Alpine CDE-163BT Advanced Bluetooth CD Receiver

Watch this video to remove Toyota Tacoma dash. [...] This will make it easy. Once dash is removed and old head unit, remove the old brackets screwed into old head unit. Remove the dash sleeve on the Radio for this model. Mount old brackets onto radio. I bought the Metra 88-00-8000 Toyota Lexus Radio Replacement Pocket 1982-2004. Now remove trim plate from radio face. (Small plastic clips top and bottom). I didn't and had to do it later when trying to seat dash back into clips. It wouldn't snap back in with it on. Seat the Metra pocket under head and seat the holders. Screw in with old screws. Take new Metra 70-1761 Radio Wiring Harness For Toyota 87-Up Power 4 Speaker wire harnesses and snap into one that went directly into old unit. Now take the wiring harness from Alpine and make color coded connections using the red butt connectors. Refer to back of owners manual for specifics. Thread microphone to wherever you want. I threaded mine through th dash and placed on steering cover directly in front of me. Plug in antenna, microphone, clean up wires with zip ties or tape, and connect battery. Make sure unit powers up. Disconnect battery. Reinstall radio and dash. Now your rockin'. I'm stoked! Everything works great! Excellent sound and features. Easy to use. Bluetooth connected to iPhone, Pandora, and the clarity of the calls are good. Happy I bought this. Took me 3 hours to install, but would have taken about 2 if I didn't have to fumble around a few small issues with following Metra instructions to secure to the replacement pocket first and having to install the radio twice to remove the head unit/trim cover. No installation instructions from Alpine and the ones from Metra were vague. I hope this helps. Great unit. Quality made in Thailand.. Next best thing to America.

It sounds great, especially the FLAC playback, but it has a poor interface for USB drives. It uses the same interface for both USB drives and MP3 CDs, which makes it very limited in how you can search or browse. Playback and searching (browsing really - there is no alphabetical search for USB) is done in the order the files are stored on the device, which is useless if you have a lot of files and they aren't in order. You can search either by folder name or file name, not artist, album, or song title. On a CD-R, the files are usually burned in order when you create the disc, but not on a FAT filesystem. As a workaround, I downloaded a FAT file sort program, which helps, but I still needed to re-work my music to collapse artist/album/song into artist/album_song as the extra layer of folders just made things worse. This makes it as usable as possible. I regularly used the iPod interface on my 10 year old Alpine and it was wonderful. I never thought about it being the iPod's interface and not the Alpine's, so I expected the USB interface to be similar, not the same old MP3 CD interface from 10 years ago. Apparently, this is not unusual for USB playback in cars, which is why there are FAT file sorting utilities available. Having said all that - this really only affects the USB device part of the device. I have not yet used my iPod with it but the manual seems to suggest it is about the same as my old unit. Bluetooth music through my Android phone works great. I was just wanting to leave a low profile USB thumb drive with most of my music plugged in at all times and not worry about leaving my iPod in the car. Also, my old unit had a rear connection for the iPod cable (and a rear aux-in), so I could route devices from the glovebox, leaving them nicely hidden and locked away. This unit only has a front USB connection and a front aux-in. If the USB feature isn't something you care about or if you're OK with it being somewhat limited, it sounds great (that's why I'm giving it 3 rather than 2 stars). If you're buying it for the USB or FLAC playback, hopefully this helps you make an informed decision.

It's not a pretty touch screen double din unit, but it's got features a few years ago that would command at least three times what this cost and you would have had to buy AI Net accessories to fill the gaps. I am completely amazed with what this unit comes with for the price. The sound quality is great running an Alpine PDX 4.100 and 6 1/2 + tweet Focal speakers. The call quality is just as good on both ends as any modern factory unit if not better. The adjustability for each input is a great idea to have a normalized volume across all inputs, the color combinations for display and buttons are nearly limitless and it can auto dim too. I would buy a second one if I needed it on another car.

