RCA cable voltage drop?
 

Running a Pioneer headunit with 2.2v preouts. Decided to amp my speakers with a small Pioneer stereo amp. The gain has to be set to 80%+ to play at acceptable levels. Ideally I'd expect more loudness, but going higher on the gain introduces even more noise in the system. The gain is well below 2.2 volts, at least according to the scale around the knob.

I'm using some cheap RCA cables I had laying around. Would that cause a voltage drop so severe that it'd cause the gain to be have to be set so high? If I got higher quality, thicker cables, would I be able to lower the gain while keeping the same output level?

1) Shouldn't.
2) Depends. If the reason you have noise is due to the cable then a 'better' cable may result in a lower noise floor and you can be more aggressive with the gain.

it is rare that RCAs cause noise. What is your HU volume at to play this loud?