• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Car sub to cab conversion?

C

Chipsonfire

Jul 20, 2007
881
2
Socorro, NM
#1
So I have dual 10" subs in my car that I wouldn't be against converting into something more... bassworthy. I was wondering what kind of chicanery would be involved in such a venture? Would it be a simple splice of wires, or is it more involved to the point that I should put it out of my head completely? :confused: :help:
::Edit:: Oh, and of course if this has been covered, please just point me in the right direction :) I did a search but couldn't find anything.
 
#2
Ok, I could be very wrong in this, so keep that in mind.

Car stereo speakers are manly subwoofers. Bass cab speakers are for the most part full range, even cabs with tweeters use 'full range' speakers, they just don't get the upper frequencies. So I'm not sure how well that would work. You could maybe use a full range cab, then use the car speakers as subs for the stack, but I'm still not sure how good that would sound.

I think I've seen this topic come up before, but can't remember the threads. You can always try it, but I doubt you will have a good outcome.
 
#3
Car subs are intended to reproduce recorded material, which is a compressed program once it has been recorded and dumped to CD, MP3 or broadcast.

A bass signal is far too dynamic for speakers of this sort and will last you only a very short while - not really worth the exercise IMO.

They might serve as part of a bedroom/low volume practice rig. As stated, these aren't full program so you would need something to carry low mid to upper transient sound.
 
#6
A car sub is just a speaker optimized for a particular purpose. Most run in small sealed boxes and consume huge amounts of power.

Depending upon the quality of the driver, it may or may not be a one note wonder. I own a number of Rockford RFR-22xx drivers in 10 and 15" sizes. These are quality subs, and priced accordingly.

Car subs are a poor choice for electric bass. The primary reason is they are so inefficient. 87 SPL drivers don't make a lot of noise. They are rated at 1000w, which is B.S. because they run into power compression long before they hit maximum input power. All the extra input power is converted to heat and wasted.

You need a mid-bass driver and tweeter with any subwoofer because they aren't any good above 100 Hz. To keep up with a 6" Eminence Alpha, you need two 87 SPL subs in parallel. This increases the size and complexity of the rig. Of course, an active crossover is required. It goes on and on.
 
#7
I once built a subwoofer for my old Bronco using a 12" guitar speaker.

Metal never sounded so good. Yeah the bass drum got a great big thump, but MAAAAN did Dream Theater's Awake album ever sound awesome! Far exceeded the properly designed 210 cab I built using actual car subs. I'll be doing the same thing once my Mustang is driving again... 12" guitar speakers RULE.
 
#10
j-raj said:
I'd like to see Mr. Bowlus engineer a car stereo system that uses bass cabs.
Click to expand...

LOL! I did do some custom sub box 'designing' (and I use that term very loosely!) back in the day. :smug: Very good results, too. I had a box custom fit (and roughly measured for the correct interior volume) using two 10" drivers and one 10" passive radiator scavenged from a used set of JBL tower speakers I picked up on the cheap, and driven by a Rockford-Fosgate amp, this box really sounded great. It was pretty darned tight, too, compared to some of the more boomy boxes my buddies were using.

I have not made any modifications to the audio systems in any of my last several vehicles (though I do think about replacing the Bose sub in my Audi with something a bit more powerful), as they are more and more just 'kid transportation devices', as opposed to 'mobile audio smackdown devices.' :p

I do have a pretty killer home audio setup. :bassist: :bassist: :bassist: Not that I ever get to listen to it, anymore (see reference to kids, above). :rollno:

Tom.
 
#11
If you had like a Berg IP rig in the S6, that would be badass...

When I saw that you posted here, I thought you were going to say that you already have a Meyers/Millennia/Krell set up in your wheels... now, talk about badass!

'mobile audio smackdown devices.'
Click to expand...
that'a a funny line... next time you are in ATL, I need to take you up Peachtree from midtown to Buckhead at 12am... lot's of 'mobile audio smackdown devices' driving around on 200 inch rims... :p
 
#12
I've just completed a box for my bass rig that contains two Infinity Kappa 12 subwoofers designed for car audio. The only way to effectively use this cab is to first go through an active crossover (20 hz to 80 hz) and drive the low pass signal with a seperate high power amp (I'm using a QSC A-41 amp). The box itself is a vented 4' x 8' x 14" that weighs about 90 lbs and is only theoretically capable of producing max SPL's of about 120 db. Another potential problem I have is the box is fairly large for the speakers and there's a danger that pushing too much power through them will damage them.

The low frequency sound I'm getting out of it is truly amazing but, as you might imagine, it's such a huge, heavy box to mess with for so little volume, and I probably will end up not using it very often. Or else I might just make it a permanent resident in my studio and use it for HI FI stereo sound. As others have pointed out, there are some practical obstacles to using car audio subs for the electric bass.
 
#15
Been trying out a Fosgate (Punch)12" sub in my Crate BT1000 and to my untrained novice ear the sound is quite nice. It puts out a rich deep seismic sound that really gets felt in my basement. (v and m set at 5) When semi-muting the notes the thing produces an amazingly BV kind of sound. Sort of turned my humble BT1000 into a growling animal. :cool:
 
#18
I was at a friend's house a couple of weeks ago, and, as it happened, I had my bass with me but not my bass amp. He hooked up the PA subs to the monitor outs on his powered mixer, and stepped back, prepared to be amazed.:eek:

We were amazed at how pointless all that work was. It was flat, with no note definition, and couldn't be heard over the drum machine we were playing with.:hmm:

On the other hand, there have been a lot of younger guys around here with car-shaking subs in their rides, and I would rather play Peter Paul and Mary than plug my bass into something that sounded that bad. Sure, they go THUMP, but so does a dumpster when the trash pickup truck sets it down too fast. Why not just get a giant bass drum and whack on it with a cudgel? That's about how good they sound.:eyebrow:

Me, I'll stick with properly engineered bass cabinets.
 
#20
I once played a gig through an old 8" Bazooka bass tube (anyone remember those?). It WAS a small/quiet coffee house gig but I was pretty amazed with the results.

On a related note, I had a system in my old SUV where the sub line was terminated into a 1/4" plug. I'd just throw my Bag End S-15 in the back after a gig, plug it in, and it'd stay there till the next gig...not optimum, but again, surprisingly workable.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back