# W200/H701 with Pac TR-7 Review



## alphakenny1 (Dec 21, 2005)

With some motivation of dang’s offer, I will write my first review on the W200/H701 with the Pac TR-7 Video bypass. Hahaha Shinjohn, beat you to it . Most of this review will involve the ease of use of tuning the h701 through the w200. 

I’d like to say this is probably the best purchase I’ve made thus far for the system. Installing the W200 was a breeze. I installed with the Pac TR-7 so I could tune while I drive, lol. 

Just a quick note that I’m using the optical out, out of the w200 to the h701. This is the first time I’ve ever used a real external processor and I have to say I am really impressed with the h701. First off the tuning through the W200 is so easy. It’s pretty much self explanatory with conveniently listed menus. The only time I used the manual for the w200 was to find out how to access the H701. Everything after that is just self explanatory. 

The menus main functions I use on the h701 are as follows:

*Setting the speakers*

As you know the h701 has 4 sets of preouts: Front1 (tweeter), Front2, Rear, Center/Sub. Each set you can turn it On or off. With the sub you can also choose stereo/mono. 

*Xover Adjustment*

Here’s where the fun begins. On each set of preouts you can bandpass each set. All but the “Front1” can be crossed anywhere between 20hz to 18khz at 1/6 octave steps. “Front1” can be crossed from 1-18khz at 1/6 octave steps. The crossover slopes are Off,6,12,18,24,and 30db per octave. Also a neat thing about it is that you can adjust the level for the crossovers. Here is a picture of the crossover menu for one set of preouts. 










Notice that at the decibel level is at -2db. I can move that up and down if need be. I thought that was kind of neat. 

Here is also the xover tab on the menu. Notice I can either choose to have my crossovers set for both speakers (L+R) or have crossover settings for each individual speaker (L/R). 

















My only gripe with the xover menu is that when adjusting slopes you have to either ascending or descending order. Meaning let’s say I start at 0db/oct or off. Then go up to 6, 12,18 and stop at 24. Well if I wanted to go back to 12db, I have to go from 24 to 30, back to 24, then to 18 then to 12. I don’t have the choice to go down from 24 to 12 directly. 

*Time Correction*

This is pretty much self explanatory. You can choose here either to separately time align a speaker or time align a set of preouts. Nothing much to say here. 

I do not like the lag time on this. But whatever works. 

*Graphic EQ*

Again here you can either choose to have a 31 band graphic eq. dedicated to each speaker or have a 31band graphic eq dedicated to the “Front” and “Rear.” The subwoofer I believe has a 10 band graphic eq. Overall its not too bad using the graphic eq. but one thing is you need to have to some thin fingers to precisely go through the graphic eq menu. Here’s a pic of the graphic eq:










As you can see there are 31 bands in which in this picture it starts off at 20hz. So the PITA part is what if you want to adjust 2khz. Well you gotta push in the 2khz zone but if you want to keep it at 0db when choosing 2khz, you have to have your finger lie on the flat area. Anywhere else, 2khz will be adjusted either up or down depending on where you push on 2khz. Also as I said you need thin fingers to be precise. If you go for 2khz, sometimes you’ll accidentally press 1.6khz and most likely adjusting that frequency along the way. Then you got to adjust 1.6khz back to normal and then go on choosing 2khz. 










Another way to go to the frequency is to manually go to that frequency via the buttons on the sides, but going from 20hz to 2khz would be a real PITA. 

That’s all for my review right now. If I find anything else worth noting, I’ll definitely let you guys know! Oh btw, if you are considering this combo or the 310, gotta get the pac-tr7 FTW!


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## FoxPro5 (Feb 14, 2006)

Could you post a pic of what the Pac-tr7 looks like for us n00bs please!! Or maybe a link would suffice.

Very nice review Peter! I'm jealous of j00 4real


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## edwelly (Mar 29, 2006)

Along with pics, can you explain what the Pac TR-7 Video bypass actually is/does? Thanks!!!


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## alphakenny1 (Dec 21, 2005)

here's the link to pac tr-7, http://cgi.ebay.com/Pac-TR-7-Alpine...ryZ50552QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem.

basically what is does is that w/o the pac tr-7 you would need to hookup the w200 to your parking brake because you its illegal to run your dvd player while driving . what this does is bypass that parking brake so you are able to watch dvd's while driving and more importantly for me tune while i drive, lol.


