I just got an Alpine 9857, and am surprised by how 'not quick' the quicksearch feature really is. When playing MP3's on CD's, the quicksearch feature only lets me search by the file # - which isn't really that useful. There doesn't seem to be a way to search by song or artist. Same thing when I hooked it up to an iPod Mini (using the Alpine connector). And when switching tracks, it takes approx. 4-5 seconds before the song info shows up on the display.

To all 9857 (or similar) owners, is this normal or did I miss something in the setup?

 

you can search by file. songs switch pretty fast. the display does take a little while to show so that's normal. I have no complaints with this deck.