Hey All,
LOL, sorry guys looks like I've asked the right question then
I am seriously curious of how this unit works and it will be interesting to hear and see the picture when you get the car back, I would imagine your getting quite excited now?
Basically, from the looks of it this unit just takes the existing radios speaker-out connections from it's built in amplifier and converts them to pre-out level. At the same time smoothing, clean and purifying if you like the signal coming out of the radio.
With the fancy inbuilt Imprint software the processor can then listen to the cars acoustics (via the microphone) and tailor the EQ sound curve to better suit the cars frequency responses, in turn making the music sound much better.
Now this is great, but from the sounds of it will then require the use of seperate amplifiers after the Alpine unit to power the other car speakers from. You will need to do this anyway for adding the sub woofer, but if you can get away without adding extra amps on top of the one to power the sub that will save space and cost building in another amp.
It's been age's since I have had to really think about ICE systems, but in the past I have been heavily involved in it having shown & entered SPL (sound pressure level) sound offs with a car install which was hitting 146Db.
I wont go into too much detail here but the system I used work in a similar way to the Alpine Imprint unit I think, in that a head unit (in this case a Pioneer one) was used to send signals to a Pioneer DEQ9200DSP active crossover/graphic display, which then sorted out which signals went to which amplifier.
Pioneer USA - Equalizers
Similar idea to the Alpine Imprint almost in that there is one dedicated graphic equaliser/sound processor from which you then run multiple amplifers to power each of the cars individual speakers.
In my car I ran 3 amps, 1 for the mid bass speakers in the front doors, 1 for the tweeters and another bigger amp for the 2 15" JL subs.
I installed it all myself and have done a few other cars as a job in the past to.
With the Apline unit, as it was with my Pioneer setup there was a way in which the sound signals from the head unit would go into the Processor (the Imprint for instance) then back out the Imprint to the head unit for amplification/sending out to all the speakers around the car.
The latter meaning extra, external amplifiers were not needed. But from what I gather as a minimum another amplifer, perhaps a 4 channel unit will be required to power the cars speakers after the Imprint.
Or one bigger 6 channel unit to power speakers and subs, your setup will clarify this for us I am sure.
I'll be very interested to know what the tech guys tell you.
Ian
P.S. I cant comment on listening to Terry Wogan at X decibels but leaning against your doors (to stop them moving in & out as the bass hits!) to get a better sound pressure reading I can relate to
And I was entering classes where I still had my back seats in the car!