I have an Alpine 9833 with the Alpine iPod interface. Despite popular controversy, I personally like it. I have a 20gb 4G iPod and it works like a charm. Ive used the FM modulator in the X, sounded like crap. My X didnt have a cassette player so I couldnt use the cassette adapter, but I had an Acura RSX-S and I used the cassette adapter in there, and it suffered from a grounding problem and consequently made the sound horrible. I only feel the decent in-car solution is a direct connection (ie. AUX cable). Although, I have been in a few friends cars who have a cassette adapter and they sound similiar.