Thread: Sound quality issues when amplified?

There are a few factors to consider when playing sound from a computer directly into your amps.

Make sure everything is properly grounded and grounded to a single point in the car. This will eliminate feedback and alternator whine. Be sure to run a ground from the case of the power supply (or computer case) to the same grounding point. The inverter (if you use one) should also have a wire run from it's casing to that same ground.

As for sound quality, you will need to play around with the gain settings on your amplifier as well as the EQ gain in winamp. Put the graphic spectrum analyzer in the "fire" mode and watch the peak of the signal through the sound spectrum. If it it peaking at the top of the graph, you need to lower the gain (leftmost slider in the EQ - be sure EQ is set to "on") until the signal does not peak in the graph. This may vary from song to song depending on the encoding used so be sure to watch it as you go from song to song.

Once you have that set, you need to adjust your gain settings on the amplifiers to achieve the best possible sound. Best place to start is at the halfway point of the potentiometers setting. Crank the music up and listen for distortion. If you hear audible distortion, turn the gain down a little and increase volume at the source (winamp) to listen for distortion at the same volume level.

Hey, Ashley Powers finally joined, sweet.
Yeah, I had a SB16, and it sucked heiny.
I got a PCI 512 for Xmas (basically a Live, uses same chip, but not all the bundled crap and screwy drivers.).
I can now turn my amp up full blast with no problems, before at about 1/3 way, it staticed bad.

Is going through an amp (4 channel) better than going through aux. input? Im going through Aux. input right now and i have a SB Live! soundcard. If it is better, is it worth shelling out the money for the difference of sound quality?

Originally posted by RaZor:
<STRONG>Is going through an amp (4 channel) better than going through aux. input? Im going through Aux. input right now and i have a SB Live! soundcard. If it is better, is it worth shelling out the money for the difference of sound quality?</STRONG>

that all depends on the quality of your head unit which your running the aux input. i assume that the head unit plays a bit with the aux input, even if just for the bass/treble settings of the headunit.

i guess give it a shot, the sound card direct to the amp will always be better, since its a shorter path, the question to whether it is noticable is another matter all together.