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DennisCooper

Alpine - E46 specific fit head unit; INE-W997E46

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Hi,

Alpine have very recently announced their 'Alpine Style INE-W997E46' custom fit head unit for the BMW E46. Here's the product page on their website;

http://www.alpine.co.uk/p/Products/navigation-system-for-bmw-3-e46/ine-w997e46

RRP is £1099 and is available now from authorised Alpine dealers. 

Cheers, Dennis!

Edited by DennisCooper
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I mean, they've basically chucked a 7" screen in a fascia adaptor and called it "specific fit". Looks poor compared to some of the Android offerings, and €1,349 isn't cheap by comparison!

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Hi,

Ibrahim - How would the look be improved for you to change your opinion to 'it looks good' ?!

Daz - Agreed, it's a high quality product/unit but the finishing bezel is the plain looking one. I personally don't mind it as it does look quite clean for an aftermarket solution, but I know many don't like the 'space'.

Dave300 - Agreed, it's a re-chassis with a frame to fit the E46 and the bezel finish over the top. I'd say not comparable to the cheap chinese android units in every single aspect except that the chinese ones have control buttons on the left/right sides. RRP is £1099 and over time there'll be more discounts available.

Cheers, Dennis!

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Hi 

The OEM widescreen was a 5.8 inch panel. Most double DIN aftermarket units will have a 6.5 inch or a 7 inch panel. The larger 8 inch panels look a little too large for the aesthetics of the E46 and other BMW's of the same era. There's only a handful of aftermarket double DIN's which use larger 8 inch and slightly more panels anyway. 

The shape of the front panel is just a bezel made to fit in the dash aperture due to the actual unit being a single DIN chassis. If the unit was made to be fully fitted and shaped then I agree, it would have been a better solution visually.

Cheers, Dennis!

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ONE THOUSAND POUNDS?

 

One thousand pounds for a headunit and fascia adapter? 

 

With the greatest of respect I know Dennis doesn't rate the Chinese headunits but when you can purchase getting on for FIVE chinese headunits for the price of one alpine unit you have to wonder what justifies the price? Better sound quality (when you're in a moving car with ambient noise), and maybe better reliability? Would you really pay five times the price of a chinese head unit for a named brand?

 

EDIT: I mean you could go out and buy reliability (unproven as it's a brand new product unlike anything they've done before) for a thousand pounds or you could take the "massive risk" by buying a Chinese headunit. Even if the chinese Android unit fails and you can't get warranty on it then you can still buy another four before you've got the cost of the Alpine unit.

Edited by dontpannic
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Hi 

I agree that it's an 'expensive' product for many owners of the E46, and that a cheap chinese unit at £200-300 could be had 3/4 times for the same price if it kept failing etc. 

The aspect that a car is a noisy environment holds true, however it's no difference if you use a basic quality unit or an expensive one, the road noise will still be there. There are ways of reducing that and also, when using a higher quality unit you don't have to 'push' it as hard to get the same or better levels of acoustic performance. 'Most' car owners won't or will not consider those aspects mainly due to not really wanting that level of audio performance in their cars. 

There's other high quality, consistently more reliable and better in every aspect than a cheap chinese unit at around £330-450 and which fit relatively easily in the E46. This makes them much more appealing to owners of older E46's who perhaps don't wish to spend towards the higher end of the price brackets for many parts for their cars - tyres, maintainence items etc. The Parrot Asteroid Smart and the Alpine iLX-700 specifically here are those products. 

Other markets around the world have older BMW's including the E46 still at values much higher than the UK, and more of those owners are open to spending on a higher quality unit given the relative higher values of their cars. That type of owner is what this E46 specific 'kit' is what Alpine are aiming for. 

Cheers, Dennis!

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I'm still of the thought process that if Alpine were going to spend the time creating an E46 specific unit (which this is), they would do more than adjust the depth of the system to warrant a three-fold increase in price over a standard Alpine double DIN unit. If the Chinese are capable of utilizing the space in the dashboard in such a way that the units look almost OEM (bar a font change) I'm sure a 'premium' company such as Alpine are capable of doing the same.

 

They are taking the complete piss by selling a double DIN unit with single DIN rear and fascia adaptor for over a thousand pounds where the Chinese can manage the same thing for £200 (and at a much lower manufacturing cost, no doubt). Even with Alpine's own sound processors and amps etc the cost should be nowhere near that amount.

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Hi 

Dontpannic - To put things into a bit more perspective; Kia, Hyundai, Dacia, Proton and similar 'budget' level brands all make cars with an engine, wheels, gearbox, suspension electrics etc and it's end product sits on the tarmac ready for use. Jaguar, Rolls Royce, Bentley, Mercedes, BMW, also make cars with an engine, wheels, gearbox, suspension electrics etc and can cost many many multiples the price and also sit on the tarmac ready for use. 

