Hidden volume output in after market head units

Thought I would pass on a secret most new head units have hidden away but that is very beneficial.

I bought a kenwood excelon head unit years back. Had strong amplifiers but lacked volume I was looking for. Granted I had an early version of the minidsp which had low output voltage but I knew something wasn’t right.

got to poking around in the settings and found Volume Offset buried in a settings tab. Adjusted it to about +6 and had all the output I wanted.

many folks don’t know this is even available in most new headunits.

now I go in and set it to about +6 for my source unit (Bluetooth streaming) and all the volume I can stand. My thought is that it actually raises the output voltage of the rca output. It’s also a way to lower the gains on the amplifiers to keep out unwanted engine whine or other noises.

you can set every input source independently as well including phone call output if your having a hard time hearing and turning up your phone doesn’t get loud enough.

just a public service announcement.

look it up for your headunit and play with it. You’ll be surprised.

 

Pioneer calls is SLA or Source Level Adjustment. They have had it in one form or another for 20+ years or so. It originated, I believe, from when they started offering auxiliary inputs from phono in to their proprietary input systems for cd changers, mini discs, and other such goodies. Often times, the input level was low on these auxiliary inputs and even on CD’s from the early days (and even some cd’s from today). It allowed you to match the the source levels so that when you switched from the radio with high levels to the disc changer either lower levels, then back again, you didn’t have to constantly change the volume level. Most of the discrepancies come from the different recording philosophies used to determine how much headroom is needed while recording tracks. Dynamic tracks such as Soundtracks, scores, and classical music are played and recorded with large amounts of headroom. Rock music and pop music usually want tot get your attention immediately and have much less headroom.

Unfortunately, adjust the SLA doesn’t increase your RCA voltage output, but it does put it closer to max, sooner. That also means you are more likely to send a clipped signal to the amp or speakers before reaching full volume on the knob. That may work just fine for some.