Car Speakers?

[VashTheStampede]

About ready to, again, replace the 6 1/2" speakers in my truck, they are nice Kenwoods, but just not up to what I perfer in car audio. I don't want to sell them or junk them or give them away, nor do I have another car to put them in. So is it feasible to create a computer speaker system out of car speakers and subs?

~RT~

[spazzkid]

just make sure u get those speakers shieded... those magnetic thingies are bad for the HD and the Monitor.

[Krome]

Originally posted by RedneckTech
About ready to, again, replace the 6 1/2" speakers in my truck, they are nice Kenwoods, but just not up to what I perfer in car audio. I don't want to sell them or junk them or give them away, nor do I have another car to put them in. So is it feasible to create a computer speaker system out of car speakers and subs?

~RT~

What kind of 6 1/2's ya getting? I would suggest the Polk Audio 602, awesome 2 way speakers for about $75/pr. Circuit City has em. :burn:

[VashTheStampede]

Originally posted by Krome


What kind of 6 1/2's ya getting? I would suggest the Polk Audio 602, awesome 2 way speakers for about $75/pr. Circuit City has em. :burn:

This is what I currently have, and probably what's going to be an essential part of the computer speaker setup:

http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi-bin/S-AyTJABYAPMx/ProdView.asp?s=0&c=10&g=52000&I=113KFC1668&o=v&a=0

Here's what I am torn between:

http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi-bin/S-AyTJABYAPMx/ProdView.asp?s=0&c=10&g=52000&I=113KFCXR60&o=p&a=0

or

http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi-bin/S-AyTJABYAPMx/ProdView.asp?s=0&c=10&g=52000&I=130TSA1695&o=p&a=0 (Which I can get from our store for $80 a pair, instead of Crutchfield's inflated prices)

~RT~

[Krome]

I wouldn't get the Pioneers out of spite, also they have a "horn" as the tweeter. Midrange (6 1/2") aren't supposed to carry that much bass, so I think that those two are a bit of "over kill" in the frequency response range. I think it's obvious what Polk, or Infinity are doing... making the best "midrange" speakers in the right space, instead of rolling out "all in ones". Have you ever considered a component system, I would go Polk, or Infinity again there... you have to hear them, instead of just looking @ specs, or consider what your going to be listening to the most.

[two_dope2000]

make sure youi wire them parrallel to eachother because car speakers are only 4 ohms and your sound card is most likely 8 ohms and that wont soud to good at high volumes

[KLowD9x]

If you wired them directly to your sound card, it wouldnt sound at all! Also, if you used a home amp, and wired the speakers in parallel, there would be so much dc switching noise, that you would rather listen to .5 watt computer speakers! I say, go to the flea market or walmart and get a little 250 watt amp and use a power supply thats just laying around to power the amp. Also, a word on car audio, go to http://www.ozaudio.com/oz and check their speakers! I got the Oz Matrix 15s and they sound superb! Just my two pennies...

[scoobydoo]

Originally posted by two_dope2000
make sure youi wire them parrallel to eachother because car speakers are only 4 ohms and your sound card is most likely 8 ohms and that wont soud to good at high volumes

Actually he would need to wire them in series to get a 8 ohm load, parrallel would give a 2 ohm load! It also has nothing to do with sound. An ohm is the resistance the speaker puts on the amplifier. The higher the ohm the easier it is to drive. The lower the ohm the harder it is to drive.


Originally posted by KLowD
Also, if you used a home amp, and wired the speakers in parallel, there would be so much dc switching noise, that you would rather listen to .5 watt computer speakers

This is not true, a speaker is a speaker! I have a home amp running 2 12" 4 ohm subs in my Home Theater and they work fine. They may have been designed for the small cu/ft volume of a car, but other than that speakers are speakers.


VashTheStampede,

You could get away with running a 4ohm load, just don't play them extremely loud or they may fry your amp. If you need to know how to wire them in series let me know.

Maybe get some uncut 6"x9" boxes and put them in there. Just make sure they are far enough away from your monitor and HD. I would think with those speakers 2 feet would be enough.

[two_dope2000]

oops, my bad i meant series, i havent had to wire anything in like a year, series is kinda confusing to wire though if your not to clear on it, do any of you know if a sound card really is 8 ohms? becuz im not to sure on that one

[RangerJoe]

Originally posted by two_dope2000
make sure youi wire them parrallel to eachother because car speakers are only 4 ohms and your sound card is most likely 8 ohms and that wont soud to good at high volumes

hey, my computer speaker system is 4 ohms.....you just have to look at the back of the speakers, or on the sub (if you have one) one of the two places will tell you what your speakers independance is

[two_dope2000]

Indipendance? hehe you mean impedence,(i cant spell, its late)

does the sound card somehow detect the load of the speakers and then adjust accordingly then?