So why the difference? 

I think you do actually know the answer and it's all to do with quality. The chinese units will give you an audio output, and give you bluetooth and GPS and all the rest of the features, but crucially, can they compare to the quality of a Alpine, Kenwood, Pioneer ? I think you know the answer to that as well, it's no. As a customer who's looking for a 'solution' then like any product you can buy in the world, there's budget, mid range and high end products. In this particular case, the chinese units don't really attain the level of 'budget' brands due to the fact most are clones coming out of a few factories and only being sold on ebay - there's no structured framework or dealership to retail sales channel nor any adherence to any standards etc, so they're actually 'sub budget' level. 

I've mentioned it previously, when I find a chinese brand that makes a consistently reliable unit, using budget level and reliable electronics who also offer a proper dealer sales and distribution channel with proper warranty support, I will consider selling them. Plenty of UK based companies have 'tried' this by getting various levels of a deal in place but all have failed within a short space of time. The crucial aspect is maintaining a solid support and returns/warranty aspect with the factory and so far no one has done that due to the costs involved. 

For this particular Alpine E46 solution, I agree that they could have done a better overall job and I've spoken to my contacts at Alpine to feed that back. This solution is aimed at those owners who do want the best in terms of quality and are willing to pay for it and most likely will have similar level amplifiers and speakers as well as other premium level modifications to their cars. The vast majority of E46 owners and most here on E46zone aren't willing to spend £1000 on a top quality head unit but rather want something to get modern features for a few hundred pounds. 

Cheers, Dennis!

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20 hours ago, DennisCooper said:

I've mentioned it previously, when I find a chinese brand that makes a consistently reliable unit, using budget level and reliable electronics who also offer a proper dealer sales and distribution channel with proper warranty support, I will consider selling them

I do take your points on board Dennis, and if I had a bad experience with a Chinese headunit I would probably share your views - however an Alpine unit at £1100 is not a valid alternative.

Our 'no modification' options currently extend to a shallow Parrot unit, single DIN headunits with a flip out screen, regular single DIN units, Chinese headunit or this Alpine unit.

When I can find a 'Premium' branded unit which looks as good in the dash as the Chinese units, has firmware that doesn't suck, and allows for maps and spotify to be loaded directly onto the unit and easily update-able for a reasonable price then I'll be tempted. Right now, I'm happy with my Chinese unit, and I know others are too.

Maybe my use case is different, and I'd dearly love a unit made by Alpine which runs Android natively, but, with the greatest respect, when they take the piss with pricing like that for a what is essentially a rehash of an existing product with a fascia adaptor it will put a lot of people off. Even countries where E46's hold more value, they're even less likely to have the disposable income to purchase at this price.

When you total up the price of the components (very briefly, £80 for a decent single DIN headunit which already contains a decent audio system, tuner, cd drive, £25 for a SoC, £40 for an 800x480 resolution LCD touchscreen, lets say £100 for other materials and designs) you get £245. That's probably on the high side of component costs, given that the Chinese can do this for a unit RRP nearing half of that. So how does that warrant an £1100 price tag?

I recently took a road trip to Germany. Used TomTom European maps for navigation, while playing music through Spotify, monitoring engine parameters using Torque. Got to Germany, used an app on the headunit to time a lap on the 'ring, all while providing Bluetooth voice calls, reversing camera, steering wheel controls and ability to play back video files from my Dashcam and GoPro. I achieved all of that for £268 (£250 for the headunit, £15 for TomTom, £3 for Torque). I'm going to need a lot of convincing to spend a further £750 for slightly better sound quality and worse appearance.

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Hi DontPannic et al,

You've missed the point again :)

The Alpine W997E46 is a 'high end' audiophile grade solution. Everything about it is aimed at those who want a high sound quality source for their similarly (usually) sound quality orientated car audio install. Look carefully at the features of the unit - Digital Time Correction built in, Parametric Equalizer built in, digital/electronic crossover built in, FLAC support, fuzzy logic/correction for lost detail in lower quality recordings. These are the audiophile features of the unit. To compare, look at the pricing of a Digital Time Alignment & parametric solution, then the price of an electronic crossover. Although not a sound quality related feature, the unit has a Digital DAB tuner built in as well, so check the price of a good quality standalone module. This unit actually represents decent value for money in this regard considering it a one piece unit solution.,

In direct comparison, a chinese replacement head unit uses a generic level quality tablet PC PCB with generic quality IC's and circuits. The total opposite to the Alpine and as a result, the sound quality is massively less in comparison. It's a bit like saying you have an E46 M3 'looking vehicle' but has a 1.6 litre engine, using the cheapest tyres and bushings etc - it'll go round the Nurburgring for sure, but it'll be massively inferior as it goes about it. 

