I don't think the car supplying the power would be an issue.. I mean, there are plenty of competition systems out there with 170-250 amp alternators (or sometimes banks of 2-4!) ... I would guess the issues would be cooling and the power supply.
Cooling could probably be accomplished pretty easily with either a watercooling kit or fans. Duct the heat outside your car. Or, if you're really feeling kinky, duct your AC to wherever you're placing the amps.
The power supply could always be done via batteries. Get some motorcycle batteries and create banks in series to the desired rail voltages, then build something that allows them to be hooked in parallel for recharging. I'm sure there'sproducts out there to do that. However, you'll probably need to beef up the alternator to charge the batteries.
Whatever benefits you may get from having a fantastic amp in your car will probably be smashed by the noisefloor of the car
I would guess that unless you're parking your car, have some fantastic drivers, and listening. Expect to add a lot of damping material to your car and adding some top notch drivers (The Seas Lotus series comes to mind) in order to get some good sound. Add on the fact that you're going to need to bi amp the front separates and probably use a separate amp for your subs, and it probably looks even less appealing.
Cooling could probably be accomplished pretty easily with either a watercooling kit or fans. Duct the heat outside your car. Or, if you're really feeling kinky, duct your AC to wherever you're placing the amps.
The power supply could always be done via batteries. Get some motorcycle batteries and create banks in series to the desired rail voltages, then build something that allows them to be hooked in parallel for recharging. I'm sure there'sproducts out there to do that. However, you'll probably need to beef up the alternator to charge the batteries.
Whatever benefits you may get from having a fantastic amp in your car will probably be smashed by the noisefloor of the car
I would guess that unless you're parking your car, have some fantastic drivers, and listening. Expect to add a lot of damping material to your car and adding some top notch drivers (The Seas Lotus series comes to mind) in order to get some good sound. Add on the fact that you're going to need to bi amp the front separates and probably use a separate amp for your subs, and it probably looks even less appealing.
OK first, I listen to classical, blues and jazz in my car so SPL has NO PLACE in this discussion, I could care less about the thumping noise makers rattling around our streets.
Secondly my 2004 Lexus is EXTREMELY quiet even on the worst of city streets.
Most of the commercially available class B or for that matter D amplifiers are aimed at the SPL crowd and sound quality is mostly non existant.
I am talking about a quality amp driving quality speakers in a quality vehicle. The weakest link in the chain is most likely the CD player.
It was just a thought cause I was playing around with PWM power supplies two years ago and thought about building an amp for a car, but figured why re-invent the wheel, HOWEVER a nice class A amp, now that would be a different story....
Secondly my 2004 Lexus is EXTREMELY quiet even on the worst of city streets.
Most of the commercially available class B or for that matter D amplifiers are aimed at the SPL crowd and sound quality is mostly non existant.
I am talking about a quality amp driving quality speakers in a quality vehicle. The weakest link in the chain is most likely the CD player.
It was just a thought cause I was playing around with PWM power supplies two years ago and thought about building an amp for a car, but figured why re-invent the wheel, HOWEVER a nice class A amp, now that would be a different story....
tobias_svensk said:
If you do this, get an altenator from the dealer and dis assemble it and tie into the 3 phase directly. It'll likely be a delta . Have the stator rewired with an extra set of sator coils wired in a Y and hook a 3 phase bridge and the cars internal regulator will give you a very good +- that could easilybe filtered with not much caps. Scale the new windings to the cars 12V. You will likely not have enough room for the same number of turns as your OEM alt had, but you could compensate by having a machinist make you a smaller pully to rev the alt higher. The engine will have to be running for it to work, but that's a good thing.
It would be very custom, but you might not have the stomach to do this to a new Lexus.
It would be very custom, but you might not have the stomach to do this to a new Lexus.
Weird, but true...
Back in the early 90s, I replaced my ABs with a Soundstream Class A 100 (50x2). Because of the road noise, the difference wasn't night and day, but I did notice that at the end of an 8 hr drive, instead of being worn out from the drive, I was happy. The drive was *much* more pleasant with that amp than with the previous amps (A Soundstream MC300).
One note: With my MBQ 6.5" 3pc components, 50Watts/channel wasn't enough - I'd have been happier with 100W/Ch.
