Be careful with turning on loudness/adjusting the EQ with regards to max volume, when you activate loudness (which in reality is to make all frequencies of music audible at a low volume, not to actually make it louder) or raise the EQ, your max volume level, or number, will be lower without clipping.
Good example, on my old kenwood HU, the max unclipped volume was 32 out of 35. When I raised the bass level, while making the bass louder, the HU then clipped out at 29 instead. Clipped preouts = distortion anywhere farther down the line, such as amplifiers, regardless of their own gain setting.
And to anyone curious, gain does not equal volume, it simply matches the amp's sensitivity to the headunit's preout voltage, which is almost always 2v or 4v, 5v on some Alpine HU's I've come across.
