Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

Well my car is off the road for a while until i get some repairs done and it passes its MOT.

I wanted to take the sub out my car so i know it was ok and not at risk of being stolen.

Anyway i have connected my Sub up to my home stereo. Obviously my stereo has a built in amp

Will this be ok?

This is pics of the sub in my room now

http://www.batista.co.uk/images/DSCI0130.JPG
http://www.batista.co.uk/images/DSCI0129.JPG

And this is pics of my stereo

http://www.batista.co.uk/images/DSCI0132.JPG
http://www.batista.co.uk/images/DSCI0015.JPG

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

does the impedance of the sub and stereo match would be a good starting point :)

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

Firstly, I wouldn't because you could damage it if it isn't hooked up right. Subs are for low frequency repsonse, and you need something called a crossover to filter out anything too high for the sub (like vocals). If your home stereo has a subwoofer output though, that's ok, as that is a crossover.

Secondly, you need to find out what the RMS and peak wattage of your home stereo is, or you could blow your sub. Also, I hear, that heavily underpowering a sub can damage it also. If the RMS wattage of the sub is higher than the home stereo and the peak is lower, then you can use it, but don't push it. If the RMS wattage of the home stereo is higher than the sub, then don't use it at all.

I assume you are transforming the power from AC 240v to DC 12v?

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

I have no idea how to check that :D

So tell me how :D
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My stereo speakers have 6 wires coming from them

2 for tweeter
2 for mid range
2 for the sub on the speakers.

I have plugged the sub in with the sub wires.

I will get the stats of my stereo in a bit

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

to find the RMS and peak wattages you need to look at specs in the back of the manual. The impedance will be in too.

You may find some or all of the above on the back of the unit too.

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

unless it is an active sub , he wont need to :angel:

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

Quite right, don't mind me, I am still half asleep...

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

What do you mean by that?

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

Don't worry about it, I wasn't paying attention.

Whats the RMS wattage on your sub?

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

Well i got told at the shop about 700W.

But i been told shops exagerate to sell

So i dunno

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

Is that RMS or peak though? Shops can't really exagerate because the figures are set by the manufacturer, and you need to follow them to prevent damaging the sub. If you ask them what the power output is, they'll always quote peak as that is higher, but RMS is more important. The only way you can find out what both figures are is to look at the manual, or the net for it (or on the back of the sub).

In case you are wondering about the difference RMS is more like an average power output, i.e. what it consistently can handle, whereas peak is a very occaisonal spike in power.

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

Well i think the RMS is 350W

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

does it have a 12v input or not , basically , does it have a built in amplifier ??? :)

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

However boombastic your bass may be, do make sure to remove that little pink & white plastic handbag you have there. Even the the saucy Abi Titmus poster you have on the door will not fully cancel this out.

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

Its not mine :D

the sub has no amp built in but the stereo does

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

So the sub's RMS wattage is 10w lower than the stereo's RMS.

Hmmm... Tough one to call. I would say don't use it, but its only 10w difference... It will probably just slowly distort and damage rather than melting the coil instantly. I can't say for sure though. It might even be fine.

I can't guarantee it won't be damaged, but it probably won't unless you hammer it for a long time. I'd just play safe and not use it though. Your call.

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

It will be only connected for about a month and i hardly use the stereo now apart from dvds and PS2.

Use my PC for music

also the amp in my car which normally powers this is a 400W amp

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

Does the amp have one sub output or does it have 2 (one for each stereo channel)?

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

I would check how you hasve your speakers set out, it looks to me like you have them all in the same place, they ned to be sread ou so you get the proper surround stereo affect...

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

Well i got a pic but its blurry

On my amp is 4 speaker inputs.

2 for right and 2 for left

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

Can't really see anything useful there. Are those 4 terminals. i.e. +ve & -ve for left and +ve & -ve for the right?
If so I don't know how in the hell you'd expect to connect one single sub-woofer there.
TBH, you are better off forgetting about it. It does not look like that ilk of amp has a single auxilliary middle sub-woofer output and so any fartarsing around by piggybacking it onto an already used speaker output would halve the impedance and damage the amp (assuming the sub is the same impedance as the existing speakers).

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

Right i just took another look

Above each connection it says -r and +r and -L and +L

And something about bridged mode

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

Having no idea about the ins and outs of all this I used the pics to have a good look round his room :D

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

er, briged mode is something that is usually used to make two amps (i.e. a stereo amp) bridge into one single more powerful amp for mono. Can't see why a HiFi would have a bridged mode. Are we looking at the back of the Hi-Fi and not your car amp?

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

Want some more
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Back of my car amp

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

Why?


Well I say you forget it unless you can get someone on site who can see whats what and knows that they are doing.

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

I have no real idea why you would want to do this as the sub woofer in the two main speaker of your technics system will be balanced to the rest of the system and impedence of the main amp. Although to do it you would need a two way cross over and an external amp to drive the car sub only. Its possible but you would also need a cross fader to ensure the speaker was balanced, also looking at your room it seems on the small side and the amount of air the sub would displace would probably mean you would end up with a very un-balanced sound.

On a lesser note, if you like the Buffy and angel videos on the top of your unit I would remove them from the sub, as unless it is shielded it will damage the videos.

Thanks

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

...and tidy your room - it's a mess! :disturbd: :disturbd:

BTW - What's Cabin Fever like??

Lee

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

Its good

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

Move the videos from the sub otherwise the'll get erased by the subs magnet

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

I got no where else to put them at this minute

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

and is bridged mode on or off? A switch on the amp somewhere.

Can you do what you want to do - in general yes. As you are the HF signals should not damage the sub as it will effectivly filter at about 80Hz anyway (though putting a full spectrum signal into a tweeter will fry it in seconds).

You will need to make sure the phasing of your wiring is correct or the sub will be cancelling itself out.

But realisically - why bother, unless you connect this to a sub amp and have a system with sub audio it will just sound weird. The sub speakers on your stereo speakers will have a frequency response probably from about 120hz down, your sub will prob. only work effectivly from 80hz down so you will have a 120-80hz hole in the sound.

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

oh no, have we all looked at your pics too much & got your account suspended?

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

Nah problems at host

try again

Re: Car Sub and Home stereo question
 

quick answer to your question is NO - you shouldnt test a car sub on a home stereo.

reason being, most hifi's run at 8ohms and car subs run 4ohms or less (or more, depends if there dual coiled or not etc). And i doubt your hifi will beable to handle a 4ohm load, so i wouldnt bother risking damage to either the sub or hifi.

If you want one for your hifi then get an active jobby and just make sure you have a set of phono outs (tape outs will do) :)