Thread: Best PC/Amp settings - please help!

Hi all,

I need a bit of advice.
I've got a power amp that that my car pc plugs into - and I need to get the volumes set up correctly.

Originally the amp was up at quite a high gain, and the pc was set very low on the wave and master volumes. This was fine, but the pop when turning on and off the PC was nasty, and you could slightly hear the noise of things like the break lights, etc. as the amp was cranked up loud enough to amplify these small sounds.

So, I turned the gain on the amp right down, set the master volume to be adjustable in Frodoplayer, and set the wave volume to about 40%.
This stopped the pop's and other problems with the amp being up so loud, but introduced slight distortion into the high frequencies from the tweeters.

I then notched the wave volume down to about 10% and the distortion appears to be gone.

My question is (after all that) - what is the optimal setting to ensure no clipping on the amp or on the preamp(sound card)
Should the amp be set higher and the wave/master adjusted together, or the wave high/master low, etc?

I'm no expert on amps, etc. hence the question.
You help is appreciated! :-)