I'm going round the car and upgrading a chunk of the system, leaving me with some spares. I'd rather hang on to them over selling as a 2nd vehicles probably only a few years away and I'd use them there. I know how well they've been looked after, so they're worth brand new price to me. Letting them just collect dust for the time would be a waste, but I'm hesitant to loan them out to my mates for fear they won't be given the same over-the-top care they get from me.
Right now I have on hand:
pair 6.5" coax
2x 8" subs (same subs, different ohms though)
a great head unit
and in a few months quite a nice pair of 6.5" 2 ways
these parts are of a reasonable quality and make one hell of a car system, nothing pro, but pretty bloody decent I reckon. I won't be able to spare the amp I'm running as it'll be powering the new gear in there. the OE system had an amp which is still under the dash somewhere, I believe it to be a 5 channel, probably underpowered for all this stuff but may just get there as a 3 channel. Could hit the classifieds and search for something cheap that would do the job.
what I had in mind was building a basic MDF box with one 'shelf' to create a sealed section suited to the sub size, and another area on top where I could fit the HU, some kind of amp, and the coaxes.
Lying around from unfinished / dismantled / failed projects I have at my disposal:
Assorted grilles
Couple of lead acid batteries
somewhere I'm sure I've got a charge controller
Mini DSP
A pair of full range 4" of some description
Plenty of wiring, few bits of dynamat, assorted hardware, and likely all the tools I would need.
Some kind of little 12v amp kits that I never found time to solder up, designed for different purposes and could be too small here, but can investigate
I am most interested in the viability / if it wouldn't be a huge stretch for it to turn out OK. The gear has a reasonable amount of value, and obviously I'm taking a bit of a risk making it portable. If it's going to be useless outside of a vehicle then probably not worth the risk.
I'd get heaps of use out of a new mobile box, but with all spare funds diverted to the vehicles new system I can't really afford to spend anything on it, I'm hoping to work only with what I've got, but if there's a part that would be high bang for buck I would consider.
Basically just want to put my tub of unused automotive gear to work, the tub itself is too flimsy, but using that as a box would have been a hoot - actually if none of this works out I reckon I'll bang the crappy OE system in there for a laugh.
Right now I have on hand:
pair 6.5" coax
2x 8" subs (same subs, different ohms though)
a great head unit
and in a few months quite a nice pair of 6.5" 2 ways
these parts are of a reasonable quality and make one hell of a car system, nothing pro, but pretty bloody decent I reckon. I won't be able to spare the amp I'm running as it'll be powering the new gear in there. the OE system had an amp which is still under the dash somewhere, I believe it to be a 5 channel, probably underpowered for all this stuff but may just get there as a 3 channel. Could hit the classifieds and search for something cheap that would do the job.
what I had in mind was building a basic MDF box with one 'shelf' to create a sealed section suited to the sub size, and another area on top where I could fit the HU, some kind of amp, and the coaxes.
Lying around from unfinished / dismantled / failed projects I have at my disposal:
Assorted grilles
Couple of lead acid batteries
somewhere I'm sure I've got a charge controller
Mini DSP
A pair of full range 4" of some description
Plenty of wiring, few bits of dynamat, assorted hardware, and likely all the tools I would need.
Some kind of little 12v amp kits that I never found time to solder up, designed for different purposes and could be too small here, but can investigate
I am most interested in the viability / if it wouldn't be a huge stretch for it to turn out OK. The gear has a reasonable amount of value, and obviously I'm taking a bit of a risk making it portable. If it's going to be useless outside of a vehicle then probably not worth the risk.
I'd get heaps of use out of a new mobile box, but with all spare funds diverted to the vehicles new system I can't really afford to spend anything on it, I'm hoping to work only with what I've got, but if there's a part that would be high bang for buck I would consider.
Basically just want to put my tub of unused automotive gear to work, the tub itself is too flimsy, but using that as a box would have been a hoot - actually if none of this works out I reckon I'll bang the crappy OE system in there for a laugh.
Last edited:
I think the biggest noticeable difference using this gear between car and elsewhere is going to be in the low end, where you'll no longer have the significant car "cabin gain" effect to assist down there.
