bestbang4thebuck

My goal here is trying to have as much gain as possible at the early signal stage to maintain the best signal to noise ratio without raising too much gain at the amplifier stage.

A strong signal level will be prominently above the noise floor. A weak signal level may be partly buried in the noise floor. You can try this by lowering the gain at pre-amp and raise the gain on the amplifier and you'll notice how weak the sound is and how much noise you'll get. I don't know about outlaw's amp because they didn't seem to have gain control on them, but I can basically tell you that's the way it works.

A strong signal sent into the power amp won't require as much gain in the amp, meaning I can turn the gain controls down on the amplifier and still be able to reach full power with more headroom. A weak signal will require a lot of gain in the amp, so in addition to boosting the signal a lot at the amplifier stage rather than pre stage, I will be boosting the noise just as much, and I will be more likely to hear hum, buzz, and hiss or perhaps weak sound. I hope you understand what I am trying to say.

Paul

I was refering to either one of them, but I wasn't really sure.

For example, listening to some CD. Although I set the gain on the equalizer at 0db position, but when there is a large scale of orchestra or big drum bass or when rock' n 'roll band starting to get crazy that kind of heavy signal. The signal would always suddenly jump from 0db position to +9db or +10db position; sometimes even hit +16db on the signal indicator and getting louder and louder. Why is that? This happens on some disks. Especially for movie sountracks, rock music, and some big chorus music. But, is not the case for some older recording.

Is there any formula to convert between db to volt and dbv to dbu?

For example, ? db = ? volt like that.

Thanks




[This message has been edited by theendofday (edited April 13, 2004).]