I was fortunate to have been involved in the development of the first-generation CD head unit of AlpineF#1Status. That first component gained unanimous praise for its “absolute best in-car sound” and it strongly established the number one status of the system. As one of the developers, I have been keeping close track on the audio industry since that time. I found out through car audio magazines and demo cars by custom installers that augmenting the AlpineF#1Status system with a DVD player has penetrated into the mainstream. I admit that this is a natural outgrowth of the times in which the popularity of DVD videos was spreading rapidly; however, I felt a little bad that the advanced functions of the first CD head unit could not be used when playing back DVDs and that customers couldn’t get the full benefit of the supreme sound quality of the system.
When I learned of the decision to make the new AlpineF#1Status system not only compatible with DVD, but compatible with the latest, highest resolution DVD-Audio format as well, I immediately thought, "Yes, I’m going to help make this happen!” However, I realized that if we designed it without any compromises and tried to build it to be worthy of the #1 name, it wouldn’t fit in a 1-DIN package and would have to be a large-scale system. We also worried what would happen with signal transmission among the components. As an engineer, these concerns were on my mind, but they also inspired me. I still clearly remember the excitement of the challenge—not only the strong desire to realize it, but also the apprehensions of facing such high hurdles and thick walls. |
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