[scoobydoo]

The ohm load won't have any affect on the sound card in the computer, that is basically just a pre-amp.

The amp that drives the speakers is what see's the resistance.

[two_dope2000]

But what if somebody has some old creative speakers (the ones that are shaped like big wedges hehe) i totally forgot about the amp in my Speakers, i guess cuz i never look at it since its in my sub

[scoobydoo]

Originally posted by two_dope2000
But what if somebody has some old creative speakers (the ones that are shaped like big wedges hehe) i totally forgot about the amp in my Speakers, i guess cuz i never look at it since its in my sub

Are you talking about the speakers that connect right to the sound card using a mini plug?

If so they either have a small amp in the speaker itself to power them.

If they have no amp they are a really high impedence like 32ohm or higher so they are efficient enough to use the pre-out for sound! I had a pair like that with an old Sony Walkman back in the 80's, they plugged into the headphone jack.

[two_dope2000]

yeah those are the ones, they have no power at all hehe they sucked

[scoobydoo]

Originally posted by two_dope2000
yeah those are the ones, they have no power at all hehe they sucked

Ya they do! I got a pair like that with an e-machine I had a few years back.

[two_dope2000]

im not a fan of those damned e-machines, its just to make computer-iliterate people think that they are really really god on the internet when they really dont outperform any other dialups let alone broadband, i hate it when companys do that, they take advantage of the poor peopl who dont know alot about computers, like this idiot a couple days ago tried to get a coupl grand out of my best friend, he has an old pentium 2 with a voodoo 2, this guy told him that he should throw away everythin and give it all to him becuz it isnt even worth upgrading, its an atz case and he tried tellin him that no other motherboards would work with it and that everything would have errors, he even tried to get him to buy a new monitor from him, when my friends monitor is a 19" somethin(the one with the three birds)

i hate those kind of people, and my idiot friend paid the guy to fix his computer when all he did was reformat and reistall windowsm the computer has a lot of stability issues due to shared irqs, and the guy doesnt even do anything about it!

[KLowD9x]

I have a 500watt home theater system too, it the nominal impedance is 6 ohms, but most sound systems will go 2 to 4 more ohms lower and still sound ~kindasortanotreallybutaccepatble good. and a speaker is not a speaker, if you were to compare a Xplod and an Oz would would notice a hugh difference. Also, my friend bought some crappy speakers from radio shack (2 6.5s) and we hooked them up to his old yamaha amp, sounded like ass! Then we wired them in parallel, still sounded like ass, but the amp got so hot the thermal prot. came on. I really suggest just getting a small car amp and use it, it will sound alot better, and, since the car amp is made for it, the weird impedances wont be taxing on ur amplifier.

[VashTheStampede]

Originally posted by KLowD
I have a 500watt home theater system too, it the nominal impedance is 6 ohms, but most sound systems will go 2 to 4 more ohms lower and still sound ~kindasortanotreallybutaccepatble good. and a speaker is not a speaker, if you were to compare a Xplod and an Oz would would notice a hugh difference. Also, my friend bought some crappy speakers from radio shack (2 6.5s) and we hooked them up to his old yamaha amp, sounded like ass! Then we wired them in parallel, still sounded like ass, but the amp got so hot the thermal prot. came on. I really suggest just getting a small car amp and use it, it will sound alot better, and, since the car amp is made for it, the weird impedances wont be taxing on ur amplifier.

Well I currently have a Pioneer 2-channel 75W amp that powers my subs. Going to replace that here soon. Would that work?

~Vash~

[KLowD9x]

Yea, the 250 watt amp only drew at max 45 ohms, and I was powering mine with a 250 watt power supply, that 75w prolly only draws 20 amps, im sure an old 250watt psu would power that.

[CrystalMethod]

I'm not so sure... 20A is a heck of a lot for a computer power supply. Heck even 10A would be a lot.

[scoobydoo]

Originally posted by KLowD
I have a 500watt home theater system too, it the nominal impedance is 6 ohms, but most sound systems will go 2 to 4 more ohms lower and still sound ~kindasortanotreallybutaccepatble good. and a speaker is not a speaker, if you were to compare a Xplod and an Oz would would notice a hugh difference. Also, my friend bought some crappy speakers from radio shack (2 6.5s) and we hooked them up to his old yamaha amp, sounded like ass! Then we wired them in parallel, still sounded like ass, but the amp got so hot the thermal prot. came on. I really suggest just getting a small car amp and use it, it will sound alot better, and, since the car amp is made for it, the weird impedances wont be taxing on ur amplifier.

Well OK, I'm not going to go into depth about the whole thing, but ohm load is relative. Even if your speaker is 8ohm, depending on what you are playing the ohm could be higher or lower i.e. it could dip down to 3-4ohm or go up to 10-12ohm so basically the ohm load depends on the speaker and the source material playing.

