8 volt HU

[Looney_Tune 10+ year member]

What reasonable priced HU(if any) are there that will give me an output of 8 volts to an external amp?

I want to be able to crank my gain.

THANKS

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[bonesninja 5,000+ posts]

eclipse has 8V sub-outs i beleive.

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

I want to be able to crank my gain.

By "crank" I assume you mean crank it way down?

Eclispse, as mentioned. Pioneer has some units that are 6.5V

 

[supa_c 5,000+ posts]

I want to be able to crank my gain.

What ?1. why would you do such a stupid thing

2. the higher the preout voltage the lower the gain you need

 

[DBfan187 5,000+ posts]

You don't really need a hi preout voltage. Just look for HU's with low impedance outputs.

 

[Looney_Tune 10+ year member]

?

I thought you were suppose to match the gain with the ouput voltage the HU puts out. So I figured if I were to buy a HU that has a 8v sub out I would be able to set the gain to 8V.

BTW, I really dont know much, just a little more than the basics.

 

[reed8857 10+ year member]

Go check out the gain setting tutorial

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

?
I thought you were suppose to match the gain with the ouput voltage the HU puts out. So I figured if I were to buy a HU that has a 8v sub out I would be able to set the gain to 8V.

Yes, it allows you to turn your gain down (setting your gain to 8V is actually turning it down, not up). But, the one of the main advantages to this is reduce possibility for noise from the amp. If your amp has no noise issues at 4V, then 8V isn't going to sound any different. It's also supposed to help reduce the chance for induced noise when being transferred via the RCA wire. But again, if you have no noise with a lower voltage HU, then you aren't going to notice a difference.

 

[Looney_Tune 10+ year member]

ok, makes sense

learned something new. LOL

THANKS

 

[soundfx2 10+ year member]

i did a test with a alpine head unit and a rockford head unit. I did the test about a yr ago so i dont remember what model alpine it was but it was 4v and the rockford was 5v. I put in a test cd and at about 1/2 volume on the alpine it was giving out 5% distortion, at about 1.5v. The rockford head unit went all the way up to 5v with less than 3% distortion. So there is alot more to a head unit then how strong its signal is.

 

[LIGHTBEING 10+ year member]

So with my Kenwood HU(2 volts) I'll have to crank my gains almost all the way up? Is this not good for the amp? I believe I can get some processor for my unit and it would make the output 4 volts. Is that something I should look into?

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

Higher gain = more chance of the amp having noise

 

[maylar 10+ year member]

IMO preout voltage is highly overrated. There are plenty of SQ systems out there with 2V preouts. It's worth getting higher outputs if you're buying a new HU, mostly because other specs also improve with upper end models. But using a line booster is a waste unless you're experiencing hiss from the amp. Anything you add inline adds to distortion.