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<blockquote data-quote="maylar" data-source="post: 8137601" data-attributes="member: 541144">Bolded statements above are simply not true. But they&#039;re very common beliefs in car audio. There are also people who think that higher gain setting makes your amp &#039;work harder&#039; and run hotter.This is true. But for a typical install you&#039;d never hear the difference. The noises we typically deal with are nasty things like engine ignition noises and alternator whine which are unacceptable at ANY level. Those things need to be addressed at the source.The OP is inquiring about mid priced mass market HU models. My advice is don&#039;t make the choice just on preout voltage. If he was building an SQ comp vehicle my advice would be different. Note that a lot of Alpine&#039;s HU&#039;s still have 2V preouts.The only issue I&#039;ve ever had with low preouts is that with volume at 80% (unclipped), sub level at 80% (for headroom on the fly) and a -5dB source I couldn&#039;t reach full power on the amp even at full gain. Having 4V would help for that. So would having an amp that had more gain.As we&#039;ve said, there are major differences in HU performance but it&#039;s not all about preout voltage.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="maylar, post: 8137601, member: 541144"] Bolded statements above are simply not true. But they're very common beliefs in car audio. There are also people who think that higher gain setting makes your amp 'work harder' and run hotter. This is true. But for a typical install you'd never hear the difference. The noises we typically deal with are nasty things like engine ignition noises and alternator whine which are unacceptable at ANY level. Those things need to be addressed at the source. The OP is inquiring about mid priced mass market HU models. My advice is don't make the choice just on preout voltage. If he was building an SQ comp vehicle my advice would be different. Note that a lot of Alpine's HU's still have 2V preouts. The only issue I've ever had with low preouts is that with volume at 80% (unclipped), sub level at 80% (for headroom on the fly) and a -5dB source I couldn't reach full power on the amp even at full gain. Having 4V would help for that. So would having an amp that had more gain. As we've said, there are major differences in HU performance but it's not all about preout voltage. [/QUOTE]

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