# "Defeat" Setting on Headunit



## DanMan (Jul 18, 2008)

I saw a post recently where somebody discovered a noticeable change in sound by changing the "defeat" setting on his hu. For the life of me, I can't seem to find that post.

Anyway, I tried it and he was right. I use Zapco DC amps w/built in dsp for processing. I have an Alpine 9887 hu. I use the parametric eq for tuning on the fly, but generally keep all bands at 0.

Since all bands were at 0, I expected no change when pressing "defeat". To my surprise there was a very noticeable change in output. It's as if the gain was upped for more output.(my gains are at minimum).


Well, all this to ask what you guys know about what the "defeat" setting does or is supposed to do? You guys ever mess with it? I consider myself a habitual tweaker, but never thought about changing it. Search, doesn't come up with anything.


Thanks


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## Billk1002 (Aug 23, 2009)

The manual states that when defeat is turned on the bass and treble return to the factory settings, what ever that means?????
The more that I tune my stereo the less of a difference defeat makes.


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## DanMan (Jul 18, 2008)

I guess it makes as much sense to you as it does me. Do you typically tune with defeat on? I need to spend some seat time tuning with it on.

I hope someone chimes in with some input about what "defeat" actually does.


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## Nitin (May 28, 2008)

not 100% sure how it works in the 9887 but generally "defeat" and "source direct" bypasses any circuits that are responsible for tonal adjustments - so basically the theory would be that you are shortening the signal path hence it has less opportunity to degrade by going through circuits that may not necessarily be allowing the signal to just pass through unadjusted - kind of like an electronic short cut 

it could be a placebo as well but on every device where ive used a "defeat" or "direct" button i have always heard a different sound resulting from this action - not always better but definitely different

BTW it also invariably sounds better for me with the defeat activated since if i turn the defeat function off ie activate the EQ, i get system hiss so just for that alone id prefer not to use the headunits built in EQ and i try to tune as much as i can only with level settings and crossover adjustments and a bit of T/A


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## DanMan (Jul 18, 2008)

Nitin-Thanks for the reply. I agree,initially I thought things sounded different but not necessarily better. I am starting to feel it is an improvement in things overall.


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