Is there a big difference in using 4V Preouts compared to 2V preouts? What are the pros on having 4V perouts, as opposed to 2V preouts.

My Deck broke after 6 months, and Sony sent me this years model as a replacement. The only thing that sucks is the new deck they sent only has 2V preouts, and my old one had 4V ones. It took 6 weeks to get this deck, I don't want to wait another 6 weeks unless the 4V preouts are worth it.

Advise?

 

In everyday terms: usually the 4 volt pre-amp output allows for lower gain setting on an amplifier. This allows the amp to use less pre-amp boost, which in turn allows for cleaner sound if the gains are set correct on the amplifier.

If you don't have Amps that can run with the higher inputs it won't make any difference.

If you have Amps that can use the 4 volt input, and you only drive it/them with 2 volts, you will have to adjust the gain on the amp up, which in theory could increase the noise floor to the car audio system.

The technically difference is different OP amps being used. 4volt are generally cleaner OP Amps, if the driver and power staging is DC to DC.

This was started back in the old days of the ZAPCO system 150 and system 200 amps, where the Zapco amps didn't work well with the standard 2 volt RCA/low level output. Conversely they really didn't work well if you over drove them with the high level 6 volt output either. So they came up with a little pre-amp (an AGM) that allowed the amp's input circuit to be driven correctly. Well about 10 years later, Alpine, Eclipse, Nak, and most of the other High end head unit manufactures got a bug up their butt that it would sound better with 4 volt outputs because car audio competitors were using pre-amps to boost that low level signal up, and therfore lower the noise floor.