THEISENATOR

I was just wondering what the difference between home and car audio speakers are, I was thinking of building a home theater and was wondering if I could use my JL W6's as the subs? Would it work, and could I use a home audio amp to power them? Thanks.

Guest

car audio is 4ohm or less most of the time home audio is 8phm or higher (90% of the time its 8 ohm) you can do it but they are not goign to hit as long and that kind of amp.

SlowMaro

well ...if he got a 1000 dollar home audio amp that was stable at lower owns...then maybe..lmao....actually itll work decently, but it wont sound like it due to your car being a confined space, and your bedroom being 5 times the size of the area they usually hit in.

Guest

well he would also be running an AB class amp on full when he hooks it up to the home amp ... so the sub will being playing full range not just sub bass

SlowMaro

some home recivers have a a/b type level control with eq presets for each channel . my sony one is like that.

Polecat

it wouldn't send any different signal to a 'car audio' driver versus if he replaced it with a 'home' driver.
It will play highs, mids and lows just like a home replacement.

badjuju342

i've got 2 12" subs in bandpass boxes with passive crossovers driven by my harmon/kardon av receiver,works just dandy.the ohm rating needs to match the receiver,i.e. a 4ohm driver will burn up an output on a receiver that states an 8ohm min. impedance.

Guest

a class D amp with crossvoers will only play sub bass a class AB amp running at full (not LHP) will do the same thing as the home audio amp.

by me saying that i'm trying to get this point acorss... just cuz they are subs and you put them on a home audio amp doesn't mean that they will hit hard and deep as if they would if installed on a class D car audio amp

wuz_up92085

most decent home receivers these days have speaker outputs designed to just send out low db signals and anyways you could would have to buy a amp for the subs because i dont know of many home receivers that can send out over 200 continous watts to any speaker let alone a subwoofer and you could always buy a low pass filter for around 15 bucks at any radio shack

Guest

if you put the low pass filter on the sub won't play at all... like you said the new higher end have the sub output all sub bass signal goes out that output. so if you put a low pass filter on the sub when out the normal output really all the sub would play is mid bass

or what a low pass filters out sub bass so it won't paly any sub bass... i just woke up i'm not fulling my brain fully

CAMp3RO

seriously, you gotta rethink a couple of your posts here. you gotta get your information right. low pass means exactly that. it lets low frequencies pass through and stops the others. you want to use a LP crossover on a sub so that you arent wasting energy on music/information/etc that wasnt made to be played on a sub anyway. however, without a crossover, the sub will play those other frequencies.

another, classes of amps have nothing to do with how hard a sub will hit. if you hook a sub up to a 100 watt class AB amp and a 100 watt class D amp, it will hit the same. however, you will want to use a lowpass crossover when being used on the AB amp or you will be giving the sub frequencies out of its usable range.

not all home amps are class AB and not all car sub amps are D. take note of what the amp says and hook the equipment up accordingly.

Polecat

exactly...a speaker will only read the signal it is fed. What I meant is that the sub will play the same in a home enviroment as it would if you stuck a home driver in it's place.
The difference between a class A/B amp and a D, is usually the class D is more effecient, and has less current draw. But 1000 watts off a class A/B is the same 1000 watts as a class D amp...but chances are the A/B will draw more current doing so.
A A/B amp can play full range, highs, mids, or low frequencies, depending on how it's setup.
Matter of fact, i replaced my home Pioneer woofer for some of our woofers,and they have lasted longer, and sound better than the Pioneer 'home' woofers ever have.

Guest

the first part is get a 200watt jenson AB Class amp and then a memphis 200watt Class D amp and wire them the same and see what one sounds better.. (and yes i am talking RMS)

(the smallest class D amp memphis makes is 250 i believe)


as for the 2nd part that right there says what happens when you use it on a home audio system

87t-5.0transam

I'm going to have to disagree on that one and to top it off your comparing apples and oranges. granted both jenson and memphis make (in my opinion) crappy amps but they are two different companies. If you look at two amps that are actually made by the same company and compare the two you'll see that the Class D uses less current and is by far more, uh whats the word, ah yes efficient. The class D is more effecient then the A/B. Going back to the car realm, with A/B amps you can almost never get away without using a capacitor in the system, but with a class D you can (depending on the size of the amp) They will hit the same just compare two amps of the same company and the same size and youll see two things. In most cases the A/B will cost less and the D is much more efficient in its power usage.

CAMp3RO

how can you even compare jensen vs memphis? jensen is overrated and can almost guarentee memphis is at least slightly underated. 200 watts is 200 watts, whether its from an AB or D class amp.

and a note about AB amps, many people run caps to help power these things. first thing to do, and it will make a biiiig difference, is to upgrade the underhood wiring. i've got a 600w RMS AB amp powering my sub. ran additional 4ga to alt, battery, and ground, and no dimming at all. plus $30 for a wiring kit is much cheaper than a quality cap.

junkyarddog

you guys are killing me, but I think polecat is on the ball.

class D is good for bass because it uses high current "switching" transistors....usually in a 'push-pull' configuration. this type of output is pulse width modulation. it is either on or off, hence class "D" for digital, how can this be made into an audible sound?

switching occures fast, and the inducter (your speaker coil)................never mind, I'm getting of subject here,

I am using a single 12" sealed sub, yes it is a 4 ohm sub, with an audiosource 150 watt self powered sub (it was an SW-4 for home theather, it's own sub is blown) the amp is a 4 ohm amp....class D, two of each: NTE 36,37 out put "high current switching" transistors. the work horses of the unit, very strong and quality sounding unit. it used to drive it's own sub which was a dual coil, each coil being wired in paralell to half the impeadance to 4 ohms.....the car sub is a single coil 4ohm sub, I wired that up by it's self. Before I had the car sub, I paraleled my own home speakes together making a 4 ohm impedence by using two 8 ohm speakers....this was to test, it certainly didn't saound good. But the impedence matching was correct.


It is foolish to use class AB amps with subs, you will never hear the difference and you waste lots of power.

As for acoustics, my cheapo IMPP sub sounds perfectly fine in my living room with my 10 year old Yamaha three ways and a Sony basic Dolby reciever. The amp does have a built in adjustable x-over. he detail is unbelievable!

Polecat

amen brother.

CAMp3RO

oh, i never said an AB amp was a better idea. the only reason why i'm running one was price. would i get a class d? heck yeah. my point was that a 500 watt class ab is gonna be just as loud as a class d 500 watt amp because 500 watts is 500 watts. i got such a great deal on my amp that i couldnt pass it up.

the classes have to do with the power supplies in the amps. d is a switching like you said. the reason why its only for bass is because it switches well within the audible frequency range, therefore causing audible noise. class t is similar to class d, but is full range.

Zerstörer

A few months back alot of folks on the carsound.com boards were saying they prefered to use AB for subs while competing. Has this changed??

Polecat

some prefer A/B, but chances are you will not hear the difference. I had long conversations with Mark Eldridge and Gary Biggs about this, and they both agree. in SQ, class D amps are just fine.

Zerstörer

How about in SPL??

Polecat

Class D all the way.

Zerstörer

I have a Kicker Comp VR 12 sub with the 2 ohm coils wired in series. I was thinking to get the kx400.2 Do you think the kx400.1 would be better since its class D??

Polecat

yes, more effecient amp.

Zerstörer

ok thanks..