Using a car subwoofer in your home theater system

[myshtern]

I don't really know anything about sound systems so feel free to edemucate me :)

I have a 6.1 channel, 600 watt amp. I have 5 speakers hooked up and I want to get a cheap sub in here. It seems as though subs for cars are much more available for really cheap on craigslist.

My understanding is that a car's audio system operates on 12v while my amp will output 110v. Can I just buy an inverter and one of the cheap subs on craigslist?

How would I hook up the inverter in relation to the speaker wire?

[95integraLS]

Ya can do that but not sure how too hook it up but dont think it's going to sound too great car subs work off the space there in thats how the bass is generated, may be wrong but...

[myshtern]

no one?

[Deceptakhan]

I have seen Cerwin Vega car subs that sounded absolutely awesome. My dad also has a set of MTX 8000 subs where regular 12" woofers go, again sounds awesome. These by far crush alot of those powered sub setups you can buy, and I've heard some very nice setups with those as well.

[Deceptakhan]

Also I don't know about an inverter, but the way I did it was through a 150 watt powered 8" home subwoofer. Took out the old sub, and wired it to 2 12s.

[myshtern]

How would I hook up the inverter in relation to the speaker wire?

Anyone know the above?

[Deceptakhan]

Fuck, I'm just babbling. Sorry.

[cybergreencivic]

You want a car sub in your house? Buy this bad boy from JL Audio. The Gotham has 2 13" W7's if i remember right. $11,000 for it.

http://home.jlaudio.com/products_subs_pages.php?page_id=3

[myshtern]

Didnt you read my post?

[cybergreencivic]

Didnt you read my post?

I did indeed. And that was kind of my answer as how to correctly install a car subwoofer in your home, and just show you something bad ass. Sorry for whoring your thread.

[Bedlam]

Back in "the day" I had an extra car sub that we built an enclosure for and used to kick around the apartment in college. It worked "ok" but sounded pretty shitty really, and they can be hard on your equipment.

Most home speakers are 8 ohms, there car stuff is 4. Newer and higher end receivers are sometimes "ok" with 4ohm stuff, but the real issue is getting all the other audio out of the source except for the bass.

If you are talking about using a car amp, and a AC/DC converter to power the whole mess..I saw some ghetto rigs with that too..its really, really, not worth it, unless you have a really nice amp and subs just sitting around.

You need such a strong 12V power supply that it quickly becomes cheaper just to go buy a powered home subwoofer. Not a real easy way to supply an amp with 75 amps @ 12v.

Fun idea in concept, really not worth it in the long run for a crappy sounding sub. imo.

[myshtern]

Back in "the day" I had an extra car sub that we built an enclosure for and used to kick around the apartment in college. It worked "ok" but sounded pretty shitty really, and they can be hard on your equipment.

Most home speakers are 8 ohms, there car stuff is 4. Newer and higher end receivers are sometimes "ok" with 4ohm stuff, but the real issue is getting all the other audio out of the source except for the bass.

If you are talking about using a car amp, and a AC/DC converter to power the whole mess..I saw some ghetto rigs with that too..its really, really, not worth it, unless you have a really nice amp and subs just sitting around.


Fun idea in concept, really not worth it in the long run for a crappy sounding sub. imo.
I posted the same thing on a car audio forum, and the only guy who replied said I would be able to hookup a sub the amp without trouble in that it doesnt matter what the voltage is.

You need such a strong 12V power supply that it quickly becomes cheaper just to go buy a powered home subwoofer. Not a real easy way to supply an amp with 75 amps @ 12v.

The max output on the receiver is 100watts, so it would top out at under 8.5amps with 12v. Any speaker wire should be able to do this, no?

[Martian]

You need to check the watt output and Ohms. Its either 8 or 16 ohms I'm sure. So you need a sub that fits the amps requirments. Running a 4ohm sub off a 8 or 16 ohm amp will burn up the amp. Other then that a speaker is a speaker whether it be car or home audio.

[myshtern]

Alright, so the instruction manual says run only 6-8ohm speakers, I am assuming that is the same for the subwoofer too.

Looking on the back though, it now appears that the subwoofer output is like an RCA jack. However I only have 5 speakers hooked up and 6 outputs available. Can I just use one of those outputs for the subwoofer out?

Or is there a special adapter to make regular speaker cable into some sort of RCA output.

[Martian]

The RCA cable tends to mean there is a seperate sub amp inside the woofer box

[sirtef9]

My sub and system works perfect in my garage fridge!

[Brandon]

I just skimmed this and saw a lot of talk of ohms. You can wire multiple subs together to get the resistance to match the amp.
If the subs are wired in series you just add the resistances together. If they're wired in parallel, you use this formula: 1/Rtotal = 1/R1 + 1/R2 + 1/R3 ...
You can mix and match too so if you have (4) 8-ohm subs, you can wire 2 subs in parallel and to get 4 ohms, and then wire each of those sets in series to get back up to 8 ohms.

[Martian]

I just skimmed this and saw a lot of talk of ohms. You can wire multiple subs together to get the resistance to match the amp.
If the subs are wired in series you just add the resistances together. If they're wired in parallel, you use this formula: 1/Rtotal = 1/R1 + 1/R2 + 1/R3 ...
You can mix and match too so if you have (4) 8-ohm subs, you can wire 2 subs in parallel and to get 4 ohms, and then wire each of those sets in series to get back up to 8 ohms.
He has to go up B, not down.

[Brandon]

wire em all in series then....?

[myshtern]

Well I'll only use 1 sub, so that wiring tip doesnt really apply but thanks.

The manual says to use a "mono aural audio cord"