First of all - excellent notes on Chiark's web page. But I'd appreciate some clarification to do with amps....

If a head unit is marked as having ONE preout, does this mean it has one channel of left and right signal which can go into a pre-amp from which one set of speakers are attached, or is a one channel pre-out designed primarily for a sub?

Similarly if it has 2 or even 3 channel pre-outs?

Also does 'pre-out' mean it's designed to feed a pre-amplifier or has the signal already been pre-amplified and is designed to go to a power amplifier.

Finally - if the signal from the head unit is at line level, how is the volume controlled - or does the volume on the head unit also control the strength of the line out?

Might sound basic or even stupid questions but there you go.

Cheers

Ian

 

It means you have 1 x channel to amplify...as many times as you want. But you would lose the head units control of front/rear fader control. Then you have the output voltage to think about....

If its 1.5 volt per channel and you use a splitter for running 2 amps then this will drop to 0.75 volts.

Dont worry you can build a whole system from 1 x stereo channel output. The signal is pre amped.