using car speakers in home audio

[darth_sanchez]

i know this is a stupid thread, but is it possible to use car audio speakers in home audio? say in an OB design etc...

 

[Cal Weldon]

Of course it's possible.

You just might not like the sound very much, car speakers are about as nearfield a driver as you can get

Cal

 

[ElectroPower]

You do not use! it´s a big mistake! It does not have quality and the income is very low.

In an car the space "to full" is very lesser of that for example a room.

 

[cratz2]

Did you have a particular set of speakers in mind? Just cheapie OEM Ford speakers probably aren't going to sound spectacular but some smaller brands of car audio speakers are just relabled home brands such as Vifa etc.

 

[AJinFLA]

Absolutely YES.
But as with every speaker design, the designer has to know what they are doing. The woofers in most "car" speakers - such as coaxials - generaly are well suited for OB, since they are usally designed for infinite baffle scenarios. They usually have higher Qts - which is good for OB. The fact that they are to be used nearfield is irrelevant (sorry Cal). The reason why many feel that car drivers have poor sound quality is usually related to the fact that many are designed with a rising top end to compensate for the fact that they will be mounted down in a door, etc. The high end response is boosted, or/and a phase shield is used to give strong off-axis treble - again to compensate for the fact that they will be often mounted way below your ears at a very steep angle.
Ideally you would either redesign the passive network (XO) to smoothen the output of the tweeter (or use some form of EQ), or choose a model (there are some) by one of the better brands which tend to have smoother responses. Lets put it this way. I'm listening to a small pair of OB speakers right now (on my computer) that use JBL P422 drivers. They have nearly ruler flat on and off axis response and sound very nice. Much better than any computer speaker that I have heard (the old Monsoon Planars are possibly their equal). My main rig are Orion clones, so I have a decent reference. I'm not deaf. Good car speakers can sound good when properly implemented - especially OB. Bad car speakers, just like bad home/pro/whatever, will still sound bad.

Cheers,

AJ

 

[carlosfm]

Well, the driver I use on my (diy) subwoofer is a car audio sub.
It has impressive parameters and I would struggle to find anything better for the sub I made.
It was the right driver for a small sealed enclosure.

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=396624&highlight=#post396624

 

[carlosfm]

PS: great post, AJ.
There are good and bad drivers everywhere, of course.
The biggest brands are in the car audio business too, because it's a big $$$$ business.
Seas, Focal, JBL, Linn... you name it.

 

[carlosfm]

The is the driver I used.
Massive.

 

[darth_sanchez]

thanks for the advice, i was actually thinking of using JBL http://www.strathfield.com.au/ViewProduct.asp?ProdID=813

just to see what they sound in OB, i have a basshorn for the low end of the freq's and i want to mess around with what may sound good. i have never done OB before, so im experimenting around