How important is preamp voltage?

[VWBobby 10+ year member]

Preamp voltage is somewhat important if you're running long RCAs from the front to the back of your install. If you have 12-foot+ RCA's, I would like something more than 2V pre-outs to prevent too much voltage drop. The more you have to turn up the gain on your amps, the more chance of noise being introduced, hence the higher pre-out voltage. A line driver accomplishes the same thing, as mentioned in the post above.

Kenwood and Pioneer both have the best options I've found for less than $600 in DVD. After that point, you can get into some of the more higher quality units with more features.

JVC has a lot of bang for the buck, along with Kenwood but be sure to look for a unit with a good EQ if you need one. A lot of them only have preset EQ's with "rock", "rap", etc instead of a real EQ.

 

[Wingman0121 10+ year member]

Wasn't there some older Rockford headunits that has over 10v of preamp output?

 

[whitedragon551 5,000+ posts]

Didnt someone just make a topic about preout voltage?

It doesnt mean jack shit

http://www.caraudio.com/forums/wiring-electrical-installation-help/490485-my-pre-out-voltage-predicament-what%92s-your-$0-02-a.html

Wasn't there some older Rockford headunits that has over 10v of preamp output?

There is an Eclipse HU thats capable of 16v preouts.

 

[Sarthos 10+ year member]

The problem with all of this is that the ONLY way to know for sure would be to have two headunits that are identical in every way including the pre-amp stage, but have different pre-amp outputs... because this is a contradiction, there's no real way to know for sure. It'll help a bit with noise rejection is the main thing, but unless you listen to music real quietly you won't notice such a small amount or rejection.

 

[osmith 10+ year member]

Thanks a lot. All of this has been a big help. I was looking at Eclipse, but the screen resolution wasn't high enough on them for me. The alpine ina-w900 is the one im looking at and as far as i can tell the only thing it didnt have that i was interested in was the high voltage preouts. It even has an LED backlit screen which makes a huge difference, at least in tvs it does.

 

[Sarthos 10+ year member]

If you want the BEST in SQ and resolution, you'd need to run two separate units, one for sound and one for video.

 

[osmith 10+ year member]

Ok, if I ran two units what would your suggestions be? Would my video unit be A/V or would it be a strictly video unit?

 

[Sarthos 10+ year member]

strictly video IF you did that. But it's just so much easier to run one decent unit.

 

[osmith 10+ year member]

Haha, it's too late, you've already got my wheels turning on how to put a 15in screen in there.

 

[Sarthos 10+ year member]

In that case you would use a 15" flip-down screen

An in-dash CD player/tuner for better SQ

and a separate in-dash DVD player to connect to the screen.

Use the CD player/tuner for music and such

Use an aux input to connect the DVD player to your CD player if you listen to movies

 

[osmith 10+ year member]

What about fiberglassing the screen into the dash?