HEAD UNITS
Alpine CDA-9820XM
By Paul Sonoda
Posted on Dec 1, 2004

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you know that satellite radio is the hottest thing to happen to radio since FM. In the past, getting satellite radio meant installing an additional box or even adding a secondary controller to your source unit. Well, those days are over. The Alpine CDA-9820XM is the world’s first integrated XM Radio/CD Tuner.

First Look
The Alpine CDA-9820XM is a single ISO-DIN chassis removable face plate head unit. The display consists of a black face with green illuminated buttons reminiscent of the “Alpine Touch.” The CDA-9820XM uses a regulated 1-Bit DAC to play CD, CD-R, and CD-RWs that contain standard CD format. Its speaker outputs are rated to deliver a CEA-2006 standard of 18 watts-per-channel with a maximum claimed power of 50 watts x 4. The CDA-9820XM has two pairs of RCA outputs. The first RCAs deliver low-level signal from the front output. Depending on your settings, the second set of RCA outputs can be used as rear outputs or subwoofer outputs. All RCA outputs are rated to deliver 2 volts.

A Closer Look
The Alpine CDA-9820XM has a lot of additional features that make this unit special. When configured as subwoofer outputs, the rear RCAs offer subwoofer level control and phase control from the face plate controls. Via the Ai-NET connector, the Alpine CDA-9820XM is also capable of connecting to a CD/MP3/DVD changer, signal processors, TV tuner, another satellite radio tuner, and even a 5.1 amplifier/processor. For you iPod users, the CDA-9820XM allows you to connect your iPod to the head unit letting the CDA-9820XM control it and pass the output through your stereo system via Alpine’s integrated iPod interface. Of course, what really makes this cool is the little satellite radio antenna connector on the back of the unit — that’s right, XM Satellite radio. Simply plug in a proper XM Radio antenna (not included) and over 100 channels of commercial-free radio are just a subscription away.

Ease of use
The Alpine CDA-9820XM is quite easy to use. Without much effort, I was able to access and use most of the controls. A slight read of the owner’s manual is all that’s needed to access all the of the unit’s functions. All the buttons are located on an easy-to-read face. Disc Title Memory allows you to assign up to eight letters to 24 CDs so that you know what’s playing. There are 12 FM and 6 AM presets that can also be named so you to locate your favorite radio station by name. You can also store 18 XM satellite radio stations and search for content via the rotary knob. The CDA-9820XM display can be set-up to text scroll the information from your favorite XM station. To directly access a specific channel, the optional remote (RUE-4190) is required. Finally, since all of the sources will sound different, the CDA-9820XM has separate bass and treble settings for radio, XM, and CD.

Installation
The installation of the Alpine CDA-9820XM went smoothly — in fact, it’s what makes this head unit so appealing. With the integrated XM radio decoder, the only thing needed to do is to install a XM-capable satellite antenna. The CDA-9820XM is capable of standard ISO-DIN mounting as well as mounting using many of the Japanese vehicle mounting brackets. While the actual mounting of the CDA-9820XM is straightforward, the XM antenna is difficult enough to warrant having your local Authorized Alpine Dealer perform the installation.

Manuals/Web Support
Alpine’s Web site, www.alpine-usa.com, was easy to navigate and quite informative. I was able to easily find and access all of the basic information on the CDA-9820XM. Jumping over to the support side of the Web site, the manual for the CDA-9820XM was available for download in PDF format. The manual is well written and understandable, with sections on using the different features of the CDA-9820XM.

Sound Q & Performance
The Alpine CDA-9820XM performed well. With all the controls set flat, the CDA-9820XM produced slightly over 18 watts x 4 into four ohms with less than 1% THD + Noise (Total Harmonic Distortion plus Noise). On the RCA outputs, I was able to easily exceed the rated power with 2.392 Vrms for each output. Using a CD with 1 kHz recorded at all bits high (read maximum signal), the RCAs were unclipped at 30 to 31 on the CDA-9820XM. However, the speaker level output clipped much lower at 20-21 on the volume control. I found this a bit confusing, but was able to set the fader towards the front to 8 and then both the RCA and rear speaker level outputs reached maximum power at the same time. This worked well when I set the rear RCA to function as the subwoofer RCA outputs.

Summary
If you’re thinking about satellite radio, the Alpine CDA-9820XM is the perfect choice. With over 18 watts RMS per channel (CEA-2006 rating) and nearly 2.4 Vrms of clean unclipped power, the CDA-9820XM is a head unit that offers satellite radio at very good performance at a great price.