older Alpine decks have this bbe processing. What is this? Benefits and/or problems?

 

its kinda just like a different type of loudness

 

uh uh, not a "different kind of loudness".
BBE stands for Barcus Berry Electronics, that deals primarily with manufacturing transducers for musical instruments, one of their founders is L. Fender (Fender Guitars).
Their electronic circuit has been used a lot in the recording and broadcast industries as well as the audio industry. It enhances harmonics to allow greater accuracy in reproducing a natural sound.

 

i love bbe processing, it just sounds more open and airy. very clean and dynamic. I'm currently looking for an alpine eq with bbe.

 

It's what really helps the Alpine CDA-D855 sound so good.

For sound, that's easily Alpine's second best deck.
I love it.

 

Would the best be the 7996 or 7990?

 

just curious; What is it that makes the 7909 that much better than any other Alpine? Is it multi bit, burr brown, better tolerance parts? The reason is that i'm running a cda 9827, based on the Alpine text this deck has the same components and specs as their much more expensive decks. the only apparent difference that I can see is the features i.e better base engine, more colours for the face etc. I personally don't like all the bells and whistles and I hate fold down faces,because I am a cd changer. My feeling is the less junk in the unit the less noise and heat and theoretically better sound.