a pioneer, my gf had a Pioneer Priemer headunit I believe it was? It had those stupid blue dolphins that always jumped around that you couldn't turn off. Anywho, it worked ok for awhile, when she only had the subs, but we wired in another 4 channel amp, and I had this wicked alternator whine and the subs were pulsating with the cd spinning the HU, I tried everything, moving the amp grounds around, changing the HU grounds, and nothing was working. I was ready to burn her car to the ground. So I went to a local audio installer, and asked him what the hell I was doing wrong and he informed me on the deck she had was basically the grounds were super cheap, and were only grounded once, where as on higher end units the RCAs are grounded multiple times in the HU, reducing noise.

So she scored an older alpine out of a show car (can't remember the exact model number) almost brand new for $200 that the poor guy had paid $1,100 for and used 5 times, lol. It doesn't have any internal amp, and has so many features it wants to make my brain explode. But, the second I popped that sucker in, the noise was completely eliminated.

The pioneer deck prior, was literally picking up the CD spinning inside of it, and playing the pulsating noises through the subs, along with alternator whine through the speakers... it was rough.

I know company's change but probably the only thing I'll ever get from pioneer again in the future will be their subs when I'm on a budget.


There will always be someone faster than you, but thousands slower and dumber than you.

Thats the grounding issue I had. Its a simple fix you just wrap an unshielded wire aroundthe RCA inputs and ground it to the case. Boom fixed sounds sexy.. Thats caused by plugging in the RCAs while the head is on and it blows the diodes on the ground. Which is not the heads fault. I learned that.

But I respect your decision. I wanna look into Alpine when I get a new head. I love my Type-R and if their other stuff is as good as my sub I would be very satisfied.

lol, if it was my fault, fair enough. Could have been when I was looking at the 3 sets of RCAs infront of me and double checking which one is what or something. Good to know you can just ground it off the case though, in the future I'll keep that in mind because my friends always ask me to help them solve some problem or another. I'll also be extra cautious from now on and plug the RCAs in only while off, haha.


There will always be someone faster than you, but thousands slower and dumber than you.

Its cool. I blew mine troubleshooting an amp with the head on. Its always good to learn something new