Well I'm gettin ready to hook up a 4 channel amp in my car so i can get some mids and highs finally, and I need a new head unit with more pre-outs. Any suggestions on a good unit? I dont need any special features, just an iPod hookup where i can control it from the ipod, cd player, and radio.
and also, I know there are different pre-out voltages on different head units but I have no idea what this means, or how much voltage i want. can someone fill me in on this? how much pre-out voltage do i want?
Most higher end HUs have 3 sets of pre-outs (one set for subwoofers and 2 sets for front and rear speakers when using the internal 2 way crossover), as for the pre-out voltages the higher the better, so, more expensive units will have higher voltages.. Few high end HUs have 3 way (or more) integrated crossover for very much improved audio quality.
I have an Alpine CDA-105 and I love it. They are probably even cheaper now that Alpine has been coming out with new models. It does however only have 2V preamp outputs, but there are 3 of them. I think most of the Pioneer head units with 3 preamp outputs are 4V though...
Check out http://www.glasswolf.net/papers/index.html. I'm sure Glasswolf has something in their somewhere explaining preamp output voltages and why they are important if you want to know more...