What's a line driver in car audio?

Anton Waln: Line Driver Car Audio

Byron Fortmann: A line driver is NOT an EQ. A line driver is used to increase the voltage running on the RCAs to the amplifier. Higher RCA voltage reduces the amount of noise induced into the RCAs during their trip to the rear of the car. But maybe more importantly, it allows you to set the gain on your amplifier lower, while still achieving full power output. The gain knob is used to tell the amp how much to amplify the incoming signal. Too little, and you won't get full power output. Too much, and you'll clip the out going signal and send distortion to your speakers. The Massive Audio product you linked to is an EQ with a line driver built in. You can boost or reduce certain frequency bands and it will also output up to 7 volts on the RCAs. The Rockford 3sixty is a line output converter and a line driver. It can take speaker leads for input OR a regular RCA input. It bumps up the voltage all the way to 11V before outputting. (As a! caution, 11V is pretty damn high. Make sure your amp can even handle that with the gain on minimum.) That version of the 3sixty is only a 2-channel. So would likely be used for subwoofers only.They are completely different products that also happen to both contain a line driver....Show more