My 7878 has a set of features that make it the best damn head unit (aside from the empeg) that I have ever used. I've had MANY. What it does not have is a 20 band eq i know but it does have a 7 band eq combined with a Digital Harmonics Enhancer that even this years models do not have. Alpine dropped DHE and the F1 CD tranport from this years 7998 flagship model to keep the cost of the 7998 lower and tossed in the new Media Xpander and fancy-shmancy face as a consolation prize. DHE has 5 modes - Bass Mode 1, 2, 3, Vocal Mode, and All Mode that can be comibined with custom or pre-defined eq settings. It does not sound like much to you but it is the 1st stereo system I HAVE EVER had that can make virtually ANY kind of music/song sound great - and all in just a few button presses. I can also have 6 presets with custom settings I can implement within seconds (ie. Bass mode 2 + Rock eq on preset button 1 or Vocal + Cusom eq on preset button 2). The only thing I'd want that the 7998 has is the new freeky Bio-Lite display with dual-illuminated buttons.

I'm going to keep on going and mention digital time correction, black-out display (tre-cool), Customized Sound Database, Built in crossover, Subwoofer level control, and I can go on forever. No one will ever convince me all I need is an empeg...my ears do the believing. It is also the ONLY CD/MP3 player that instantly skips to the next song with no 3-second delay that mp3 CD players are plagued by. It has a high-end CD transport only found in the 7878 and $6000.00 7990 F1 mega flagship unit that dosn't play mp3s.

Whew, got that off my chest sum good...