Car speakers in the home??!

[bleachershane]

Here's my query...
I bought a pair of Gale 4 floorstanders on eBay a while ago, they were local and cheap and I wanted to give floorstanders a go to see what they offer over my Mission M71 standmounts...

A bit of investigation led me to believe the woofer cones were a bit wonky... buzzing at medium to high volumes, but no visible tears. So I believe they are useless.

Gale 4's had a Vifa D19 tweeters, nice crisp high trebles and Peerless (India) SKO-130 5.25" woofers.

I've decided to experiment on the Gales. I live in the UK and getting cheap decent drivers is not all that easy, and I don't want to shell alot out on what is just experimenting with a £30 pair of floorstanders...

[B]I've started looking to car speakers, I can get a pair of Pioneer car speakers on eBay for £19.99 with free postage... http://www.pioneer.eu/eur/products/a...349/index.html

Is there any reason these, if I could get them in the cabinets would sounds awful, not drive properly from a hi-fi amp, or just generally be a stupid idea. They almost seem like a good idea what with the woofer and tweeter driving from the same spot (like a very poor mans Dual Concentric Tannoy lol!)[B]

There are cheap 5.25" Skytronic woofers on ebay UK, but mentions on here seem to write them off...

Any advice from anyone to a newbie?

[BHTX]

Cheap coaxial car speakers are nothing like Tannoys btw. You probably wouldn't like the result, and it's very unlikely that whatever cabinets you currently have would work optimally with these Pioneers. They're also probably 4 ohms, which is something to consider. And I certainly hope you weren't planning on using those Vifa tweeters with anything else you put in there, or the passive crossovers.

On the other hand, people throw together cheap stuff all the time and end up fairly satisfied with the result, especially considering the low cost and labor involved. Just look around in the full range section. There's obviously some fun to be had in it. But if you're gonna do it, do it right.

[col]

I use JBL GTO937 6x9" (2ohm) car speakers as both front of house and for foldback (mid-high) with my mobile party rig. They were dirt cheap in comparison to buying pro-audio drivers and are very efficient (95db), they will also take a pounding. Usually, you can buy cheap 6x9" boxes for them in the same car audio shops.

I am using a Tripath powered amp that likes low impedance loads, so the speakers match very well.

http://pix.minirig.org.au/main.php?g2_itemId=661

col.

[bleachershane]

Thanks for both your replies, I was expecting to be merely laughed at and shrugged off!

I know they are not the ideal, and that they are nothing like as Tannoy DCs! Hence my slight sarcasm (which doesn't really translate on the net lol) in calling them the very poor mans DCs

Bit of research later, they are indeed 4 ohms, 89dB sensitivity, not the best eh... 4 ohms and 89dB... is that a bloody hard drive for your average 30-40W hi-fi amp?

But, the reason that I'm looking into this path is that the Kenwood speakers in my car seem to give out fair more detail and better tonal balance than any of my current hi-fi speakers... They're mounted in a car door, how on this earth can they sound better... but, they do.
Which must mean my home speakers are BAD! (Mission M71, JPW mini monitors which have the same SKO-130 woofers as the Gales)
Got my fingers crossed for a pair of Tannoy Eyris 2s I've very nearly got my hands on!

So, of course using something like the Pioneers means straight to amp connection (no crossover) and disabling the Vifa (two tweeters, no thanks lol) And then the cabinet problems... to be honest the original woofers didn't seem optimal for it anyway so perhaps there might be an improvement, but that's down to pure and sheer luck if it works that way!

The other 'budget' options I've come across are:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Skytronic-902-...1%7C240%3A1318
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/902-420-5-25-2...1%7C240%3A1318

Have read nothing but bad opinions on here about Skytronic stuff though!

This is all quite new to me, but I'm loving learning what can be done to improve and tweak things from speaker crossovers to Marantz's modable CD player... (more my thing than building from scratch)

[Dr.EM]

Originally posted by col
I use JBL GTO937 6x9" (2ohm) car speakers as both front of house and for foldback (mid-high) with my mobile party rig. They were dirt cheap in comparison to buying pro-audio drivers and are very efficient (95db),

Careful with car component specs. As I suspected that is the sensitivity with 2.83v, which correlates to 1W at 8 ohms. At 2 ohms the sensitivity goes down from the quoted 94db to a more typical 88db.

[bleachershane]

Originally posted by Dr.EM


Careful with car component specs. As I suspected that is the sensitivity with 2.83v, which correlates to 1W at 8 ohms. At 2 ohms the sensitivity goes down from the quoted 94db to a more typical 88db.

Could you shed a tiny bit more light on this, I don't have my electronic engineer mate to explain the above to me lol

[Dr.EM]

Ok,

Power is voltage*current. Current is voltage/resistance (or impedance at AC).

It fits that 2.83v/2 ohms = 1.415A * 2.83v = 4W. So at 2.83v the 2 ohm driver is getting 4W, and the 8 ohm will get just 1W (the standard).

Every doubling of power equals 3db output increase. 4 is two doublings of power and hence a 6db increase in output. Working backwards the driver is defined as 94dB (2.83v), minus 6db so 88dB (1W).

[col]

Hi Dr.EM - thanks for doing the math. I was aware of the sensitivity/impedance issue but I guess the marketing hype got me on that one I'm crossing over at 160hz into my subs though (2 x JBL SB-2) and seeing I'm using 4 of the GTO937 they seem to be plenty loud, easily louder than the subs if I let them. The interesting thing with the GTO937 is how flat they are across the frequency range, and they actually do sound very nice, as long as I don't let them do any sub-bass They are also very small and compact, leaving more room in the car for other stuff when I transport the system.

col.

[pelanj]

Col, is there any particular reason why you have chosen the three way instead of two way (GTO927)?

I was once really surprised by Magnat car speakers in an airport bus. They sounded really fine, so I would like to use a pair in some kind of mini monitor / OB + seled bass setup. 6x9 has the largest moving surface, right?

I king of like your MicroDoof system. Why is the section on your website password protected? I would like to read more

My idea is to use a 4 channell car amplifier with an active crossover built in - powered by a sealed UPS battery. If I use a power adaptor / charger with nominal 10 % current capacity, then the battery should not get too much discharged while listening.

[planet10]

Originally posted by pelanj
is there any particular reason why you have chosen the three way instead of two way (GTO927)?

Is there any reason why you've choosen a 3-way over a 1-way? One of the best sounding 6x9s for home use is the GM/Delco 10 ohm (the 4 ohm one is almost as good)... you run across these in boot sales over here fairly often for $2-10 and every time i leave with a wicked grin on my face knowing someone swapped these out for a horid set of Jensen TriAxials (or similar)



If you find a big 1-way to not quite cut it for you in the top-end that 19mm Vifa is quite a nice tweeter crossed up high.