Car stereo cheap alternative to big hifi systems

[SkinnyBoy]

Originally posted by r_s_dhar
Hellow,

I have been following this thread with interest. What I would like to know is how a triaxial speaker (say, something as respectable as Sony or Kenwood) would perform when installed in a room of about 140 Cu Ft dimension? I would like to hear from members who have sound empirical knowledge in this matter.

ummm.. sony sucks..... umm.. yeah...

[r_s_dhar]

Skinny Boy,

Didn't know that. Well imagine you received one of those heaven-made, non-sucking triaxials from St. Paul himself. How would it sound in my 140 Cu Ft room? A room of this size is apparently far bigger than the biggest car ever built. So what would this "extra" room mean?

[JOE DIRT®]

placed in a small sealed box they would be ok for low level audio

[r_s_dhar]

Hellow Joe Dirt,

could you be more specific? What exactly do you mean when you say "low level"? Do you mean:

1. low quality
2. low output
3.low resolution in terms of reproduced audio spectrum

thanks.

[MikeHunt79]

Quick story... My car alarm behaving funny, so I've had to disconnect it. So I brought my expensive bits of my car hi-fi in the house, as I know what it's like to have audio gear nicked from your car.

Expensive bits =
Rockford Fosgate Punch 300x 4 channel amp
Pioneer 12" sub (forgot the model number, but it will take 400Wrms)

I thought, there was no point having it sitting there for no reason, and the sub was pretty new, so it needed running in.

I had a motorbike battery laying around, I put a charger on it (it only goes to about 3 amp charging current). I then connected the amp to the battery, and the 2 spare channels (the other 2 are bridged to the sub) on my amp to my normal Hi Fi speakers (with a HPF set on the amp).

I then connected my mixer and turntables to the amp, and it worked fine! No noise, very good sound quality, and enough bass to get me arrested.

I tried conectting it directly to my PC, and there was an audible 50Hz hum, so I connected the PC thru my mixer, put the volume on the PC to 100%, and used the mixer as a volume control. You can now hardly hear the hum since there is a really high signal to hum ratio when listening to MP3's.

Using a battery is a good idea as it allows for large amounts of current to be delivered with no problems. I could have this thing drawing 20-30 amps if I wanted. My only concern is that I'm gonna kill the battery, but I leave it charging overnight, so I think it'd be hard to completely drain it unless I had it turned right up for quite a long time.

If I get problems with this, I could upgrade the charger or battery.

I can post pics if you guys want... Theres wires all over the place, but it works.

Also, just a quick question: I've had this sub for around 2 months now, and have been running it in at low power... How much longer should this speaker take to run in before I can run it at full power? 10 hours? 100 hours?

EDIT: Just gonna get another quick question in if I can, (sorry if I seem to be dragging this one off-topic, it's not intentional). My hi-fi speakers are 6ohms, and yet the manual for my amp says it runs at 4 and 2 ohms (and shows various speaker configurations involving 4 and 2 ohm loads), with no mention of 6 ohms anywhere. I'm not gonna damage my amp by using 6 ohm speakers am I?

[r_s_dhar]

Mike,

Interesting. What you say confirms that gut-feeling I have always had -- something which the Gurus and the measurement equipment may dismiss. Batteries supply clean, instantaneous power and car audio is uncluttered. As the saying goes, "what is not there cannot create noise." To avoid evils of misconstruction, let me hasten to add that I do not, for even a millisecond, think that car audio, in a living room, can substitute a 3-Way system. But, then, I do not know how else to describe that clarity that you get from car audio.

[JOE DIRT®]

Mike.....6 ohm speakers are fine for the amp

24 hours is what we use to do to break in drivers

and you will eventually kill that battery (buy a marine gel cell)


DIRT®

[MikeHunt79]

At the moment I either have the car audio setup, or my horrible midi hi-fi setup... I know which one sounds better. Sub-bass also makes a big difference tho, I made a tune in Reason that sounded ok on my midi hi-fi, but I listened to it again on my car audio setup, and the bass sounded mushy and horrible. I'm now in the process of remixing the tune.

If I had more time and money, I would love a proper system, but being a student isn't really pay for a pass labs system at the moment.

If it sounds good stick with it... thats what i'm doing at the moment. I've always wondered the same thing about car audio quality tho... You hear of these people paying megabucks for power cables to thier amps, and I've often thought... "car audio has none of these problems... there isn't even any chance of 50Hz (or 60Hz) hum.

[MikeHunt79]

JOE DIRT: Thanx for the reply... Glad to hear the ohms situation is ok. (I've killed a cheapy car amp in the past due to some 2ohm shenanigans)

Also, I'll wait till this battery dies before I get another one... The gell cell thing sounds good, but I'm only really having this setup until I get my car alarm fixed.... I'm gonna miss it in my room

[MikeHunt79]

Wow... 3 posts by me in a row... there is a reason however...

Just thought I'd let you know that i solved the 50Hz hum issue. I had the line-in on my soundcard on in the mixer, and as soon as I turned it off, the noise vanished completely. I've now got the amp plugged straight into the computer, and it's still working ok.