Hooking car subwoofers to Computers?

Morphes

Morphes

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jul 16, 2001
Messages
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Hi i have a nice sub setup from a car and i was wondering how do i get it to work with my PC? I have it hooked up right now but its not pushing the subs at all, sorta just like a normal pair of speakers without a dial to work them, Was wondering if i needed a reciver unit to hook it up to, to make it sound full and all...


::EDIT::

ANyway to use my pc as a reciver?
 
Couple of questions:

What are you using to power the subs? A reciever or standalone amplifier would produce more power than, say, a sound card, but that leads to question two.

Are you running full range signal to the box, or are you using a crossover or coils to limit it to low frequencies?

Most car boxes are designed to load off of the trunk or the smaller enclosed space of a car cabin and may not sound anywhere near as good as it did outside. Also, most home amps aren't set up with a default 4 ohm load as default, and some cheaper recievers may not like driving them. If you 're not using a crossover, you're going to get everything from vocals to horns to guitar passing through the subs, and that, frankly, will sound like ass. Using a crossover will help with this, as will coils, but the coils will eat up a ton of power.

I'd stick to an off the shelf sub designed for computer use, or better yet, get a home theater sub. By the time you sink the money and work into it, you'll likely still end up with something that sounds iffy. At least I alwasys did...
You can get good ones under $200, or go REL or Velodyne and get the good stuff.
 
Car subs = 4ohm
Home Amplifier = 8ohm

Car subs = Need 500w+
Home amplifier puts out 100w

Car power = 14.4 volts DC
Home power = 110V AC

Good luck
 
well i am powering them with a power inverter that i got at radio shack (a 300watt PSU) and my AMP has a crossover built in although i am not sure weather it is really working thou cuz i can hear the vocals from the music. I should have it on low pass filter right, at a low hrz correct?
 
for a long time i was running a vibe pt100 10" car sub in my room from a sony ta-fe230 amp... the ratings that go are a pile of pesh.... the amp i was using gave 60wpc rms and the sub suposidly wanted 300 however with that lil tiny amp i was still able to push it beyond its means and botom it out.... however the box wasnt ported and the filter was not good enough so lo and behold i sold it and got a yammaha that im pleased with very nice low rumble, alot more gut to the sound... but i did pay alot more for it than i did for my vibe and fe230 setup.

---stu---
 
I did that once.
I used:
1x old AT PS
1x old Car stereo
1x amp
2x subs

The voltage is DC 12. And you do not have to use the car stereo, you can stick your cable from the sound card into the amp's inputs.
I'd say just find one car amp and power it.
 
I got this thing workin mad nice here is what i did,

Got a boom box withan equalizer on it set it to have just bass

hooked the computer audio in to a tape (no other way to do input)

then hooked the amp to the boom box and the speakers threw the amp with another low pass filter. pumps mad bass out now

The only problem i got now is i can still hear the voices a lil bit threw the sub box, but i might be able to fix that later
 
Stuman - highpass filters do just that- they let high frequencies pass while attenuating below a certain point. You don't want this with a sub.

Morphes - the reason you're getting vocals with the filter is that the slope of the crossover is relatively gentle, probably 6 to 12 dB. Sounds like you have the power side figured out pretty well- experiment with corner placement and positioning to use the walls and floor to load the output and you may get some decent results. The EQ may help attenuate the vocals as well.

Good luck with the project-
 
iight i messed around with the eq and it sounds like a fuckin $400 sytem! i am very pleased with the results the only problem now is i need a better speakers for the tweeter and mid range cuz its over powering the vocals :p all in all thou, i love it will write a toturial on how to do this for others that want to invest in it, I spent about $200 on it total but slowly and from old parts and stuff...
 
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