If your 8 inchers are useable in a sealed configuration, you could probably get away with programming your miniDSP for (among other things) some Linkwitz transform to get back some of the low end rolloff, but you'll have to find a compromise between SPL/distortion and LF extension. I do this with a pair of 12" Kenwood car woofers in 1.5 cu. ft. sealed boxes in the living room, and they go right down to below 20 Hz very nicely and loud enough for my needs, albeit not at "reference" level of course. You could theoretically do the same with a pair of 8s. as long as you scale back the SPL and F3 accordingly.
The other question mark for me is your mention of the 2 "same" woofs with different impedances. Unless I'm mistaken, these woofs are probably not the same in terms of Thiele-Small parameters etc, and so might not work so well together. Maybe it depends on what make & model they are. Perhaps someone with more knowledge in this area can correct me if I'm wrong about this.
Good luck,
-- Jim
If your 8 inchers are useable in a sealed configuration, you could probably get away with programming your miniDSP for (among other things) some Linkwitz transform to get back some of the low end rolloff, but you'll have to find a compromise between SPL/distortion and LF extension. I do this with a pair of 12" Kenwood car woofers in 1.5 cu. ft. sealed boxes in the living room, and they go right down to below 20 Hz very nicely and loud enough for my needs, albeit not at "reference" level of course. You could theoretically do the same with a pair of 8s. as long as you scale back the SPL and F3 accordingly.
The other question mark for me is your mention of the 2 "same" woofs with different impedances. Unless I'm mistaken, these woofs are probably not the same in terms of Thiele-Small parameters etc, and so might not work so well together. Maybe it depends on what make & model they are. Perhaps someone with more knowledge in this area can correct me if I'm wrong about this.
Good luck,
-- Jim
Sounds like there could be a little luck going my way as the 8s are suited to a sealed box, they're an Alpine SWR 8D2 and SWR 8D4. They should not require a great deal of enclosure volume, but I'm not going to bring overall size limits into the scope at this very minute.
They may well be different but my knowledge doesn't extend that far. They weren't run together in the vehicle and not mandatory to run both here, but of course the general theme of this project is the more that can be put to use (with purpose) the better, so if they can be rigged to work nicely together I'll try to do that.
Power requirements might be considered quickly as the gear seems a little thirsty, I don't really know enough to have a relative concept of this though. Those subs are rated to 350WRMS, the splits and the coax are each 100WRMS, so same solution could apply to either set of speakers (plan is run the coax for now and move the 2 ways in when they're pulled from the car).
At a guess I will require something in the realm of 500WRMS ouput for a set of speakers + sub. Am I anywhere in the ballpark by assuming at max volume this means in the region of 500W draw / 40 odd ampres at 12v? That would be something of a spanner in the works, but I'm not going to be carrying this around on my shoulder and have a sweet external anderson 175 on the vehicle, wouldn't be the greatest inconvenience to just power via that.
I get the idea neither the coax or the splits present too much of a challenge, and key here will be getting the most out of one or both of those subs?
They may well be different but my knowledge doesn't extend that far. They weren't run together in the vehicle and not mandatory to run both here, but of course the general theme of this project is the more that can be put to use (with purpose) the better, so if they can be rigged to work nicely together I'll try to do that.
Power requirements might be considered quickly as the gear seems a little thirsty, I don't really know enough to have a relative concept of this though. Those subs are rated to 350WRMS, the splits and the coax are each 100WRMS, so same solution could apply to either set of speakers (plan is run the coax for now and move the 2 ways in when they're pulled from the car).
At a guess I will require something in the realm of 500WRMS ouput for a set of speakers + sub. Am I anywhere in the ballpark by assuming at max volume this means in the region of 500W draw / 40 odd ampres at 12v? That would be something of a spanner in the works, but I'm not going to be carrying this around on my shoulder and have a sweet external anderson 175 on the vehicle, wouldn't be the greatest inconvenience to just power via that.
I get the idea neither the coax or the splits present too much of a challenge, and key here will be getting the most out of one or both of those subs?
Last edited:
- Status
- Not open for further replies.