Car Stereo Speaker Projects Illustrated

[cream]

hi muni,

my advice to you on your project - you typically cannot use a car sub as a home audio subwoofer - to understand why, read below.

there are 3 basic differences between a home audio environment and a car audio environment.

1) the room area in a typically house is typically 15-20 times more than the listening room area in a car.

2) the environment in a car is all very well damped and compact.

3) because of 1&2, when playing bass in a car, the subwoofer couples with the car and resonates along with it, lowering the resonance of the sound and increasing efficiency - improving sound quality.

these 3 differences has a cascading effect on requirements for home audio and car audio i.e.

you need to power home audio systems at least 5-10 times more than you need to power a system in a car to get the same sound.

bass (frequency below 100Hz) is boosted by 10-12dB in a car - in home audio, if you are unlucky, bass can actually cancel itself (if you have placed the sub wrongly or incorrectly aligned phase), thus the difference in bass can be to the tune of 15dB - from the same woofer-enclosure.

so here's what happens. because 90% of speakers work so efficiently in a car (due to the above factors) - car subs are designed accordingly - with very high resonance and low efficiency. this invariably makes them cheap.

but when the resonance of a car sub is in the vicinity of 50-60Hz and eff in the range of <85dB, this will virtually give you no usable home theatre bass sound in your room - irrespective of the enclosure that you make.

Beyond that, it doesn’t matter what the impedance of your sub is, because you are going to use the .1 channel (sub out) of your amp, this is line level – and impedance free. Impedance settings only have an effect on speakers connected to the speaker terminals.

Every sub can only perform effectively in predefined enclosures. You cannot get more bass from a bigger enclosure – and stuff like that.

If you still are interested, you can tell me the specs of some of the subs that you are looking at, I can tell you if it is even worth trying to use them for home theatre bass!

Hope this helps – keep those q&a’s flying.

[muni]

Thanks Cream, for the valuable advice..and agree that a car sub's characteristics suits small enclosures.. was trying to c if anyone has actually tried it and wanted a sort of technical feedback for any limitations..

had high hopes that it would work well for HT setup :-(

Am considering dropping the car sub idea for a HT setup but still want to try other alternatives..

Can you suggest a HT sub woofer kits that i can assemble or some brands which give the best
value for money.I know for sure that a lot of brands have insane profit margins.

My requirements again would be

1)12 inch sub with a gud low freq response and that which is reliable.
2) sub amp with a remote operation of the features( volume level/ cutoff level) would be useful..although the reciever does have level control.
3) Decent enclosure appropriately tuned for the sub woofer's charecteristics.
Though the low woofer level can be controlled in the AV reciever.

Am not for a 10 inch/8 inch subs as i know for sure that they cannot significantly improve
over my tower left/right speakers..

MAny a times i have seen that my sub bottoms out on a lot of scenes in bass intensive DVDs.


Appreciate ur help in this regard..

[Insane Devil]

hi Milind, can u please send me the file too.. me a bit car audio enthusiast!
mail to : rishann@gmail.com

[greenh0rn]

hi milind..please send it to sethrishi[at] gmail dotcom...

[ScarySkulls]

to_bunnie@yahoo.com please.....!!

[Vivekphadnis]

Hi Milind, Could you send me a copy to cqd@rediffmail.com please. Thanks.
Vivek

[ThE_DoN]

Hi milind,
Thanx for the effort...
Can i have one sent to bhavesh507@hotmail.com
THANKS...

[zzzehar]

hi MILINDBAJEKAL please send the book to me as well in the .pdf format at sukhamrit_Singh@dell.com, thank you.

[sgiridharan]

Hi, Could you sent to my email= sgiridharan2000@yahoo.com.

Thank you in advance.

[swapnilb75]

Hi,

Could i have it at swapnil.bhonsle@gmail.com

Thanks

Swap

[rsjaurr]

Hi
Plz mail me at rsjaurr@gmail.com the car stereo setup
thanx

[mclaren1885]

could u pls mail me it to me too at rrk_1885@yahoo.co.in

[SoundManiac]

I would want a copy. My ID is xxx-----------ashishnaredi@rediffmail.com------------xxxx
Obviously those xxx's and the --------have tobe left out. Done this coz some one tells me that most spammers get there email id's by auto scanning forums....

Thanks

[shuvc]

@milind .. please send me a copy too ..

shuvc@hotmail.com

@SoundManiac . thats a nice ploy .. thought of using it .. but then , going by the junk I receive, I guess most of the worlds spammers already have this id of mine

[Hari]

please send a copy to hari20@rediffmail.com