Again a speaker IS a speaker! It is basically magnet(motor), spider and a cone. Ohm/resistance/impedance, whatever anyone calls it, has nothing to do with the sound quality of a speaker.

The Sony Explode isn't as good of a speaker as an OZ speaker is. The only difference other than one sounding better than the other is possibly that one is a coaxial and the other is a component set!

As far as home equipment handling a 2ohm load I would say it is not advisable unless you have a high quality amp like Krell or some other multi thousand dollar system. The reason it probably sounds worse at a lower ohm rating on your system is cause you are clipping the amp, which is bad!



The crappy Radio Shack speakers sounded like crap cause they were crap. Switching the wiring won't do anything for the sound and paralleling them together is what overheated the amp.

Considering a car amp runs on DC and not AC current he would have to get a AC to DC convertor and that would be a waste of time and money. If you are actually thinking of running a car amp off a PC power supply....well I won't even bother with that one.

Anyway just use a home amp/receiver or whatever you have and you will be fine

I don't want you to get bad advice and I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but KLowD has no idea what he is talking about, but thats OK as long as you know both sides and make your own decision!

There has to be someone else out there to help me enlighten this young man? :)

[jbell]

Originally posted by spazzkid
just make sure u get those speakers shieded... those magnetic thingies are bad for the HD and the Monitor.

HEHE I found that out! I brought my 10" rockford fosgate HE2s to work before I installed them and man it tripped out my monitor bad!!!! even from two feet away you could see an effect....
6" and the colors were toast!

[VashTheStampede]

Originally posted by jbell


HEHE I found that out! I brought my 10" rockford fosgate HE2s to work before I installed them and man it tripped out my monitor bad!!!! even from two feet away you could see an effect....
6" and the colors were toast!

Ok so what can you do to prevent that, other than placing distance between the speakers and your computer system?

~Vash~

[scoobydoo]

Magnets don't mix well with tube TV's and CRT monitors:) The bigger the magnet the worse it is. I can "deguass" my TV from about 3 feet away with one of my 12" subs. If they are too close you will know cause you will get a rainbow effect along the edge of your screen. Long term exposure to the magnetic field can cause your screen to stay that way, kinda like "burn-in".

Other than seperating them you would need to shield the magnet from getting outsiude the enclosure. The most common way to do this is by using a "bucking" magnet.

A bucking magnet is a magnet that has an opposite attration that is attached to the speaker magnet to draw the magnetic field back into the enclosure.

[KLowD9x]

Originally posted by scoobydoo


Well OK, I'm not going to go into depth about the whole thing, but ohm load is relative. Even if your speaker is 8ohm, depending on what you are playing the ohm could be higher or lower i.e. it could dip down to 3-4ohm or go up to 10-12ohm so basically the ohm load depends on the speaker and the source material playing.

Again a speaker IS a speaker! It is basically magnet(motor), spider and a cone. Ohm/resistance/impedance, whatever anyone calls it, has nothing to do with the sound quality of a speaker.

The Sony Explode isn't as good of a speaker as an OZ speaker is. The only difference other than one sounding better than the other is possibly that one is a coaxial and the other is a component set!

As far as home equipment handling a 2ohm load I would say it is not advisable unless you have a high quality amp like Krell or some other multi thousand dollar system. The reason it probably sounds worse at a lower ohm rating on your system is cause you are clipping the amp, which is bad!



The crappy Radio Shack speakers sounded like crap cause they were crap. Switching the wiring won't do anything for the sound and paralleling them together is what overheated the amp.

Considering a car amp runs on DC and not AC current he would have to get a AC to DC convertor and that would be a waste of time and money. If you are actually thinking of running a car amp off a PC power supply....well I won't even bother with that one.

Anyway just use a home amp/receiver or whatever you have and you will be fine

I don't want you to get bad advice and I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but KLowD has no idea what he is talking about, but thats OK as long as you know both sides and make your own decision!

There has to be someone else out there to help me enlighten this young man? :)

Deleted Post...Dont Feel Like Getting Banned Because Others Have An Inferiority Complex.

[KLowD9x]

Originally posted by CrystalMethod
I'm not so sure... 20A is a heck of a lot for a computer power supply. Heck even 10A would be a lot.

The supply was rated for 7 on the 12v line. A 500watt PSU can do something like 50a? Correct me if im wrong. We couldnt turn it up ALL the way when it was bridged, but with normal stereo operation, it would get loud! and sound good. (not the radioshack ghetto speakers)

[Gravity Man]

a 75 watt amp running on 12v uses 6.25 amps. My 431W Enermax is rated for 20A on the 12v rail, I have 2 cheapo 300W supplys that are rated at 9 and 10A, and a really cheap 200W rated at 6A. Find a used AT PS and check the label for the 12v line, if it is more than 6.25 watts, you should be able to power the amp off of that.