Alpine CDA-7939 (circa 1995)
Surviving information on the Alpine CDA-7939 is thin. There are no factory specs, no manual extracts, and almost no online presence. What little exists comes from a single Audio magazine review (August 1995, pp.40-45) and a brief, nearly unreadable notice in HiFI-Stereo (May 1995, p.79). The CDA-7939 appears to have been a CD receiver. Its tuner section got fairly close scrutiny in Audio's lab and a listening test.
The review said the CDA-7939's FM sound struck the reviewer as “more open and extended in the highs” than a reference unit. Part of that comes from a measured 5-kHz boost that Audio's engineer (Edward J. Foster) flagged in his bench data. Foster also measured some odd distortion behavior, but the reviewer could not hear it on music. The display sits on the far right, which puts all the controls close to the driver, a layout the reviewer found convenient. An optional Alpine Audio Processor could be added, but engaging it disabled the unit's built-in loudness function. The CDA-7939 also had an optical digital output for use with an external processor, and the tuner could switch to mono manually via the FUNC button.
Audio’s measured FM tuner performance:
- Mono sensitivity (IHF usable): 13.0 dBf
- 50-dB quieting: 16.9 dBf
- Adjacent-channel selectivity: 32.0 dB
- Dynamic range (A-weighted): 96.9 dB
- Alternate-channel rejection (21.4 MHz offset): Not impressive, but the reviewer noted these conditions rarely occur.
The AM tuner was described as uninspiring and not very sensitive, and reception in difficult conditions was merely acceptable. The review's listening panel found the FM sound more natural than a competing Pioneer unit. No production years, original price or power output figures have surfaced.
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