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Car speakers for HT system

post #1 of 3
2/13/09 at 2:48am
Thread Starter 
Hi,

I just recently built a HTPC, which works like a dream, but now i'm looking for something unique when it comes to the speakers. I have this idea in my head to make it out of car speakers, and need some advice on whether or not it will work, or will be worth the trouble and costs? .. Since car amps are powered by the 12v from the battery, i thought of using a standard pc power supply to power them, which has a 5v and a 12v output. So, here is my plan - build my own tv stand, with the sub and 2x 4 channel amps mounted inside it, and powered by the pc power supply. The one amp will drive the front left&right, and rear left&right speakers, and the second amp will have the sub (bridged over two channels), and the 2 speakers for the center channel. what i was thinking, is 2 sets of 10" JBL limpids (1 set for front and 1 set for rear), then 1 set for of the same limpids for the center channel, and a 12" 1500 DVC sub... This is going to cost me quite a lot, but it is something unique (I think)... So, my question really, is, will it be worth it to build something like that, looking at the sound quility and all? another option I am looking at, is Logitech Z5500's, it is actually pc speakers, but seeing that I have a HTPC, it'll do just fine.
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post #2 of 3
2/13/09 at 5:24am

Re: Car speakers for HT system

This idea comes up every once in a while and the answer is still the same - it is not worth it.

Why you ask? Yes, you can use a PC power supply to feed the amps a 12v signal but you either need extremely efficient amps (expensive) or you need to go very low power. There are AC to DC converters that are used in car audio stores to power the demo rooms but those are really expensive. You may find one from a company like Pyramid but the DC power isn't clean and you will have noise through the speakers.

Car audio speakers are not recommended. Cheap ones sound cheap. Expensive ones are designed to be listed to off-axis. If you point the tweeter directly at you then it will sound harsh. If you decide to still run them then you can use an amp that can drive a 4 ohm load. The Behringer A-500 is a great, bargain amp. Your sub amp will depend entirely on your sub design and the final impedance load.

-Robert
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post #3 of 3
2/17/09 at 2:38am

Re: Car speakers for HT system

^Somewhat agreed.

I built a decent 5.1 system a few years ago out of car speakers. I used to do installs on the site and ended up with several speakers and subs laying around as a result. It was as simple as building an enclosure for each driver and hooking them up to a Pioneer receiver.

That said, if you already have high end car speakers to use that would be wasting away otherwise I say go for it. Its a great transition into building DIY speakers as you have no crossover to worry about since most coaxials use mechanical crossovers and component sets usually supply a passive one. But for the money you would pay for ridiculously over priced car audio products you would be better off value wise buying a set of speakers. Or since you seem to be the DIY type of person there are many speaker building kits out there that don't require you to do painful crossover design.

As for the amplifier the 12v rail coming from your HTPC's power supply probably isn't powerful enough to run a nice car amplifier. A 5.1 receiver would do just fine but like the last poster said make sure it is stable down to 4 ohms as that's what most car speakers are rated. A receiver with an active crossover would be nice too so you can filter down the lower bass frequencies that could damage your satellite speakers.

Be sure to do your research and build proper enclosures so that you'll get a respectable bass response.

Good luck and have fun.
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