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Topic: Car Audio to Home Theater Conversion Question(s) (Read 1902 times) previous topic - next topic
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Car Audio to Home Theater Conversion Question(s)

I have two Kicker 6x9's.  They are the older DX69's.  They are comparable to the DS693's.  Here are the necessary specs for those who know better than I do.

Sensitivity:                              92 dB at 1 watt

Frequency Response:              30 - 20k Hz

RMS Power Range (Watts):      2 - 70

Peak Power Handling (Watts):  140   

Impedance (Ohms):                  4

Will this product meet this need to create a Left-Right Channel / Stereo setup for a small home theater audio system?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16882180022

The speakers have the standard Red and Black / Positive and Negative Input slots.  As with most car audio, it will need exposed wire inserted into these slots.  What more will I need?  For example will I need a specific type of speaker wire?  I'm not sure how to go about doing this.  The reason I want to go this route is to save a little money by keeping my purchases to a minimum and to improve the audio experience over what the HDTV speakers provide.

Any help is greatly appreciated, 

Wayland

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/ii527/...py/Speakers.jpg

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/ii527/...NegPosSlots.jpg

I hope this helps.

Car Audio to Home Theater Conversion Question(s)

Reply #1 –
Technically, they'll work just fine, and any old wire will do.  Since you're not going to be running very far (into another room, for example), and you're not looking at a lot of power, plain 18-gauge zip cord - sometimes called lamp cord - will work just fine.  You should be able to find it by the foot at any hardware/home improvement store if you don't have some already.

From a sound quality standpoint, since car speakers are designed to be used in a relatively small acoustic space, they may sound bass-shy when used in a home environment.
"Not sure what the question is, but the answer is probably no."
 

Car Audio to Home Theater Conversion Question(s)

Reply #2 –
I agree...  You are going to build speaker cabinets, right?  Even if you were to buy the speakers and build cabinets, you'll probably end-up with better-sounding speakers than you could buy pre-made for the same price.    I'm pretty sure they will sound better than the speakers in your flat-screen TV.

If you are interested in this stuff, you might want to pick-up a book on speaker building, even if you don't want to get too serious about this project.

The cabinet interacts with the speaker (driver) to determine bass response.  Without a cabinet, the sound waves from the back of the speaker leak-around and cancel the waves from the front, especially at low frequencies, killing the bass.    In general, a bigger cabinet will result in more bass.      In a normal auto-installation, the trunk acts as a nice big speaker box and you can get pretty-good bass from a pair of 6x9's.

You are probably better-off building a sealed cabinet, but you can experiment with a ported design if you wish.  If the port gives you poor results, you can always block it off. 

A properly-designed ported-box can often give the best performance  (by, basically delaying the reversed-waves from the rear, so that they are in-phase and reinforce, rather than cancel the waves from the front.)    But, ported cabinet design is tricky and a badly designed ported-cabinet can give you either weak bass, or boomy one-note bass.

Usually, speaker cabinets (especially ported cabinets) are designed using the Thiele/Small parameters for the particular driver and software.  The problem is that manufacturers of "regular" car speakers rarely publish the Thiele/Small parameters.    (They can be measured, but it takes some equipment.)

Quote
...plain 18-gauge zip cord - sometimes called lamp cord - will work just fine.
The wire should be "polarized" (marked) so that "red" or "+" from the amp goes to "red" or "+" on the speakers.  The speakers will work just fine if the connections are reversed, but the left & right speakers need to "work together" (in-phase), so that they both "push-out" at the same time and "pull-in" at the same time.  If the speakers are out-of-phase, the sound waves will cancel (especially the bass) and you'll get some strange "spacey" effects...  Fun to play with, but not so good for accurate sound reproduction.