Ok so due to illness i cant drive or own a car but that doesnt stop me bringing parts of cars into my room as furniture or electrical equiptment.I would like peoples advice on a good sound system i.e makes, sub size, ways to store them, and rough prices.I live in the UK but shipping is an option.I personally am thinking a couple of square kickers in an acrylic presentation box with a neon light and a purge valve just for effects.

tell me what you think,vinny xx

http://www.lightav.com/car/kicker/solox.jpg

subs like that...

http://www.hi-octane.co.za/zex/zex/purgecloud.jpg

and an L.E.D purge valve,this ones ZEX but NX do a nice one too

When it comes to home audio subs, forget brands like Kicker, Orion, MTX, and any other flashy car sub brand.

In the UK, you don't get nice HT friendly subs by companies like Creative Sound Solutions, Acoustic Elegance, Dayton, TC-Sounds/AudioPulse, ect.....Unless you do. I could be wrong.

Peerless sells quality subwoofers in the UK; the XLS. There are other options too, but I'd have to look around and ask some of the UK members on the DIY HT forums I'm on.

What is the main purpose of your subwoofer? Music? Movies?If it's music, there are a lot of Pro Audio woofers manufactured in your area that would work great.

so kind of you to ask arround for me the purpose will be used purley as music with a car stereo.thats why i was thinking go into a place specialising in car audio pic up a couple of subs and a facial for my cd/stereo.

vinny xx

Well you need to use the right tool for the job. Car audio is different than home audio is different than pro audio. Different uses and different environments.

If purely music based, you have to think about what kind of music you listen to. Organ music needs to reach all the way to 16hz (32 foot long pipe) with 5 organs in the world reaching 8hz with a 64ft long pipe.

If you listen to dance music, most of the bass energy is centered between 63-45hz, with some extension into the high 30's. With the new genre, dubstep, 20hz is now reached with some authority.

With rap music, or that boomy pop music stuff, most energy is concentrated around 45-40hz where cars and speaker enclosures tend to resonate together. Low notes then reach 30hz. For example, Lil Johns - Get Low has two fundamental bass notes 40 and 30hz.

So you need to know what kind of music you listen to?What kind of extension (how deep you need your sub to play) you need?What kind of output do you need?How big of a box and how many can you build?How much money do you want to spend?

I do suggest scrapping the whole car audio in the house idea. That requires AC to DC converters which are innefficient. Use the right tool for the job; Buy a used A/V receiver and use 110v (or 200v in your area) amps. Besides, the amount of money you'd spend on the AC to DC converter for your car subwoofer amp alone will be more than a quality pro audio amp and it'll put out more power than your car sub amp.

Cheers thats given me alot to think about

The most economical amp is the Behringer EP2500.Third party tested to deliver 850wattsx2 @ 2ohms with less than 1% THD at 20hz. It'll put out 1kw x 2 if you don't mind higher distortion levels. They may still be below 2% too...who knows



In the US, they can be had for 270.00(USD) shipped from B&H. In the UK, I'm not sure, but they're worth looking into.

you bet i will look into it,i think i would be crazy not to

That amp, along with 99.9% of all pro-amps are fan cooled. In a casual HT settings, you don't need the high volume fans they come with, so you can swap them out for quiet computer fans which greatly reduces fan noise.

I did that to my Behringer EP2500...well it uses a 24v fan, so I used 2, 80mm Enermax fans wired in series. I get good enough air flow and the fan noise dropped a lot.

I now need to do the same thing with my Crown CE4000; which, btw, if you need a little over 1kw of output per channel at 4ohms (1600w x 2 @2ohms), look into picking up one of these amps.

...Still looking into available sub drivers in your area, but if you're primarily after music, offerings from companies like B&C, 18 Sound, Faital Pro, Beyma, ect... could work very well.

amazing your so helpfull all these tips n hints and stuff although i havent heard of them places :p

Looneybomber wrote:The most economical amp is the Behringer EP2500.Third party tested to deliver 850wattsx2 @ 2ohms with less than 1% THD at 20hz. It'll put out 1kw x 2 if you don't mind higher distortion levels. They may still be below 2% too...who knows



In the US, they can be had for 270.00(USD) shipped from B&H. In the UK, I'm not sure, but they're worth looking into.

Nice. I think I paid about 200 for my AudioSource amp-300 last year (470w bridged).

