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12 v DC power supply used with car audio amp?
MYX:
Howdy folks. I am starting to figure out my audio set up for my cab. I am planning on using a car audio amp and car speakers. My thought was to use a wall wart 12 v power supply to power the 12v needs for the amp, but I do not know what kind of abuse an amp will put the PS through. Has anyone tried this approach? I am trying to not tap the computer power supply for anything other than lighting. How much amperage does an audio amp need?
Amp
Speakers
Nothing major to freak out about, but I did want a real pair of speakers as opposed to computer speakers. I want the cabinet to act as... well a cabinet. With the volume of the cabinet, the low frequencies should become quite boomy with that much air space.
BobA:
At 240 watts your amp will need at least 20 amps at peak power at 12 V. The power rating of speakers is not used to determine the draw only the max out of your amp. Your speakers can be rated 200W each but only 120W is going to get to each one from a 2 channel 240-W amp. A wall wart will not supply this type of power. A good pc power supply can be used. Check the specs on various supplies.
I think we have discussed this a few times in the forum
Luckydevil:
I assure you that amp is not putting out anywhere near 240 watts. I'd say it is easily less than 100 watts rms, and probably closer to 50 watts rms.
Any normal ATX PC power supply should be more than enough to power that amp.
MYX:
Are you saying with, or without the PC connected? Get a second ATX PS?
mccoy178:
MYX, this is no help, but I got kind of lucky in this department. I have two arcade power supplies that have 12v and 5v that I plan on using in my cabinet. (Actually one in the cabinet, but I was too lazy to correct that). Anyways, when I originally found these, that was one of my first planned uses.