Hey gang, I just recently procured a Kenwood 746. The dude shot me a good price on it so I figured why not. It has variable input sensitivity less than 1.0 up to 4 volts I think.

I was thinking of running my mids off of it. I also have a punch 401s that I was considering running my mids off of. Which amp do y'all think would be better?

Pardon my ignorance but where do I need to set the input sensitivity? and how is that valuable to me??

Oh yeah, does anyone know where I can find a owners manual online at?

Thanks,

Tim

www.kenwoodusa.com (no kidding)

I have the kac 744 in the sonoma

http://inform2.kenwoodusa.com/manuals/kac746.pdf

Kenwood is one of the few companies that actually label that control of an amplifier correctly. Most amps do not in fact have an adjustible gain, only an adjustable input sensitivity. Amplifiers typically have a fixed gain, and the primary way of adjusting the usable output is to adjust the signal coming into it. That amp having only a 4v max input, is a bit on the low side of modern car audio, most entry level stuff now goes to about 6.5v. The idea behind the control is that in a a properly tuned audio system the input sensitivity matches the output of the deck. Deck has a 2v rms preout, ya set the amp to 2v input sensitivity. In the real world thats not often followed however. If everbody did that, most people would complain about the amp not sounding loud enough. We often adjust that control higher than technicially intended to quench our thirst for volume. The idea of input matching is to make sure the input signal to the amp does not clip. If you put a 4v signal into the amp whos input is adjusted for 0.5v you'll likely end up with audible distortion before reaching 80% or so of the radios volume (reguarded by many to be around the sweet spot so-to-speak when tuning) There is no cookie cutter numbers for tuning, but it serves as a guide. Generally most people will set it as loud as it gets before they can hear the distortion, and I'm ok with that... just kidda letting you know the "intentions" and why the control is labeled as so.