OTHER TECH

Top view of an Alpine PDX-1.1000 mono power amplifier

I always make it a point to schedule my visit to Alpine's booth toward the end of CES. After a long week of ping-ponging between halls and wading through a lot of me-too products, it's refreshing to enter a room full of gear that's exciting, innovative, and just plain cool enough to make me rethink the gear I have installed in my own car. Plus, there's the unveiling of Alpine's vaunted show car, the acknowledged industry benchmark when it comes to mobile installation in a demo vehicle. This year, Alpine's Advanced Application R&D tandem Steve Brown and Gary Bell (with an assist from Glenn Swackhamer of Alpine Canada) loaded up a monster black BMW 645i convertible that's been redubbed the Sinister 6.

Alpine's SWX-1242D 12-inch car subwoofer

Gearwise, nine PDX series amplifiers - eight PDX-1.1000s ($850 each) and one PDX-4.150 ($750) - are located behind the seat enclosure, and they can be viewed through a window just like you'd check out an engine on a Ferrari. The Sinister 6 also boasts Alpine's VPA-B222 Vehicle Hub Pro OEM integration system. The Hub Pro ($500) is a hideaway box that incorporates Ai-NET inputs, an AM/FM tuner, a dedicated navigation input, and a Full Speed Connection for iPod input. The car also boasts a bass-bumping subwoofer system (courtesy of four SWX-1242D 12-inch drivers, $550 each) and is surround-sound capable.

Other Sinister highlights: the 6 has a single seat that's been relocated to the center of the car, and it's housed in a 5-foot-wide circular fiberglass enclosure that rotates 360 degrees at the touch of a button. Oh, and there's no steering wheel; a joystick mounted to the right of the seat handles the steering electronically.

I've seen and demo'd every vehicle Brown and his crew have constructed for Alpine over the years, and this one is, without question, their most jaw-dropping creation yet.

One other piece of Alpine gear that struck my fancy is the Blackbird PMD-B100 portable nav system ($750). The Blackbird runs on the Microsoft Windows CE platform and uses NAVTEQ map coverage for the U.S. and Canada with turn-by-turn voice instructions. Being portable, the Blackbird can be moved from car to car and can connect to a wired docking station, the PMD-DOK1 (available in March at a price yet to be determined). In the dock, the Blackbird can be controlled via any of Alpine's touchscreen head units.

Alpine Blackbird PMD-B100 portable navigation system

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