Line Driver. Worth it?

[Face of Fear 10+ year member]

I've been told a line driver will make my system better in Db Drag comps. I have a incriminator audio warden 12, soundstream xxx4k amp, and an eclipse cd2000 deck.

Would a line driver really do much for me at all? If so what would you recomend?

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[Stryker 10+ year member]

yes it will help. It's not gonna provide magical increases that aren't there but it will provide a much cleaner signal to your amps, thus letting you get the utmost from them in terms of power output. That being said all the necessary no-brainer electrical upgrades need to be done of course. I find almost always that any given part in the chain will help in combination with other upgrades, not as a single unit.

Anything that provides 8volts to your amps. Phoenix Gold LD can be had on eturd for less than a hun. Audiocontrol, there are a few other's.

my Phoenix Ggold EQ has a built in LD. You must mount the LD as close as possible to your HU for it to have the greatest effect.

 

[d77543020 10+ year member]

nice pg line drivers on ebay for 33 dollars

 

[Face of Fear 10+ year member]

Ok. I have a few upgrades that i still need to do, but i was just curious about it.

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

Your deck already has 5v preouts, a line driver wont make any significant improvement. A higher signal voltage does NOT increase output or amplifier efficiency, since you would merely have to adjust your gains down to accommodate the new higher signal voltage.

So what does a higher signal voltage do you ask? It helps reject noise. Actually not reject it, mask it. Lets say you have noise being introduced into your signal chain somewhere (measured in volts). Your deck has a 2v signal, but you also have a line driver with an 8v signal. You've now just increased from 2v signal to 8v, increasing the difference between the noise and the true signal by 6volts. That's all a higher signal voltage does, increase the gap between your signal level, and the noise floor. That's it, nothing else.

So knowing this, do you have a noise problem? If you do, Id suggest attacking the problem directly, not trying to mask it with ever increasing signal strength, as your amp can only take so much. Furthermore, if you have a noise problem that can overcome a 5v signal, the noise problem is pretty severe, and should be fixed anyway. The point Im getting at is, for the vast majority of the time, someone using a 5v deck should never require a line driver.

Ever wonder why line drivers use to be so much more popular than they are these days? because back then, decks were coming out with 1/2v siganls, not 5-8v like today's h/u's. The high signal strength of most decent decks today has rendered line drivers all but obsolete.

yes it will help. It's not gonna provide magical increases that aren't there but it will provide a much cleaner signal to your amps, thus letting you get the utmost from them in terms of power output.

I disagree, as I stated above.

 

[Face of Fear 10+ year member]

So all you recomend is stick with my eclipse deck and just work with what I have?

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

So all you recomend is stick with my eclipse deck and just work with what I have?

Yep. I recommend that if you dont have a noise problem, dont buy something to fix it.

 

[Maglite 10+ year member]

Yep. I recommend that if you dont have a noise problem, dont buy something to fix it.

Sound advise

 

[Stryker 10+ year member]

I stand corrected......although if you don't have to turn your gain up very high does this not mean that the amp can run cooler thus meaning it will last longer and run stronger than if it was hot? Being that heat is the enemy of all electronics?

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

I stand corrected......although if you don't have to turn your gain up very high does this not mean that the amp can run cooler thus meaning it will last longer and run stronger than if it was hot? Being that heat is the enemy of all electronics?

No, the gain setting is not the sole determining factor in how hard the amplifier is worked.

 

[mossberg385t 10+ year member]

audio control is a solid option " bullet proof audio"

 

[BassAddictJ 5,000+ posts]

i personally like them. if you have a 5v deck then there wont be much audible difference, but its nice having a solid 8v. in my experience my amps tend to run a little cooler through the abuse with a strong signal and the gains a little lower. i agree that a drastic difference would be noticed goinf from 1v to 8v. I went from 8v back down to 5v and i felt like i could hear a differance after bumping the gains up. The pg is a solid buy for 30 ish bucks. if you're going to spend any more then find a nice old school one off craigslist for like 40 a 50 bucks.

 

[BassAddictJ 5,000+ posts]

Crossfire CX23L 3 way crossover

get that and save towards going 3 way active. a 3 way set with a strong signal will sound good off nearly any amp.

plus 3 way is the shizNYTE

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

i personally like them. if you have a 5v deck then there wont be much audible difference, but its nice having a solid 8v. in my experience my amps tend to run a little cooler through the abuse with a strong signal and the gains a little lower. i agree that a drastic difference would be noticed goinf from 1v to 8v. I went from 8v back down to 5v and i felt like i could hear a differance after bumping the gains up. The pg is a solid buy for 30 ish bucks. if you're going to spend any more then find a nice old school one off craigslist for like 40 a 50 bucks.

Adjusting the gain higher doesn't make an amplifier 'work' any harder. I explained this recently in another thread. All adjusting the gain does is alter the sensitivity of the amplifier's input stage. If you lower your signal voltage, and raise the input sensitivity (gain knob) to adjust for the difference, the output stage of the amplifier will not even realize any change occurred... operating parameters would remain identical.

You probably heard a loss in SQ because you expected to. Or, who knows, maybe you didn't dial the gain in just right after altering signal strength. Id add a third option of perhaps the difference in signal strength made an induced noise problem audible that previously wasn't, but it would take one hell of a noise problem to be heard with a 5 volt signal (when h/u is at full volume of course). Again, there's a good reason you dont see line drivers much any more, these new decks with 4-8v of signal strength just dont need it. Hell, Alpine has gone back to only 2volt decks, because even that takes a significant noise problem to make audible.

 

[Haunz 10+ year member]

In the case of db drag it may be benificial to be able to overdrive your inputs as much as possible...

For the price of a line driver I'd suggest trying one out and see if it improves your score...