Im giving it a four because the foreword and backtrack buttons are too small and close to the volume button. Older models had a better button layout. The other issue is the tune app, just try and get logged in, I'm stuck in a loop and can't get them to send the verification to activate the app--boo. The graphics are much better than any other Alpine I've had, and it's a very nice system. I bought it as it plugs right into their amp. And seriously, I have to buy the remote?

I purchased this head unit for my 2012 Harley Street Glide. I could not be happier. The sound is incredible. The ease of function is very good too. Even the complaints I read about the alpine tune it app were not as bad as made out to be. The blue tooth works flawlessly with no cutting out at all. CD is crystal clear. Pandora work great. The AM/FM is adequate but quite honestly I will never use it anyway. There is also a front port for a USB which can store 1000's o songs. The phone works perfectly. Overall, Alpine is a hit and make superior products.

Used this to replace a new Pioneer headunit that has given me problems. I had an Alpine in a car years ago and remember liking it, and everything online points towards Alpine making great HUs. Noticeably higher quality right out of the box, and was surprised at how much better the sound quality was, I assume it has to do with the 4 volt preamps and better EQ settings. The turn on thump I was getting with the Pioneer is gone now as well, leaving me wishing I had started with this unit to begin with as I've wasted a lot of time and money trying to solve that issue. Overall I love this radio and am extremely glad I purchased.

Unit shuts down randomly and reboots with station memory cleared. This happened while the vehicle was running. I'm using the same harness with another (less expensive) Alpine unit and have no problems. Amazon refunded the whole amount for the unit but only after I found out that the manufacturer warranty didn't cover repair. Beware of buying from sellers that aren't authorized dealers.

This is CDE-163bt 2016 model is an amazing stereo, the successor of CDE-164bt 2015 model. It has improved UI so much easier to navigate. It has all the bells and whistles of the older model and addition it plays Flac formats via USB. I haven't tried this music using Flac format yet but apparently it gives a very much higher quality of music experience . The alpine Tuneit app connects much faster via USB. It has a newer Bluetooth that allows you to connects the newer Bluetooth of S7 smartphone according the crutchfields. Matched with my PDX 4 -600 and PDX- M1200 , I am getting superior sound quality. For those who want the stereo display to dim down at night, in order to avoid messing with the dashboard illumination lead of your car which can damage your computer board if not careful, I suggest you hook up to a permanent +12 volts wire to the illumination wire of your alpine lead via an on / off switch . This way you can dim it with the flip of your switch whenever needed to dim the display . Alpine Tuneit app has a newer versions 3.1 for iPhon users . Thanks for the new updates. i am giving this unit the max stars as for now I am very pleased with this unit. As I play more with this stereo , I will update if there are any issues . Update : SiriusXM acting up due to a bad connection. It is working now . The Bluetooth sounds great with excellent base. The USB connection of iPod plays music apps of iPhone 6s bear in mind this unit is made for idevices. All features like subwoofer sub system 2 boosts up the base and much more. I highly recommend this unit to anyone with superior clarity sound and features for only less than 200 bucks . Update 1: Here is the issue, if you play only a navigation app like Nokia here maps without listening to radios or cd or siriusxm, then the navigation instructions read out correctly. But if you are listening to radios, cd or siriusxm and at the same time using your "nokia here maps" then the beginning navigation instructions gets cut off and you here only the second part of instructions and on the screen it shows unknown number. I was hoping to get a firmware update on this unit but I couldn't find the particular model firmware update. I spoke to the alpine tech and he said is the iPhone and not their unit which seems odd. I am now giving it only 3 stars for this issue. Update 2 : I just updated the firmware to 1.6 and the issue of voice guidance of navigating maps like Nokia Here maps is still cutting out when I listen to music of SiriusXM still exits on my latest iphone with IOS 12. This is still a great unit with lots of customizations and great sound but this deck can’t seem to solve this issue. Bear in mind the voice navigation is perfect if you don’t listen to any music simultaneously.