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## rcantu (Aug 21, 2005)

is your eq slow to update too? when i click a band or 2 it kinda sits for a bit. also the same with the xover settings but not as slow.


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## alphakenny1 (Dec 21, 2005)

its not as slow as you describe it. sometimes it does, i think i know what you are saying. but i do notice a bit of lag time.


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## dual700 (Mar 6, 2005)

I vote this guy to win the raffle


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## edwelly (Mar 29, 2006)

alphakenny1 said:


> here's the link to pac tr-7, http://cgi.ebay.com/Pac-TR-7-Alpine...ryZ50552QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem.
> 
> basically what is does is that w/o the pac tr-7 you would need to hookup the w200 to your parking brake because you its illegal to run your dvd player while driving . what this does is bypass that parking brake so you are able to watch dvd's while driving and more importantly for me tune while i drive, lol.


thanks!!! On my Eclipse, I just had to ground a wire. It seems as they are getting more difficult on the new ones.


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## ocuriel (Oct 7, 2005)

Great review. I wish I had room for a double din


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## shinjohn (Feb 8, 2006)

alphakenny1 said:


> With some motivation of dang’s offer, I will write my first review on the W200/H701 with the Pac TR-7 Video bypass. Hahaha Shinjohn, beat you to it .


Cool that, Peter. I'll still write one too, adding to your really nice review. Good job on the writeup! 

Funny, when I was tuning, I had to use the tip of my finger nail on the touch screen to get consistent input.... Alpine shoulda made these button areas more user friendly. Oh well, I guess you can't have everything!


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## jay (Sep 12, 2005)

use a stylus


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## CBRworm (Sep 1, 2006)

The more bands you change at once, the longer it takes. Sometimes mine will sit for close to a minute if I 'draw' an EQ curve with my fingertip. 

I am totally happy with my W200/H701 as far as SQ goes. You can do everything through the W200 EXCEPT auto time correction. For that you have to use the C701. It came up with different numbers than what I did using math, but it's probably right.

I wish it had one more set of outputs so I could do rear fill (even though I know it's a bad idea) - but I guess that's what the H900 offers.

One other minor gripe - if you are listening to the radio, you have to change screens to switch between presets, or being able to seek up/down.

The PAC TR-7 allows you to bypass the parking brake/foot brake sequence required normally to access setup features and DVD video.


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## cam2Xrunner (Apr 30, 2005)

Can you use a stylus pen for the touchscreen adjustments? Seems like it would work well for the EQ and keep finger prints off the screen.


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## cam2Xrunner (Apr 30, 2005)

jay said:


> use a stylus


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## alphakenny1 (Dec 21, 2005)

excellent idea guys. i think i got some left over from old pda's .


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## nothing13 (Jul 27, 2005)

Awesome review, thanks for the pics!


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## Spooky (Mar 23, 2006)

I find myself using the arrows to make adjustments. Its less iritating than trying to get the band you want when trying to draw an arc with your finger. The only time there seems to be a delay changing settings is when I acidentally double click the arrow and it adjusts all the way up or all the way down. 

Nice review like the way you did all the pics so people can get an idea of what the interface is like.

I also higly recomend the PAC-TR7 just for ease of hookup. Beats the crap out of tracking down the wires and doing the little dance on the breaks every time you want to make an adjustment. I guess you could do the same thing with a couple of togel switches but it sure is convient for all the functions to work just by hitting the power button on the W200.


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## BlackLac (Aug 8, 2005)

i don't have the w200/h701 combo yet. i was thinking the only thing you couldn't use was the DVD without the bypass(while driving), so there are menu screens you can't use without the bypass either?


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## quality_sound (Dec 25, 2005)

For clarification, the Front 1 output is HP only and the lowest setting is 1KHz? I want torun my midbass active (hell the whole front really) with the mid and tweeter passive and have rear fill (it's a demo car). Maybe I could run the rears off of the W200's rear output....


