How important is preamp voltage?

[osmith 10+ year member]

I am in search of a head unit but I cannot seem to find one with everything I want lol. one of the closest ones seemed great, but the preamp voltage was lower. How important is that?

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[Sarthos 10+ year member]

It's not extremely important, it's dependent on the quality of the headunit. I'm pretty sure a 2 volt Alpine pre-out is still better than a 32 volt Boss pre-out. Higher voltage pre-outs can help with noise rejection. Which, in turn, can help prevent some subtleties from being lost.

 

[osmith 10+ year member]

Ok, the alpine I was looking at had just about everything i wanted, but it was the one that had the 2v pre out...but it has still came closer to perfect than any others thats why i was curious

 

[Sarthos 10+ year member]

Alpine might work, but I already see a problem with the Alpine unit...It's an Alpine

 

[osmith 10+ year member]

Haha, so what would you suggest if not Alpine?

 

[benzmansl65amg 10+ year member]

Kenwood excelon x794 for $200

 

[osmith 10+ year member]

I guess I should have stated that Im looking for one which is a dvd player as well, haha. Also with a WVGA resolution.

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

I guess I should have stated that Im looking for one which is a dvd player as well, haha. Also with a WVGA resolution.

AFAIK there is no DVD player that has >2V pre outs. Personally I use the last model Jensens since they have 5.1 surround.

Most amps perform fine off a 2V signal, if not buy a line driver/pre-amp (I used to run one for my sub amp...28$ PG from sonicelectronics...worked fine) and I have always had strong suspicions that the pre out voltage numbers aren't always terribly accurate on HUs anyway.

 

[osmith 10+ year member]

A pioneer and Eclipse both have 5v preouts, and they are both dvd players

 

[xoutofmyheadx 10+ year member]

nothing wrong with alpine. one of the best hu's made out there.

 

[ricoshay 10+ year member]

some jvc double dins have higher voltage pre-outs...and detachable face

 

[osmith 10+ year member]

Are the jvc's decent units?

 

[xoutofmyheadx 10+ year member]

i use to run jvc alot long long ago. i liked em alot. eventually went back to alpine and could tell a difference. you shouldn't be dissapointed with a jvc. pretty good, and they are cheaper.

 

[PowerBomb]

I'm currently running a JVC AVX-820. Picked it up last year because I wanted 4+ volt pre-outs, blue tooth, and title/artist/song displayed for Sirius. After some research, my only real option was a large screen (DVD player or Nav unit). Because I travel a lot and my car ends up at various airports and other unattended areas for days at a time, detachable face was a must.

Turns out that JVC was my only option at the time, and it turned out to be a pretty good one. No, it isn't a high end SQ deck, but it sure as heck is a fine "daily driver" deck. Pre-out voltage is good (5v I believe), the display looks good, and the fact that blue tooth and iPod control was built in vs. an external boxes made install much easier.

I'm pretty sure the 820 is gonna be hard to find, but the 830 is $475ish and well worth it.

 

[Sarthos 10+ year member]

I'm about to drop in an Eclipse single DIN flip-out with 8v pre-outs.

And nothing's particularly wrong with Alpine, but with the ones I've seen and used, they pretty much all have the same features until you get their top of the line model. That and after getting used to my Eclipse, I couldn't stand my old Alpine when it went back in. But generally I'd say Pioneer is better than Alpine, so long as you don't blow the Pico fuse, Alpine is generally around the same as Kenwood or JVC, all of which are way better than Boss and the like, but a few brands like Eclipse just stand out above Alpine.

Your whole setup matters though when picking a headunit. I've found high voltage pre-outs to be more helpful to mids/highs than to subs. If you're running your mids/highs off the headunit's internal amplifier, I wouldn't worry about high volt pre-outs