Just made a loudspeaker, what can I hook it up to?

[chevy66]

I just built a loudspeaker in an enclosed box that consists of woofer, tweeter, and crossover components (2nd order butterworth).

I want to show a few people what it sounds like, what can I hook it up to that has the proper amplification I'd need? Looking for something very cheap and very convenient, if possible.

Thanks

 

[Andersonix]

Car radio?

You should be able to get an almost free receiver on craigslist or thrift store or pawnshop.

 

[Richard Ellis]

Do you have some trashed headphones?? AND a source as a portable DVD player?
Chances are you can dechipher where the "break" is on an intermittantly working headphones by wiggling the wires, cut off the wires before the guesstimated break, gently seperate the x-tremely thin wires.....you can then drive some speakers with that.
The device will be putting out a third of one watt or so but it will get you an idea.
If it is a high efficiency loudspeaker (95-98+Db) it will suprize you & everyone else listening.
______________________________________________Rick.......

 

[chevy66]

Thank you both for your replies. I followed your advice and hooked it up to a stereo that had speakers rated for 1W. It sounded decent but I'm sure this speaker I've made is capable of more.

I'm going to test it on a receiver of one of my friends tomorrow, but am a little bit worried I might be giving it too much power, if I'm not careful.

How do I compute the power rating of the speaker I've built?

For reference here are the parts I used

Woofer:
http://www.tymphany.com/830860

Tweeter:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...05+06+&usg=AFQjCNGJnzVmkrcoV3Leo4-NKXx-KPrjTQ

 

[Richard Ellis]

Chevy66, Biscayne boy.
What are you using for a crossover??
You will notice quite obviously when you overdrive your speakers..they will distort badly, hammer the woofer cone at its excursion limits at the far reaches...the tweeters go poof first usually. Hopefully the tweeters burn open rather than short. Note the tweeter is rated at 80 Watts, but that depends where it is crossed over. Usually they will notate the power rating with a specified F crossover.
Just turn it down if you feel uncomfortable with how it sounds.
_______________________________________________Rick........

 

[chevy66]

OK, I will follow your advice. I'm crossing over at 3k with a 2nd order butterworth network.