Alpine CDE-102Ri

Product Details
Manufacturer: Alpine
Website: http://www.alpine-electronics.co.uk/
Single DIN CD Tuner with high levels of digital connectivity. Simple display technology and only two RCA output sets keep the price relatively low. The RCAs are chassis mounted to the rear and you also get a dedicated iPod connection for full speed operation via an included iPod wire. This goes to the rear mounted 13-pin connector. If you wish, you can accessorise the unit with a different 13-pin connector compatible wire to end in a micro-jack plug. This allows connection of any analogue audio device without the connection on the front being used. Ideal for generic MP3 player users who want a permanent and less messy connection. The front bears both simple tip-ring-sleeve stereo microjack socket for temporary plugging in any audio device with an analogue stereo output (You will need a double male microjack cable to do this.) and also a USB port. The unit can read and play a variety of digital formats from disc or USB as well as the iPoddery functions. Additionally you can add the KCE-400BT Parrot Blue Tooth module via the same 13 pin socket as the unit does not have it built in.
– 4 x 50w
– CD Text and plays CD-R/RW
– MP3 playback with ID3 Tag v1 & v2 supported, also WMA tag
– Made For iPod and Works With iPhone
– Front & Rear (or sub) RCA out @2V chassis mounted
– Bass adjustment +/-14dB @ 60Hz, 80Hz, 100Hz or 200Hz with four selectable bandwidth choices & individual source level memories
– Treble adjustment +/-14dB @10kHz, 12.5kHz, 15kHz or 17.5kHz with individual source level memories
– Parrot Bluetooth ready (needs optional KCE-400BT)
– Front auxiliary audio input on micro jack
– Front USB connection
– High pass filter settable at 60Hz, 80Hz or 100Hz or able to be defeated
– Subwoofer level control
– Treble and Bass Centre frequency control
– Blue, Red, Green or Amber illumination
– Manual supplied on CD Rom in three territorial flavours and in ten languages in total, plus printed start up guide
– Signal to Noise Ratio 105dB (CD & USB)
– Dynamic range 95dB (CD & USB)
– Channel Separation (@1kHz) 85dB (CD & USB)
– Removable panel security with hard carrying case included
Review by Adam Rayner
Here’s a nugget for you readers who have got this far! http://www.alpine-usa.com/US-en/company/pr/pr.php?prid=168&year=2008 it’s all about the wee amps that are going to be available for plug and play improvements of stock headunit amps and will work with this deck. The CDE-102Ri is a CD tuner made to be a high performance digital beastie but without a slew of higher tech audio stuff so as to keep the price under control.
I played CD and iPod and played with USB sticks with different sorts of files on them. I used a Genesis Stereo 100 amplifier and Bowers & Wilkins LM1 near field monitors to audition the unit on the Daiwa power supply with StreetWires speaker cable and JL Audio interconnects in the RCA output marked Rear/Sub and are chassis-mounted which I prefer.
While the deck does not have three sets of RCAs it does have a lot of connectivity and some serious internal processing ability such as filters and adjustable treble and bass frequencies with Q or bandwidth-applicability adjustment. You can also set the level of HF and LF boost to be specific to each source.
This has to be because the unit is of sufficient quality for one to be able to tell the difference between WMA, MP3 and AAC files’ sound quality. I would tend to boost the HF somewhat on the iPod input, for one, as I have used the stock encoding. Of course, depending upon the size of your music collection and the iPod drive you have, you will use whichever resolution you are happy with. I have set my iTunes to be NOT the default music device on my Dell and furthermore have set the Windows Media Centre to rip CDs in the highest quality.
The sound of CD was checked out with MudBone’s ‘Fresh Mud’ album, a serious take on new blues with some hardcore credibility, that was swagged off the back of B&W on a visit. Great production, crisp and dynamic with perfectly rendered guitars both distorted electric and acoustic. It’s a good CD player, exactly as one would expect from an Alpine player.
iPod control is not intuitive but it is fast as can be and pretty darn simple to grasp using the rotary and the magnifying glass/escape and play/pause buttons. The iPod happily booted while the CD was playing and the small USB stick I tried with a bunch of iTunes files was read and playable in moments flat and when you power back up, or even replace the USB stick, it’ll carry on from where it left off rather than make you wait some more, which I thought was clever of it.
However, I did take a 2GB stick and slap some albums onto it by simple drag and drop – a bunch of CDs I have copied into my WMA library. I found that I could read all the folder and file names but could only wait while the display flashed the word ‘Unsupported’ repeatedly for about 30 seconds before it would play only a couple of the albums. Not the ones I was asking for. I was puzzled as despite the read-ability to know they were there and the ability to read and show the labels for both album name as folders and files as track names, it would wait and then play Adele again. Sound quality on this most cumbersome of file size was excellent though, crisp and pretty as CD and easy to tell as such by the clean output of the deck. Now, no doubt there is some deeply gnarly reason why this is so, but the average non-total-geek who knows how to drag and drop files and knows which sounds best, may well be as thwarted as myself.
No grumbles at all on the iPod control front, with the Alpine graphic appearing on the ‘Pod’s screen in moments flat and the speed of control no longer being even remotely an issue. But there are issues with use of WMA in my (I’m sure thumb fingered) opinion.
Feature count is massive for a £170 unit (I came back and edited this bit after finding out that it was sold everywhere for £30 less than I had thought!) and if you have a big collection of tunes in drives or ‘Pods, it’s definitely worth a look but I do feel there is some more detail to be delved into digitally than we really have scope for in a regular audio review as an 8GB flash drive and a whacker of a micro HDD are really needed, with some BIG piles of files for them to try.
Meanwhile for regular non-geeks, the unit is powerhouse of digital cleverness and peerfect for putting at the heart of any system you fancy, from simple OEM upgrade to full-on-serious with PDX amps.
Sound Quality 9.0
Appearance/Display 9.0
Ease Of Use/HMI 7.0
Features 9.0
Value For Money 9.0
Overall rating 8.6