Yep, I made me an amp out of a 200W car power amplifier, and a 15" 400W RMS PA speaker. In AUD the speaker was $169, 200W amp was $59, and a little bit more for the extra electrical and audio cables. All up, pretty cheap. I still need to get an eq pedal, and I want to get a 400W amp, which won't cost much.
I searched for making bass guitar amps out of car amps here on TB with no luck (not surprisingly), so I thought I'd tell ya'll how to. It's easy. If I can do it, you can do it.
First of all, what you need:
- A small amount of wiring/electrical knowledge
- 1x amp
- 1x cab (or PA speaker)
- 1x 1/4"
MONO audio cable, you can tell it's mono by looking at the jack, if it has 3 metal sections separated by 2 black insulator rings, its stereo. If it has 2 metal sections separated by 1 black insulator ring, it's mono. If you only have stereo, that's okay, I used stereo.
- 1x 8 gauge OFC power cable (if your unsure what this is, just go down to your local car audio specialist store and ask
)
- 1x 8 gauge OFC Earth cable (pretty much the same thing as above)
- 1x 18 gauge trigger cable
- 1x 1/4" jack to RCA adapter (this is what you plug your guitar or preamp into, so make sure the 1/4" jack part is female, and the RCA part is male)
- Screwdriver of allen key, depending on your amp
- A high amperage 240V->12V adapter
NOTE: Some wiring knowledge necessary.
Step 1: Grab your power and earth leads and cut the plastic outside bit off so that the wire is showing. Now plug them into your amp by screwing down the clamps with the wire in them. Here's what it should look like. The +12V is the powered lead (blue), the GND is the ground (or earth) lead (silver).
Step 2: Grab you 18 gauge trigger cable (mines the thinner, short, blue one in the pic) and clamp one end in with your power cable (+). Clamp the other end into the REM clamp. This is basically an on/off switch. Normally you would plug this into your head deck in your car, and when your turn on the ignition, the head deck would send a signal through the trigger cable to your amp, telling it to turn on. Our on/off switch will be the wall socket
. Alternatively, you could install your own switch, which wouldn't be too hard either.
Step 3: CHOP YOUR AUDIO CABLE IN HALF! :O
It should have a red and a white wire inside it. Strip all the plastic insulator away so the wires are showing, clamp either wire into either + or - of the LEFT output clamps. No, it doesn't matter which one goes to + or -. Again, look at the above pic . Plug the other end (should still be a 1/4" audio jack) into your cab!
Step 4: Plug your RCA adapter into the LEFT line input.
Step 4a: If you have a car battery, hook the power cable to the + terminal on your battery, and hook the earth cable to the - terminal, or a bit of bare metal (no paint) on your car. Plug your bass into the RCA adapter, PLAY! If its all plugged in, you should have sound.
NOTE: This is where I'm up to.
I am going to get a 240V (wall socket) -> 12V adapter (I think in the States the wall sockets are 110V or something) and chop the 12V end off, connect the power cable to the + and the earth cable to.... something else. Haven't got that far yet. I will explain this on here in the very near future in the form of a 5th and final step. But for now you should have a fully operating amp,
running from your car's battery.
Stay tuned folks...
Any feedback/comments welcome, as usual.