The two are not a like for like comparison. 

In your case specifically, your chinese head unit has worked and also over a period of time - you are one of the lucky ones. There's many other's who purchased and had issues right away ranging from small issues,more serious ones to also being totally dead on arrival. Many over time became gradually worse and worse until left with a next to useless unit and very little or no support from the seller/manufacturer. Some people paid £500-650 for these units and have been left with useless paperweights or unit's with issues and problems causing high levels of frustration, they'd have loved the unit to guide them to the local recycling centre let alone thinking it'd take them to Germany. The situation generally was so bad, that multiple forums stopped allowing chinese brands to be sponsors, one going even so far as auto removing the brand name when typed in a thread. Even here on this forum, many threads can be found ranging from smoke coming out of a unit and also a purchaser taking Dynavin UK to court and proving their unit wasn't fit for purpose. Now I know there are quite a lot of others who've had a good functional chinese head unit and one that's remained like that over months and even approaching a couple of years in some instances, but overall, I'd estimate these owners make up less than 5-10% of total units sold. When its the other way around, and it's only 5-10% of people experiencing issues, I'd then consider selling them. 

For now I understand that the choices as you mention for a non modification audio head unit are the chinese units with a pseudo oem look, single dins, Parrot Smart, Alpine iLX-700 and flip out single DIN's where available. In the future there may well be more choices :)

Cheers, Dennis!

 

 

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Thanks Dennis. I think my point may be lost in translation a little here. I'm no longer comparing the Chinese units to the Alpine unit - it's obvious that the Alpine system will be of better quality - however, charging a thousand pounds for that unit is criminal. Audiophile or not, when even Becker units come in at around £300 - true the Alpine has a few more audiophile grade features, but a thousand pounds worth? I'm not so sure.

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I bought one of these chinese units (an 'Andrive'), I was quite often trying to get hold of their help as I experienced various issues. It now sits in the loft, bricked apart from the woeful WinCE side of things. £550 down the pan.

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It is better quality, it will have better audio, it does have a DAB radio but FFS! Over £1000, no flipping way! I thought the days of £500 plus head units was long gone? I'd be interested to see how many people fall for it and buy one. The margin on those units will be huge even with the better quality and I reckon they'd still be in profit at £500 a unit (where I may have considered buying one) as the only "special " E46 bit is a cheap plastic surround, the rest is generic hardware & software. I'll look at the Parrot double din again I think......

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Shhooo. So much said by so many about these head units. Alpine and Chinese. Anyway,                                                                                                                                                                                    I'm yet to find a good product that comes from reverse engineering. I love quality.                                                                                                                                                                                                So buying Alpine, an original idea, originally researched, originally developed, is my best option.                                                                                                                                                                        Also remember Product Support. But I agree, I doesn't look great and refreshing.

Jeoff Letebele.

Modikwe Village.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Brits - South Africa. 

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Spammy bump aside, I've just worked out why this linked unit is so expensive.

Nobody ever mentions how much of a pain in the arse it is to fit a double din unit into an E46 - especially a full depth or full depth half height unit like the Sony XAV's. The Chinese units (and this Alpine, which is essentially a regular Alpine double DIN but with an E46 specific fitting kit / cage / wiring harness) literally are a straight fit.

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Hi Dontpannic,

Perhaps not as often on this forum but it's mentioned frequently on others!

There's a good and growing number of shallow depth premium brand double DIN units that can be fitted without the hassle of fouling the airbox/pipes. The Avin Avant 4 is the latest unit from that chinese made/USA marketed brand which also has no issues with depth. 

We're a few years on from the start of this thread and other similar ones where premium brand units are discussed. The decline of the use of disks in the car is continuing so mechless units from the premium brands are becoming more popular and numerous. The replacement/clone type chinese units still have quality/reliability issues and I'm still not interested in becoming a UK importer/dealer for any of the 'brands'. 

For the E39 owner community, I have developed and released an OEM look fascia/fitting kit which allows the fitting of a double DIN head unit and provide 97% + of OEM looks in the dash - a Best of Both Worlds type solution! I've got preliminary work started on an E46 version :)

https://forum.bmw5.co.uk/topic/135647-innovadrive-nxg-39-oem-look-double-din-fascia/

Would be good to hear yours and other E46 members here opinions?!

Cheers, Dennis!

 

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There's no doubting the quality of the Sony/Alpine units - but at that price, they just don't cut it. They are generic (for them) double-dins with either shallow depth or E46-style half shallow rears - but they're still generic looking plain/blank fronts with (considering what's available from China) tiny screens.

That fascia looks great DC. Love the idea of being able to control other mods with it while retaining the OEM look. 

Edited by momo
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