Tight-wad amplifier suggestions

[underwurlde]

Nowt wrong with a valve amp. Although I wouldn't put one in a car!

 

[Boscoe]

Nowt wrong with a valve amp. Although I wouldn't put one in a car!

Oh dear!...

 

[TheBaronGroog]

Make sure to 'exercise' the speakers before measuring TS if they have been sitting unused for a long while (some will show problems even after a few weeks). The best way would be to drive them free air with LF noise (ad that includes some subsonic content) at low power (not to exceed excursion) for a while - and some do need a good 3-4 days. The same applies to new out-of-the-box speakers. Without doing this it can be rather amazing how much they can deviate from factory spec. A simpler alternative is a small wall-wart transformer with an AC output, a few V will already do the trick, but this might take longer if the speakers resonance is far from 50Hz. This of course applies to larger cone units.

Also regarding your project in general, you will have to deal with edge diffraction issues on tweeters as well as baffle step compensation, two issues which rarely come up in car system design... A further thing to consider in a multi-way speaker with large excursion units operating below 300Hz or less, if you have two, you might consider mounting them on the sides in a distortion cancelling push-pull arrangement. This makes them operate mechanically in counter-phase so vibrations transmitted to the cabinet cancel out, while they still operate in phase acoustically.

I must admit I didn't burn in the drivers-as they're 40years old I didn't think they needed to be.

Don't worry-we do deal with edge diffraction and baffle steps in cars too-we do everything you do for a home system and then deal with the facts you're off centre, have lots of reflections, poor power supply, electrical noise, envriomental noise and no space to install anything....

All audio systems are a compromise in one aspect or another, knowing what you want to achieve and balancing the compromises is key

 

[TheBaronGroog]

Nowt wrong with a valve amp. Although I wouldn't put one in a car!

Oh dear!...

There are quite a few tube amps for cars:

Panasonic Tube HU:

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.

A friend has a modified one amongst his huge collection-nice unit by all accounts, not heard it myself or something I would be looking to buy TBH.

 

[underwurlde]

^ Good God, that looks amazing!