# Stereo (8 ohm): 150W RMS per channel at 8 ohms,# 20Hz - 20kHz, <0.2% THD+N# Stereo (4 ohm): 235W per channel at 4 ohms,# 20Hz-20kHz, <0.2% THD+N# Bridged Mono (8 ohm): 470W RMS at 8 ohms,# 20Hz - 20kHz, <0.2% THD+N# Frequency Response: 20Hz - 20kHz, +0dB, -0.5dB# Signal to Noise Ratio: 103dB A-weighted, referred to rated power at 4 ohms# Channel Separation: 65dB @ 1kHz, referred to rated power at 8 ohms# Sensitivity: Variable, 350mV to 2.8V for rated power at 8 ohms

I don't find much wrong with it for what I would call an entry level amp.

I do agree with staying away from car audio gear if possible but I have had some good luck with using car speakers for bookshelf systems. First pair I built with a pair of JBL tweeters and old Rockford Fosgate SP54 midbass drivers and those things kicked butt. I also did a pair with some Rockford titanium tweeters and a pair of Kicker F6.5's and they were pretty decent as well. FAR better than other base-level bookshelf systems I have had.

For the price of used receivers that are only a couple years old it does not make sense to use a car head unit unless you are in a major money crunch.

audtatious wrote:
Nice. I think I paid about 200 for my AudioSource amp-300 last year (470w bridged).

# Stereo (8 ohm): 150W RMS per channel at 8 ohms,# 20Hz - 20kHz, <0.2% THD+N# Stereo (4 ohm): 235W per channel at 4 ohms,# 20Hz-20kHz, <0.2% THD+N# Bridged Mono (8 ohm): 470W RMS at 8 ohms,# 20Hz - 20kHz, <0.2% THD+N# Frequency Response: 20Hz - 20kHz, +0dB, -0.5dB# Signal to Noise Ratio: 103dB A-weighted, referred to rated power at 4 ohms# Channel Separation: 65dB @ 1kHz, referred to rated power at 8 ohms# Sensitivity: Variable, 350mV to 2.8V for rated power at 8 ohms

I don't find much wrong with it for what I would call an entry level amp.

I do agree with staying away from car audio gear if possible but I have had some good luck with using car speakers for bookshelf systems. First pair I built with a pair of JBL tweeters and old Rockford Fosgate SP54 midbass drivers and those things kicked butt. I also did a pair with some Rockford titanium tweeters and a pair of Kicker F6.5's and they were pretty decent as well. FAR better than other base-level bookshelf systems I have had.

For the price of used receivers that are only a couple years old it does not make sense to use a car head unit unless you are in a major money crunch.

Well the idea came from the fact im not aloud to drive nore will i ever due to illness,so i thought to myself why not bring aspects of the car to my room...

ABM~Tuning wrote:amazing your so helpfull all these tips n hints and stuff although i havent heard of them places :p

Here in the US, these are some of the drivers available to us. http://www.usspeaker.com/

Yes, they're considered Pro Audio drivers, but when used correctly, they give very good quality (hifi) sound, with output levels unheard of in the hifi world.

There are new companies out now (JTR and Seaton Sound) who make home friendly speakers but with PA speaker drivers...and there's starting to be a lot of "HiFi" converts. I've seen one thread in particular where the person had a "hifi" system in the 6 figure range and converted over to some of these PA based speakers.

PHL is another very good company, but kinda pricey.

*edit*If you lived in the US, AEspeakers makes some very nice stuff. Their AV series subwoofers are getting rave reviews and I've been told from the owner/designer than their AV15h subwoofer can be plugged strait into a 110v 15A outlet...and not for just a few seconds either.

I own two of the TD series woofers, the TD15h, http://www.aespeakers.com/drivers.php?driver_id=10but at $284/ea (if buying two) plus shipping, they're probably not what you're looking for since shipping to the UK would be huge.

We can talk more about bass for your house.
Modified by Looneybomber at 12:12 PM 7/26/2009

ABM~Tuning wrote:Well the idea came from the fact im not aloud to drive nore will i ever due to illness,so i thought to myself why not bring aspects of the car to my room...

If you can NEVER drive again...start brain storming!

I have on idea, setup a home PC with an actual car dash...or a fabricated look-alike.

Pur yourself in the middle, have the flat screen come out the top of the dash, put in your car stereo, AC dials, ect... Mount some small bookshelfs on the dash and even put two more behind you on some speaker stands, along with a subwoofer (home not car). It'll have the home functionality with some of the looks of a car. You could even go a LOT farther by creating a whole car cockpit if you want or scrap the whole idea.

...The point is to be creative and do what you want. There's certainly some home savy solutions for you that will work in a psudo-car environment like that.

wow i never thought about taking it that far but that seems pretty f***ing awsom i am also decorating the room i might paint scenery on the walls an stuff:)