clsharky

Hi. I'm new to this forum and have been into the car audio scene now for over 15 years. Every now and then, wife and money permitting, I like to upgrade my components and just recently, I bought an Almani receiver and replaced my older Pioneer DEH-P3300.

Is there anyone in the forum who knows much about Almani car audio? In particular, the DVT-909 head unit is what I am looking for info about. I just bought one of these units after running out of patience for the Pioneer DEH-p7000bt unit to be released. Of course, a week after I bought this unit, the Pioneer came out on the market. Truth be told, I am quite happy with the performance of this unit, it has a list of features including front USB and SD/MMC inputs, DVD/CD/-r/-rw/+rw, MP3, WMA playback, built-in Bluetooth (one of the biggest features I was looking for) 3 two volt pair of RCA outputs, one set of RCA inputs, one A/V out for external monitors, and supposedly ID3 tag support for MP3s. The sound output is great, on par with the old Pioneer unit I had and it has full adjustable Low/Mid/High and Sub controls. Also, when connecting to my cell phone to make or receive calls, it is completely painless. Once the ignition is turned on and the phone enters the car, within 10 seconds both units are synced, my phonebook data is uploaded to the receiver and I am good to go. To answer a call, it is as simple as pressing one button. To make a call, you alphabetically scroll thru the phonebook and hit a button twice.

The manual is not very helpful and does not explain the features very well. My biggest concern with this unit is that when I plug in a 4 GB USB stick loaded with MP3s, I have to manually scroll through each song, even if there is 500 songs. There is no way (that I know of) to scroll thru directories or files quickly. And, I cannot for the life of me, get the unit to display the ID3 tag information. I am still debating as to whether I should keep this unit, sell it, or install it in my wifes car and sell both of our older receivers. The voice in my head tells me I should have waited and bought the tried and tested Pioneer unit, and I haven't dismissed the idea of buying another receiver just yet. However, the Almani is only 2.5 weeks old and I haven't given up searching the internet for more information regarding its features. I like the features of the Almani, but I don't like the idea of having to scroll one by one through countless songs. BTW, I know Almani is fairly new to the car audio scene. I have called their toll free number looking for support and almost hung up because I thought I had called someones house by mistake when I got a somewhat questionable response. The receptionist, I think, gave me the "technicians" home phone number, which I have no intention of calling long distance, and told me that was basically their tech support person.

Any help that anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Sharky