Could mount a small heatsink + FETs outside, but it might be difficult to weatherproof things. Could take a tip from the CPU overclockers and use a small radiator (or transmission oil cooler) and water pump to get rid of the heat, but that'll eventually leak. Don't know how practical this idea is, but a lot of laptops are usinig heat pipes to carry heat from the CPU to a remote heatsink. Don't know if it'll work for 600W (AlephX at 100W/Ch), though.
Bryan
Back in the early 90s, I replaced my ABs with a Soundstream Class A 100 (50x2). Because of the road noise, the difference wasn't night and day, but I did notice that at the end of an 8 hr drive, instead of being worn out from the drive, I was happy. The drive was *much* more pleasant with that amp than with the previous amps (A Soundstream MC300).
One note: With my MBQ 6.5" 3pc components, 50Watts/channel wasn't enough - I'd have been happier with 100W/Ch.
Could mount a small heatsink + FETs outside, but it might be difficult to weatherproof things. Could take a tip from the CPU overclockers and use a small radiator (or transmission oil cooler) and water pump to get rid of the heat, but that'll eventually leak. Don't know how practical this idea is, but a lot of laptops are usinig heat pipes to carry heat from the CPU to a remote heatsink. Don't know if it'll work for 600W (AlephX at 100W/Ch), though.
Bryan
Mark Levinson probably leased their name to someone like Alpine. I had a 94 Chrysle LHS with the Infinity sound system. When it went to crap I took it apart and It was made by Alpine. The 6x9's in the rear deck were bi-amped. I didn't take it apart, but there was a 9 channel outboard amp in the trunk.
Planet10: That's great to hear.. Maybe he can post some pictures of the amp(s)!
I'm always surprised by the reaction of "audiophiles" to high-end car stereo as "sacrilige" ... I'm not sure if any of the people who look down their noses at car stereo have seen some of the top notch cars out of there, let alone listened to them.
One that comes to mind is Earl Zausmer's BMW 540i (http://www.milbert.com/earl/). The top end is powered by Milbert Bam Tube Amps, the subs with a pair of zapco amplifiers. The driver compliment is a pair of B&W silver signature tweeters, and a dissected pair of B&W 801's for the midbass/subwoofers. Not only that, all drivers are *IN FRONT* of the passengers. The guy cut out room for the woofers in his fender wells! Now that's some dedication..
Or perhaps there's Charlie LaMarca's Corvette.. If I recall, he had a very similar top-end setup, only with some 5.1 action going on. I believe he used some other brand of subwoofers, and instead of tube amps, used all Soundstream Class A Reference amplifiers, IIRC...
There were plenty of car audio competitors with Dynaudio, Infinity, Seas Lotus, and other high end drivers in their systems. There's even a big cult of compression horn followers! (Image Dynamics comes to mind)
Anyhow, my point is, that while a lot of people think of car stereo as "boomers" who are just out to make sure you can hear their bassline. There actually is a big Sound Quality following as well. A lot of these guys have high end systems at home and a long commute, so they want the best in their car as well.
I'm always surprised by the reaction of "audiophiles" to high-end car stereo as "sacrilige" ... I'm not sure if any of the people who look down their noses at car stereo have seen some of the top notch cars out of there, let alone listened to them.
One that comes to mind is Earl Zausmer's BMW 540i (http://www.milbert.com/earl/). The top end is powered by Milbert Bam Tube Amps, the subs with a pair of zapco amplifiers. The driver compliment is a pair of B&W silver signature tweeters, and a dissected pair of B&W 801's for the midbass/subwoofers. Not only that, all drivers are *IN FRONT* of the passengers. The guy cut out room for the woofers in his fender wells! Now that's some dedication..
Or perhaps there's Charlie LaMarca's Corvette.. If I recall, he had a very similar top-end setup, only with some 5.1 action going on. I believe he used some other brand of subwoofers, and instead of tube amps, used all Soundstream Class A Reference amplifiers, IIRC...
There were plenty of car audio competitors with Dynaudio, Infinity, Seas Lotus, and other high end drivers in their systems. There's even a big cult of compression horn followers! (Image Dynamics comes to mind)
Anyhow, my point is, that while a lot of people think of car stereo as "boomers" who are just out to make sure you can hear their bassline. There actually is a big Sound Quality following as well. A lot of these guys have high end systems at home and a long commute, so they want the best in their car as well.
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.