In 2015, there are new processing needs. First: Most new cars have head units that are tied into the cars navigation, Bluetooth, driver information and even engine control systems. Unfortunately the sound systems are poor at best. Car makers invested only enough in the sound to make it “acceptable” so people would “accept” being forced to have it their dash. Really? Is “acceptable” all you want? If you love music… If you want live sound in your car, that factory system is absolutely not acceptable. So how do you get the signal out of the factory head so you can put in real amps and speakers without resorting to passive LOC that take away the bass and just make bad sound…louder?
Second: In the 90’s, any decent deck had 4 volts of preamp output. Some had 8V and some even had 12V. Now, even the best units have only 4V RMS and most are barely 2V. What does this mean to you? a. You have less signal going down your RCA cables so you need to gain your amp up and then your system has more background hiss. b. A bigger tragedy is that you are compressing the dynamic range of the music. You lose the difference be-tween the quiet and the loud and the music sounds “canned”. It all just sounds wrong. It doesn’t sound live! Who uses dynamic compression to sound loud? Television commercials, that’s who! And who want’s to sound like that ? So, how do you get back the dynamic range and the high signal to noise ratio?
Zapco Line Driver Preamps
Zapco line driver preamps are unmatched for audio performance. These line drivers are built with the same audiophile grade Elna Silmic RFS caps and same OP275 op-amps as our new Z-Series LE/LX amplifiers. They also use the same custom built, tight tolerance pots for noise free, distortion free performance. The high level input sections of these units are in their own circuits with their own op-amps so nothing will de-tract from the sound and the musicality of the line drivers. What’s that mean to you? If you’re a serious audio tweak, it means they will give you the cleanest and purest sound you can get in a production line driver. If you are upgrading a factory system, it means that after your signal is converted to preamp level, it’s going to go through the best sounding line driver around, so you get the best and purest sound you can get.
