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Holy Grail... Old Skool Alpine 7909 deck

21K views 45 replies 21 participants last post by  Baker 
#1 ·
Bought an old Alpine 7909 CD player from 1989. It's considered to be the 'HOLY GRAIL' of CD players!
If you know anything about vintage/classic car audio, you know about the Alpine 7909. This unit came out in the late eighties-early 90's.
One of the industry's best sounding decks ever made!

I got an awesome deal on it



UPDATE:
Hey, good news ! The power supply was gone on this 7909 unit, so I had the unit repaired..
Sounds amazing ! I Havent heard anything this clean in car audio ever !!
Even the installer was impressed , and hes been doing car audio for 20+ years...

Here's some pics and a video !

Raw unedited video:





Features:
Full Front DIN Chassis
CD Shuttle Controls
Quick Release Bracket
T-10 II Tuner
8-times oversampling digital filter
18-bit Dual D/A Converters
Compact disc Straight
Power loading/self loading
plays 3-inch disc w/o an adapter
music sensor
repeat, scan, random play
Eject Auto-Lock
digital clock
Dual 4v Preamp Outputs (4v preout was unheard of back then)
Litetouch 24-Station Presets
Preset Address
Local/distance Switch
Dimmer Lead
Audio Mute Lead
High contrast fluorescent Display

Specifications:
General:
Output voltage (Preamp) ~ 500mV
Bass Adjustment ~ +/- 18 dB @ 30 Hz
Treble Adjustment ~ +/- 15 dB @ 15 kHz
Dimensions ~W 7" x H 2" x D 6-1/8"

Compact Disc Player:
Sampling Freq ~ 352.8 kHz (8x Oversampling)
# of D/A Converters ~ 2
# of Quantization Bits ~16-Bit Linear System
Freq. Response ~ 5 Hz - 20 kHz
Wow & Flutter ~ below measurable limits
THD ~ 0.002% @ 1 kHz
Dynamic Range ~ 100 dB
SNR ~ 110 dBA
Channel Separation ~ 95 dB @ 1 kHz

AM Tuner:
Sensitivity ~ 10 uV

FM Tuner:
Mono usable sensitivity ~ 16.3 dBf (1.8 uV/75 ohm)
50 dB Quiet Sensitivity ~ 20.7 dBf (3.0 uV / 75 ohm)
alternator channel selectivity ~ 80 dB
SNR ~ 60 dB
Stereo Separation ~ 35 dB
Capture Radio ~ 2.0 dB
AM suppression ~ 45 dB
 
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#28 ·
Wow, nice find.

BTW, I'd be really interested in some extreme closeups of the capacitors... they are the little pill-shaped things on the board with colored stripes... it will tell what grade of quality they are. Yes, you can replace them with better ones very cheaply... unless they are already the best grade.

Though I recently went with two Panasonic head units with USB ports, I sure do love the old-school simplicity of good old treble & bass adjusters. ~sigh~
 
#29 ·
fireant said:
Wow, nice find.

BTW, I'd be really interested in some extreme closeups of the capacitors... they are the little pill-shaped things on the board with colored stripes... it will tell what grade of quality they are. Yes, you can replace them with better ones very cheaply... unless they are already the best grade.

Though I recently went with two Panasonic head units with USB ports, I sure do love the old-school simplicity of good old treble & bass adjusters. ~sigh~
Are the caps shown here ?



 
#37 ·
Yeah, I was just an apprentice EE for the South region in Duncanville Texas... I was hourly and got to fix blown speakers, extract stuck discs and tapes from stereos and VCRs, troubleshoot hard-to-reproduce problems, and refurb vacuum clenaers (awful work, but I can make just about any vacuum work like new, just dissect it and remove all the hair and dander, gloves, mask, and goggles are mandatory!).

I also was called upon by the big bosses to spy on the techs and make sure they were not doing unnecessary repair work, since they were paid book-hours like a mechanic.

I also had to call people and explain to them if the problem they were reporting was not a problem with the machine, but in how they were misusing it.

It was a great job to have at 18...I loved the top-of-the line soldering and testing equipment. :)
 
#40 ·
Hey, good news ! The power supply was gone on this 7909 unit, so I had the unit repaired..
Sounds amazing ! I Havent heard anything this clean in car audio ever !!
Even the installer was impressed , and hes been doing car audio for 20+ years...

Here's some pics and a video !

Raw unedited video:




 
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