Im looking at getting a new head unit for the car. after reading a bit ive picked up that in order to use the Alpine stacker in the EF Fairmont i will need a alpine HU? my question is will the Alpine CDA-9851 work? and does anyone have this HU?

http://www.alpine.com.au/products/brochure.asp?id=205#

Another question, just wondering whether anyone has bought any products for any of these stores on e-bay?

http://search-desc.ebay.com.au/CDA-9851 ... CDAQ2d9851

Due to the fact of not many places selling alpine and ebay being cheaper i was wondering whether buying from overseas asian store wont cause too much trouble

Thanks in advance

I'm thinking of getting my alpine stuff from Aussie Car Audio when i've got the cash... heard a few good reports on the forums, and apparently if you're lucky, you won't have to pay any customs fees. I say give it a go, and if it turns out all good, let me know so i can do the same

im guessing that it wont be compatible with the alpine changer mate
that deck would use an ai-net cable for its changer and the fairmont changer uses m-bus cabling, only older alpine decks will work with it. i believe there are converter cables around if u have a look

havent used that particular deck but its a mid-range deck like mine (cda-9826) but from the newer line of models, so if thats anything to go buy u wont be dissapointed at all

i think ull find that the ebay stores are good to deal with especially ones with high feedback ratings, include registered post + insurance etc and u cant really go wrong, just compare ur prices

so if i do purchase a alpine deck with a bit of mucking around i will still be able to use my stacker? or is it more hasle that its worth, because id be a shame to lose a perfectly stacker, if not i will probably still get the HU and will have to deal without a stacker

Thanks for the info

yer id say u mite have a bit off mucking around to do, dunno how hard those cables are to find thats the only thing, personally i wouldnt worry about the stacker

ur stacker will hold 6 cds, and an mp3 cd will usually hold 6 cds piece of piss, so all u gotta do is rip ur cds to mp3 and u no longer get into ur boot just to change a cd, plus u got the luxury of putting ur music into folders etc on the mp3 cd, couldnt live without it now

also u could sell ur stacker on ebay, seen a few go on there latey for around $100 or so, and get urself some new speakers or something

another option is to sell ur stacker, put in a bit of extra money (dunno how much, not sure how much they're worth) and buy a new / second hand stacker that supports the ai-net connection of new deck