Car subs for home theater?

[Weapon_R]

I have a home theater system with 2 towers. Each houses a 12" subwoofer and a couple of speakers.

I was wondering if I could swap in a set of 12" automotive speakers (spares I have lying around) to see if I can get better bass out of them.

Would this work?

[rahim]

if the impedance is the same it should work, although thats not saying it will sound better, home and car subs are designed differently, only way to find out is to try it

[Weapon_R]

When you speak impedence, do you mean OHMs? Sorry, newb to this stuff.

[spike98]

yup ohms, it really depends on the way your tower works. If they use a passive crossover inside of the tower (caps and coils to split the signals to the different drivers) then the different impediance could screw up the x-over points. Or it might not lol. If you have some laying around it wont hurt to try. Most half assed decent recievers out there can accept 4-8ohm loads. If it shuts off automaticly that means the reciver doesnt like it and you shouldnt push it to hard.

[Weapon_R]

Here is some more info on the receiver. If anyone has any input, it would be nice to know a bit more about it. I don't understand these power ratings: My friend has a 600 watt receiver that does not power my towers like this one does, but looking at the model # on the net shows much lower power numbers than I expected. Am I reading it wrong?

Akai

Power Output (1 kHz, 0.7%) 120W (8 Ohms)
150W (6 Ohms)
180W (4 Ohms)

FTC (20Hz to 20kHz) 120W (8 ohms, 0.05%)
150W (6 ohms, 0.07%)
180W (4 Ohms, 0.1%)

Dynamic Power 145W (8 Ohms)
180W (6 Ohms)
250W (4 Ohms)
400W (2 Ohms)

Power Band Width 10Hz to 60 kHz/0.1%

Total Harmonic Distortion 0.008% (1kHz, 8 Ohms)

Phono max, input level 200mV (MM)

Frequency Response 3 Hz to 100 kHz
(+0 db, -3 db)

Tone Control
Treble + - 10 db (10 kHz)
Bass + - 10 db (100 Hz)

Input sensitivity/ impedance
Phono (MM) 2.5mV/ 47 kohms
Phono (MC) 0.25mV/ 470 Ohms
Tuner, etc 150 mV/ 47 kohms

Output level/ impedance
Tape rec out 150 mV/ 1 kohmn

Damping factor 50 (1 kHz)

Residual noise 0.5 mV

S/N
Phono (MM) 85 db
Phono (MC) 67 db
Tuner etc 100 db

Channel Seperation 60 db

Audio Mute -20 db

Required speaker impedance
A or B 4 to 16 Ohms
A and B 8 to 16 Ohms


(D/A Section)
Sampling Frequency 32kHz/44.1kHz/48khz
Digital Filter 8 fs, 18 bit
D/A Convertor 16 Bit, 2 DAC
Digital input level/ impedance
Coaxial 0.5Vp-p/75 ohm
Optical -14 to -23 dBm

Frequency Response 5 Hz to 20 KHz
(+ - 0.3db)

Dynamic Range 95 db

Total Harmonic Distortion 0.003%

Channel Separation 115 db

[soupey]

^nah it wont screw up the crossover circuits, should work fine, home amps usually can handle 4ohm loads....but yea car subs are designed for enclosures that are placed in the trunks of cars...i'd say trial and error, try to see if the subs sound good, if not, swap em back out, im pretty sure a car sub will sound much better than any cheap sub that came with your tower speakers...let us kno how it goes if u do it:thumbsup:

[soupey]

whoa haha, posted at the same time, well from those specs u posted, ur amp will be able to handle it as long as the car subs are 4ohm..

[lastprodigy]

i hooked up my subs from my car inside my room once....my parents were NOT happy :D

[rahim]

Originally posted by soupey
^nah it wont screw up the crossover circuits, should work fine, home amps usually can handle 4ohm loads....but yea car subs are designed for enclosures that are placed in the trunks of cars...i'd say trial and error, try to see if the subs sound good, if not, swap em back out, im pretty sure a car sub will sound much better than any cheap sub that came with your tower speakers...let us kno how it goes if u do it:thumbsup:

you have to remeber that his amp isn't only seeing the load from the sub, it is seeing the load from the sub, the other two speakers and the passive crossover
and it wouldn't screw up the crossover circuits it would just change the crossover points as they are based on impedance

[spike98]

Originally posted by rahim


you have to remeber that his amp isn't only seeing the load from the sub, it is seeing the load from the sub, the other two speakers and the passive crossover
and it wouldn't screw up the crossover circuits it would just change the crossover points as they are based on impedance

Thats what i was trying to say lol sorry if i was unclear. But ya try it out, you wont wreck anything it will just throw the reciever into protection.

[soupey]

Originally posted by rahim


you have to remeber that his amp isn't only seeing the load from the sub, it is seeing the load from the sub, the other two speakers and the passive crossover
and it wouldn't screw up the crossover circuits it would just change the crossover points as they are based on impedance

how often do u see a subwoofer thats not 4-8ohms in a home theater system, almost unheard of, as long as hes puttin a minimum of 4ohms into it, it should run fine.

the only thing u may notice a difference in is the cutoff frequency the crossover has because the resistance (impedance) is different from the orginal woofer....

does the existing woofer in the enclosure (the original one) say what its impedance is?, more than likely it will be 4ohms...but check it out and let us know.

[tictactoe2004]

all this talk of ohms reminds me of telling noob salesman at visions that we needed them to run out and grab a box of ohms from another store cause we were running low.

[Zero102]

Hehe, I ran 2 12" RF subs in my closet for a while, I tied 3 ATX power supplies in paralell, so I had a combined output of ~45A, and used my big Alpine amp to drive them. I broke some china downstairs, and I had to unhook it all that night :(
This thread brought that memory back.

[b_t]

Originally posted by soupey


how often do u see a subwoofer thats not 4-8ohms in a home theater system, almost unheard of, as long as hes puttin a minimum of 4ohms into it, it should run fine.

the only thing u may notice a difference in is the cutoff frequency the crossover has because the resistance (impedance) is different from the orginal woofer....

does the existing woofer in the enclosure (the original one) say what its impedance is?, more than likely it will be 4ohms...but check it out and let us know.

hummm if his subs are in the same cabinet as his other speakers, I think it is more likely that they are a very high impedance (12 ohms maybe) rather then 4-8. If it was a separate subwoofer, in its own cabinet, then yeah it would be no problem, it would be either 4 or 8, but as he describes it this does not sound to be the case.

Plus there is no saying if the enclosure would be suitable for the subs. Weapon_r, if you've got an extra channel on the amp (doesn't look like it does tho), build a new box for your subs and hook them up like that while keeping the existing subs in the towers. That should sound better. The power numbers for that amp you posted look pretty typical for home audio. Car audio systems are usually several times more powerful then all but the most expensive home audio systems :D

[Vypros]

I've got two 10"s hooked up with a 400watt amp to my pc right now. You must have a power supply to hook up!