Originally posted by SVT Colin:
Hi-volt pre-outs are primarily for eliminating noise from the system with a "stronger" signal with less noise making it to the amp (higher S/N ratio).
I don't believe it has any effect on the amp's life or its heat dissipation. Those are traits inherent to the amp. It'll amplify noise just as well as it will amplify the signal. It doesn't know the difference.
I agree that they eliminate noise (see previous post), but they also give more headroom...thus the gain settings...setting the amp's gain at 1.8V with a 5V pre-out would waste most of the amp's available power...
KnuKoncepts explained this very well in a thread a couple weeks ago...pretty much the amp will be running at full power when the input voltage and gain settings match...if they are different, your amp is gonna be off kilter..(Gawd, I love the phrase "off-kilter") :p
