Car subwoofer for ht use? (1 Viewer)

[Jared_C]

I am relatively new to ht, former car audio enthusiest mainly. Anyways, i have been looking at powered subs for my ht and can't believe the outrageous prices some of them cost. My question is simple, can a car sub such as ma audio, infinity, diamond, etc achieve the same with an amp as a ht sub? I guess what i'm trying to say is are there any drastic differences between the two?

 

[Jack Briggs]

Car speakers are engineered to sound decent in a very enclosed space. A sub made for such an application is not designed to operate in a more spacious home environment.

 

[BrianWoerndle]

I guess what i'm trying to say is are there any drastic differences between the two?

Yes. Car subs are meant to be put in an enclosed trunk, not a big open room. They usually run at 2 ohms, which normal HT runs at 8. Amps that power car subs are designed to output 2 ohms, and hook up to head units, not a HT receiver. And most of all, car subs sound horrible. It is not a big deal in a small space with road noise an such, but in a room they are very boomy and sloppy. Most overemphise 30-40hz, and do not go much below that. A good HT sub trys to be flat from 20hz, which is better for movies.

So would it work? probably, but it wouldn't sound very good. HT subs are expensive because it is very hard to get good clean response from 20hz in a big room while retaining the detail in a movie. (The music in cars doesn't need to be very precise because it is just a bloated beat anyway)

 

[Ryan Schnacke]

"And most of all, car subs sound horrible."

Well, not all car subs are bad. And often times when they do sound bad its more a function of the enclosure than the actual driver. A great driver in a bad alignment is going to sound bad. And what sounds good to a car audio guy may sound terrible to a home theater guy.

In general, car sub drivers are designed for enclosures/alignments that just don't tend to work as well in a big room. Usually one of the following causes issues:
Fs too high
Qts too high
Vas too low
Xmax too low (for cheaper car subs)

So while you can find some that are fine (Audiomobile, maybe) you're usually better off using a driver designed for home theater. What I find strange is that the car audio guys often don't even realize that HT sub drivers exist. And it sometimes blows their minds when they learn the whole story - that many HT drivers give you more performance for less money than the big brand-name car audio drivers.

 

[Jared_C]

thanks everyone for the info, i'm glad i found this out before i purchased a seperate amp. the dls 10" powered sub will probably be my budget choice.

 

[Tim Morton]

I am a bit of a car audiophile myself (xtant amps image dynamics fronts eclipse subs and a nice clarion head)..so i come at this question for your side of the tracks so to speak. Generally speaking the biggest difference in car subs cs home subs is that they design much smaller boxes for the car sub so as to get the -3db point high enough to sound good when balanced agains the huge transfer funtion you get inside a car...take that same sub and plug in the t/s specs to desin a much lower -4db point and you should get a similar sound in the home. Now would i go out and buy a car audio sub over a home sub if starting from scratch? No, but i would not be opposed to building a sub box for my HT if i already owned a top notch CA sub.

 

[Greg_R]

One other issue is that it's much easier to get high SPL in a car vs. in a HT (due to the amount of air that needs to be moved). Having said that, a friend and I built a HT sub based on a JL Audio sub he had lying around and it was quite musical. However, an Adire Tempest would have given us better results for less $$$.

 

[Dustin B]

If you have the means to build a sub do so. Car Audio companies aren't the only ones that sell raw drivers. Adire Audio, Parts Express and Stryke Audio all offer great raw drivers that make excellent home subs at significantly less cost than a commercial equivalent. Although $100 won't buy you much if that includes the amp. Get up to around over $200 and you can build a nice unfinished sub.

 

[Robert_Gaither]

I have to agree about most of the negatives about car audio woofers as listed above since most of them are designed around a high FS, small enclosure, and relie heavily on the transfer function of the car to gain any significance of low bass (simply put your car's sub/enclosure in the room and compare it to even the Sony SAWM40, it might be louder but most likely not lower). There are actually some good car woofers out there but most are priced higher to a similar sized home woofer and will usually perform much worse.

Now after all that being said, my friends and I have built home subs from car drivers (namely JL, Pioneer Premiere, and recently some of the Audiobahn namely the Alum series, which btw I think are excellent). A relative good cheap woofer (based on the TS, I just recently ordered this to try it) maybe the Audiobahn 1571 since it meets with a low FS, decent displacement, and seems to be an overall low Q design that can easily be had from ebay for under a $100 shipped.

 

[Scott_lb]

I would agree that using car subs for home use is a bad idea. However, if you happen to find the guy who stole my Eclipse amp and my Earthquake sub from my car, you are more than welcome to add it to your theater after beating him mercilessly over the head with my amp.

By the way, I notice you're a UW student. I'm a fellow UW grad!

 

[Jared_C]

i haven't decided whether i want huge bass or sufficient bass. my apartment is tiny and i think the dls 10" powered sub for $99 will do. I was however getting very interested in the dayton titanic sub with a dayton amp and making a homemade mdf box. I guess i wouldn't have much fun cause the neighbors would complain :frowning:

 

[Robert_Gaither]

I will suggest the logic used in the Diy community, over-design and scale back the performance. Based on an older premise of better to have too much and not use it all than not enough pushing it beyond it's limit.