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## alphakenny1 (Dec 21, 2005)

BlackLac said:


> i don't have the w200/h701 combo yet. i was thinking the only thing you couldn't use was the DVD without the bypass(while driving), so there are menu screens you can't use without the bypass either?


well i read that you couldn't use the h701 w/o the bypass. not too sure on that to be honest. but hey its coo to watch dvd's while you drive  . 



quality_sound said:


> For clarification, the Front 1 output is HP only and the lowest setting is 1KHz? I want torun my midbass active (hell the whole front really) with the mid and tweeter passive and have rear fill (it's a demo car). Maybe I could run the rears off of the W200's rear output....


no the front1 output you can both high pass and low pass anywhere between 1-18khz at 1/6 octave steps.


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## sqkev (Mar 7, 2005)

Question:

so it's 31band graphic EQ PER single output? Any PEQ for the non-sub outputs??


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## Spooky (Mar 23, 2006)

You can't adjust any of the h701's features without the parking brake on or without a bypass.

You can either use the 31 band eq or the parametric EQ (11 band if i tremember right with a q adjustment of .5, 1, 2, 3, 4 ) but not both at the same time. You can adjust these outputs at the same time or individually(L/R or L+R) Front 1, Front 2, Rear, Sub(or sub and center ch if your using surround) the sub eq is limited to 20-120 hz or so.


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## alphakenny1 (Dec 21, 2005)

thanks for the clarification spooky! you the man .

Also its technically not 31 band graphic eq per output. in the main graphic eq menu there are 3 choices: FRONT, REAR, AND SUB. EAch one get's 31 band eq and sub gets 10 band eq i believe.


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## quality_sound (Dec 25, 2005)

alphakenny1 said:


> no the front1 output you can both high pass and low pass anywhere between 1-18khz at 1/6 octave steps.


crap...


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## quality_sound (Dec 25, 2005)

alphakenny1 said:


> thanks for the clarification spooky! you the man .
> 
> Also its technically not 31 band graphic eq per output. in the main graphic eq menu there are 3 choices: FRONT, REAR, AND SUB. EAch one get's 31 band eq and sub gets 10 band eq i believe.


but if you can EQ the left and right side of each pair independantly doesn't that make it a 31 band for each output?


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## CBRworm (Sep 1, 2006)

yes, you can eq each of the 8 outputs individually. also the front defaults to tweeter, but can be set to full range.


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## Hernan (Jul 9, 2006)

quality_sound said:


> but if you can EQ the left and right side of each pair independantly doesn't that make it a 31 band for each output?


My 701 has 31 band GEq or 5 band PEq on the Front, Rear, Center/Sub and Subwoofer outputs. L/R or L+R modes. It does not have independent Eq for Front 1 and Front 2, so you have "only" 31 band for the tweet and midrange adjustment.


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## Omnix (Sep 15, 2006)

Excellent write-up. I really need to get the H701 asap, but I've got a few other issues to deal with first. (See other posts) 

One thing I did, that others thinking about this may want to consider. When I hooked up the PAC-TR7, I wired the switched pos (forget which color) to the lead my factory HU used to dim the display when the headlights are turned on. This lead is tied directly to my headlight switch, so now (if/when I get stopped) I can simply cut off my headlights and voila I'm legal.


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## BlackLac (Aug 8, 2005)

Omnix said:


> Excellent write-up. I really need to get the H701 asap, but I've got a few other issues to deal with first. (See other posts)
> 
> One thing I did, that others thinking about this may want to consider. When I hooked up the PAC-TR7, I wired the switched pos (forget which color) to the lead my factory HU used to dim the display when the headlights are turned on. This lead is tied directly to my headlight switch, so now (if/when I get stopped) I can simply cut off my headlights and voila I'm legal.


that is a great idea. a simple relay switch would prob. work to huh?


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## Spooky (Mar 23, 2006)

Yup my bad Front 1 & 2 are on the same menu


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## alphakenny1 (Dec 21, 2005)

quality_sound said:


> but if you can EQ the left and right side of each pair independantly doesn't that make it a 31 band for each output?


whoops totally missed this question. 

even if you do each side indepedantly the choices are as follows:

FRONT L
FRONT R
REAR L
REAR R
SUB L
SUB R

So to answer your question, NO .


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## sqkev (Mar 7, 2005)

now I understand. thanks for the clarifications.

another question,
how much boosting or cutting is there on the GEQ or PEQ? 15dB up and down at least?


