Amp needed for speakers

[Osirus23]

Ok so I'm building a MAME cabinet. I ordered 2 4" speakers from Happ to hook to the sound card in the PC. Is the card going to have enough boost to push these speakers? I'm guessing not, so what's a simple way to add more power to them if needed?

[BobA]

Unless your card has an amplified output then yes you need an amp.   Easiest solution is to get a PC 2.0 or 2.1 setup and gut it for parts.  Many can be had for around $20 or less.  Only get a 2.1 if you want a subwoofer to add to your cab.  If you only want to drive your 2 happs speakers get a 2.0 (2 spkr) setup.

[DrumAnBass]

If you didn't want to do any wire hacking something like this amp from PartsExpress will work: http://tinyurl.com/22dxjg

I bet you could find something similar for less $$ on ebay etc.

[Osirus23]

Would a small Car Audio amp work? They run off of 12V DC which the PC PSU should be able to supply correct?

[BobA]

A small car amp will work fine as long as it does not draw too much power.  Lots of people have used them in their cabs.

[fuadramsey]

if you need additional power for the amp, you can always run another power supply box and hack it. If you connect the 12V positives together you can get more current. Look up power supply hacks.

[Apollo]

you could have ordered the happ kiosk amp as well that's what i use

[turbo6]

I used some old car speakers and a car audio amp powered by an old arcade power supply that I took out of one my cabs when I converted it to a Mame cab. Works great... has pretty good sound and volume as well. 

[rovingmind]

the car amp is going to depend on how much current you will have to feed it.  If it needs a 10 amp fuse or less it will be reasonable.  Check out the post in here about David Navones amp. It uses a 5 amp fuse, puts out left/right at 20watts per.

I'm going to use a dub 1002 made by aduiobahn for a cockpit project.  I will need a powersupply capable of putting out 25 amps at 14.4 volts.  For the average cabinet this is unreasonable and way overpowering.

It ends up depending on how much your willing to spend and how big of a headache your willing to put up with.

I'm not promoting the Dub brand of amps, i just happened to get one on sale for my jeep.  I needed a stereo that was cheap that i wouldn't miss if it ended up stolen.  It actually sounded ok in my application.