One of the reasons I bought an Eclipse deck was that it offerred 8 volt preouts and I wanted to get the cleanest signal possible.

I've since noticed that most amps I've been looking at have input voltages variable between 0.2-5 volts.

In order to take advantage of the stronger output signal from my deck do I need to stick with amps that accept up to 8 volts? What are the benefits of this?

Cheers!

Bigger signal = bigger volume at a lower level...

__________________
Alpine 9856 Deck .
Clarion EQ.
Fusion 6.5" Door Components.
Fusion PowerPlant 4 Channel.
Blaupunkt 6x9's.
Powerbass 2400D running at 0.5 ohms.
4 MAW-15s in an 8.5cu/ft box @ 32hz wired to half ohm.
2 Fusion 1 Farad Capacitors.
4 runs 4AWG powers and grounds.

^^^Agreed, but why then do the amps say 5vmax, or 2.6v max. My buddy has this same issue right now and I was going to ask the same question.

Don't know what you're talking about, my current HU (Alpine 9856, 5v out) works fine with my Powerbass 2400D, and I have never seen this "voltage max" this on any amp... It might mean 5v max signal from the amp to subs, as in on you're gain knob.

__________________
Alpine 9856 Deck .
Clarion EQ.
Fusion 6.5" Door Components.
Fusion PowerPlant 4 Channel.
Blaupunkt 6x9's.
Powerbass 2400D running at 0.5 ohms.
4 MAW-15s in an 8.5cu/ft box @ 32hz wired to half ohm.
2 Fusion 1 Farad Capacitors.
4 runs 4AWG powers and grounds.

my buddies amp is a little rtp202 with a MAX input level of 2.5V, and his deck 9885 puts out 4V. Now this amp is running a 12" pioneer, and it sounds like ass. I told him to try another amp cuz he wants to keep the small sealed box its in. But what i'm not completely sure of is the 4v going to 2.5v max

No, it sounds like shit because of bad amp/bad box.

__________________
Alpine 9856 Deck .
Clarion EQ.
Fusion 6.5" Door Components.
Fusion PowerPlant 4 Channel.
Blaupunkt 6x9's.
Powerbass 2400D running at 0.5 ohms.
4 MAW-15s in an 8.5cu/ft box @ 32hz wired to half ohm.
2 Fusion 1 Farad Capacitors.
4 runs 4AWG powers and grounds.

^^^ What he said about crappy box/sub.

You have to set the amp gains correctly with high voltage decks.

eg. With 8 volt deck is very easy. Even if amp's maximum input voltage is 8 volts, the gain should be at the minimum. Sorta 8 minus 8.

eg. With 4 volt deck, and 5 volt max input on amp, you could set the gain at 1/5 Sorta 5 minus 4.

If you think you want more juice out of the amp still, consider getting a bigger amp, not setting gains higher.

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FOR SALE: ^^^subs(1.33 ohms) in custom wedged box(1" front MDF) + acoustic wool inside. $450 No offers. Amazing, mint, but too much weight for my lowered car.

Yeah again I agree because you have a higher or equal input voltage accepted by the amp, but what happenes when the input voltage is higher then the allowable input of the amp?? It says max for a reason.

So then if I understand correctly an 8 volt signal will require me to turn up the gain less on my amp then a smaller signal to produce the same output.

For instance I would have to turn up the gain to 4 on the amp using a 2 volt signal to match the output of an 8volt signal with the gain set at 0.

Does less gain equal better sound?

Again, thanks for the help.

Exactly. And just because an amp may say 2.5v max that does not mean you can't feed it more input signal, just that once the input signal reaches 2.5volts, with the gain set to 2.5v, the amplifier will output full power. Remember also that your deck is like your amp - it does not put out that 8v or 4v or whatever all the time so you can get perfectly acceptable results from a system with higher preamp voltage than amp input voltage.

It is unfortunate that in car audio a set standard for preout voltages has not been established like it has in home audio.

The benefit of higher preout voltage is noise rejection.

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