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Car Speakers with PC audio amp?

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KevSteele:
I've got a question about using car speakers with a PC amp unit.

I'm not an audio expert, but I did get lucky with my first cab, as I simply took a cheap PC speaker set (Creative Inspire 2.1), and just spliced my existing 6" arcade speakers in as the satellite speakers. Everything worked great.

This time, I thought I'd go the same route, but instead bought some car speakers since I didn't have any original arcade speakers. I spliced the car speakers in, and got nothing this time except for some buzzing.

I suspect it's just a power level issue, as the Creative amp is only rated for 6 watts RMS per satellite, and the car speakers are 35 watts (160 watts max). Pretty big difference. Both the car and PC speakers were 4 ohms impedence, so I've got a match there. I've also checked the polarity for the wires.

Do I just need more "oomph" to drive the speakers? Would a car amp be a better solution, or a more powerful PC 2.1 speaker set? Any other route to take?

The goal here is to find some nice 5" speakers that would fit into the new cab. I'm not too picky on how they're driven, but it would be nice to have some sort of volume control pod (like I currently have with the Create 2.1 speakers).

Any ideas?

Kevin

RedSquirrel:
heh, this thread has been done twice within the past week  ::)

anyway, it should be possible.

I had a pair of pc speakers i had never used. I opened them up and discovered it was 3w rms. I tried some old car speakers and it worked. I then went and bought a brand new pair of decent car speakers and they also work fine. Sound is pretty good, good enough for mame etc and good enough for mp3s etc as long as its not played too loud.

KevSteele:
Yeah, I actually searched and found the previous thread.

That's why I'm surprised I'm not getting any sound (other than buzzing) out of the car speakers I'm using. But other than the wattage difference, I'm not sure what else I need to be doing.

I've had some suggestions to use an AM/FM receiver unit as the amp, along with a 3.5mm to RCA Y-adapter cable from Radio Shack. It's a possibility, but I'm curious how many others here have used car speakers successfully.

Kevin

Cisco Kid:
... a 200W car amp should do the trick (45W rms) and "Computer Stereo Audio to Stereo Receiver" Monster cable  ;D

... and a power supply to power the amp (minimum 20A) ... really only need 15 - 16A

that should do it (if the speakers are unshielded ... you'll need to attach a cancellation magnet to the back on them)

Nightfalls:
For my future cabinet, I'll be using this model--> http://uk.europe.creative.com/products/product.asp?prod=374

It's pretty expensive, but it's so poweful! BTW, do you know if there will be any problem if a big subwoofer like this is placed too close to the monitor? Satellite spekers are magnetically shielded, but I don't know about the subwoofer. It will be right below, since it's a sit-down cabinet. Any kind of material I could use to prevent the monitor from magnetization?

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