Amplifier + Deck

[icecoolwas]

Hey, My brother has a spare 12" Subwoofer and a amplifer that puts out 600 watts and a spare deck (car Stereo player) and I was wondering whats the best way to wire them up To my computer? I was thinking of buying 2 12V Adapters so i can just plug it in, and connect it to the amp and one to the deck, and just wire it up like in a car but im not to sure if i should, I know about all the other wiricing, a rca cable and a Phono in to a 3.5mm jack out to a 3.5mm jack and then a 3.5mm jack in to another 3.5m jack then to a headphone splitter so i can connect my logitech x-230 (for midrange) and then finally the headphone splitter would plug into my computers sound card.

what do you think? I want something simple yet effective with a low cost. (I live in the Uk, different wall sockets)

[sandman]

that is a lot of splitting...loss of quality

[icecoolwas]

Just to think about it, yes there would be a dramatic loss of quality, therefore ive scanned the net, all i have to use now is 2 wires attached to themselfs (to save more quality i got really small ones) and just a headphone splitter, that should save about 3-4 metres of lossed quality.

good idea m8

[jol50]

You will need an expensive 12v power supply to run the amp, even the deck will likely take more than a wall wort can handle unless it is big. Otherwise you can use a car battery if you want one near your PC. I have one in my house but in a vented utility room with a 1A charger. I test amps with it sometimes, not that often or for very long.

What I did is built a bandpass DVC sub (no crossover needed). Then I got a garage sale home stereo with a tuner in it and some nice small bookshelf speakers for my desk. I ran the BP box parallel with the speakers and it worked great with a 10" sub I got for $25 new at a store because the box was torn up. You could get a used on ebay. I made an 8 too, but wrong sub and did not work that well, make sure it is a sub that will do BP. That was before I had box software only a book. Then I patched the stereo into the PC, I could play radio or CD/etc sound from the PC. All you need is a headphone to RCA cord used to run a walkman/ipod/etc into a home stereo. It was a sony 2x35 home receiver I think, it would go fairly loud in a larger room even. Had great bass the 4 ohm sub cranked up more than the 8 ohm speakers. Later I used the sub in a car.

Now I use a cheap set of 4 PC speakers that came with a sub, they were on sale for $30 or something and work ok as I don't use the PC like that anymore very much....and it has surround for games too. I did get a better free set of PC speakers later, and split the output on PC so I run those at the same time. They have better midrange and highs.

[TheMG]

Computer power supplies pack a lot of power for their price.

You simply jumper (short) the green wire on the main connector of the supply to any black wire, this turns the supply on without having it inside a computer.


Yellow is 12V, black is GND. You might want to bundle a few yellows and a few blacks together to handle the higher currents.

Note that some supplies require some load on the 5V and 3.3V rails to operate properly, in that case just get a couple 5W resistors of about 6-8 ohms should do. Light bulbs would work too, anything that will get a few watts of load on it.

[dark_avenger]

computer psu for lower volumes work great. or head down to ur local electronics shop and you can buy 14.4v switchmode power supplys made for the job. i think last time i looked AUD$179 for 14.4v @ 30A