Imho
Alpines: Someone is bound to throw the name out there just because lots of people are still big fans of the name.
Their head units have some of the best user controls on the market. If you want a good, reliable, simple to use head unit for a basic setup without any fiddling, go for it. And I felt the IPOD controls on my Alpines were first rate. If you want decent built-in tuning features and equalizaton without getting separate equalizers or sound processors, you are out of luck. You must pay extra money for IMPRINT or else purchase the top of the line 9887. Their older discontinued models are fantastic and can still be found for a bargain if you shop around. Their new stuff is largely crap.
Most of the rest of the head units in their line below the 9887 offer a 2 band graphic equalizer (glorified bass and treble boosts) and not much else except the Alpine name. I dislike Alpines nowadays for this main reason: other manufacturers give you a better choice of a variety of different head units with useful built-in SQ functions. As far as I can tell, most Alpines below the CD 9887 are pretty much the same, and devoid of useful sound-quality related tuning capability. Even though they offer a whole range of different models, their head unit lineup almost seems designed and engineered to force you to choose IMPRINT or the 9887 if you want to go to the next level.
I am a bigger fan of Pioneers and Eclipses. You can stay in the 'chain store' price range and still get a bit more for the money than you get with Alpines.
Depending on what you want to pay you can get 3, 5, or 7-plus band equalizers among other things that you won't get in an Alpine without paying top dollar.
Crutchfield has all the information you'd probably need about all the different head units in either manufacturer's lineup. My pioneer retails for over 400 dollars so I won't bore you with it if you don't really want to know, but depending on what you're looking for they have cheaper models that still offer more value than comparable Alpines.