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## Hernan (Jul 9, 2006)

quality_sound said:


> For clarification, the Front 1 output is HP only and the lowest setting is 1KHz? I want torun my midbass active (hell the whole front really) with the mid and tweeter passive and have rear fill (it's a demo car). Maybe I could run the rears off of the W200's rear output....




Front 1 could be configurated as tweeter output (1khz HP limit) or as a standard fullrange output with xo between 20Hz-20khz.


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## Hernan (Jul 9, 2006)

sqkev said:


> Question:
> 
> so it's 31band graphic EQ PER single output? Any PEQ for the non-sub outputs??


Yes but no.

Front 1 and Front 2 are suppossed to be a pair of drives playing complementary frecuencies (TW and woofer), not two fullrange channels.

You have 31 bands right and left for FRONT (Front1+Front2).

The rear output could be configured as a midbass bandpass for a 3 way frontstage or as fullrange rear channels, so you have the fullrange EQ option for it.


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## shinjohn (Feb 8, 2006)

alphakenny1 said:


> whoops totally missed this question.
> 
> even if you do each side indepedantly the choices are as follows:
> 
> ...


Clarification: There's only one sub output.


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## alphakenny1 (Dec 21, 2005)

sqkev said:


> now I understand. thanks for the clarifications.
> 
> another question,
> how much boosting or cutting is there on the GEQ or PEQ? 15dB up and down at least?


in the manual it says 9db. I hope you don't need to boost 15db. 

Also thanks Shinjohn about the clarification. from the manual here are the exact number of bands per output:

Front (left and right) 31 bands
Rear (left and right) 31 bands
Center 31 bands
Sub 10 bands


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## CBRworm (Sep 1, 2006)

The center output can be configured As a Second sub output


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## sqkev (Mar 7, 2005)

P,
15dB of boost would probably fry whatever that I'm using. With my behringer dcx2496 and the deq, I use as much as 12dB to cut something very narrow due to room anamolies. 9dB sounds good though, hopefully I won't need much more than that.


Basically, what I'm getting is: 

-2 sets of front outputs (4 channels) that has full bandpass, TA, either GEQ or PEQ, many filters to choose from.
-1 set of rear output (2 channels) that will do the same as above (full bandpass as above?)
-1 output as center channel that is bascially useless in pro mode
-1 output as sub channel with 10 bands of GEQ or PEQ and I have to split this into 2 channels to fully use my amp. (where is the lowest lowpass crossover point?)

So far correct? (I know it's getting annoying )

It would be nice if the center and sub outputs can be routed as individual left and right sub outputs. But, that's just asking too much from alpine.


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## sqkev (Mar 7, 2005)

CBRworm said:


> The center output can be configured As a Second sub output


Mono as the other subwoofer output? or can they be assigned as individual left/right channels?
That would be great news.


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## alphakenny1 (Dec 21, 2005)

k well i checked my grahpic eq and it does indeed have the following:

front L
front R
rear L
rear R
sub L
sub R


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## Hernan (Jul 9, 2006)

Is there any way of resetting EQ and T/A, preserving Xover points?

Thanks.


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## alphakenny1 (Dec 21, 2005)

Hernan said:


> Is there any way of resetting EQ and T/A, preserving Xover points?
> 
> Thanks.


i don't know for sure but i haven't seen anything that can just reset the eq or t/a and yet preserving xover pts as well. the only thing i can think of is to go to another preset which goes back to the default settings and change the xover pts on that preset.


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## Hernan (Jul 9, 2006)

alphakenny1 said:


> i don't know for sure but i haven't seen anything that can just reset the eq or t/a and yet preserving xover pts as well. the only thing i can think of is to go to another preset which goes back to the default settings and change the xover pts on that preset.


But... what if you have edited the 6 presets and you want to keep some of them?

The defeat mode keeps the xover edits and set all others to default but I could not save this to a memory position with the defeat on. I haven't try it but switching the defeat mode on and off could be the route if it doesn't revert to the last memory used. 

A nice feature that I recently discover, is that you could edit the xover, for example, in the left and right mode and still use the L+R mode later preserving the L to R edits. Nice.


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