Active car sub as hifi sub?

Associate
Joined
5 Oct 2003
Posts
657
Location
London
basically ages ago my dad bought an active VIBE sub from Halfords ( dont think their a competitor) for his Volvo T5, unfortunatly the car has now left us and we have a sub doing nothing, not really needed in any other cars,
so is it possible to use a car sub as part of a hifi, i understand the voltages are different and it will be needing some hefty "ampage" but are there any all in one power pack type things that can convert it all etc. and power this sub?

thanks for any help in advance.
 
Man of Honour
Man of Honour
Joined
23 Dec 2002
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9,979
Location
London
In theory, yes it can be done. In practice, would be a pain to setup and I can't imagine it sounding anything like as good as a decent dedicated sub.
More to the point, you should be getting a decent pair of speakers, not worrying about the lowest octave in a piece of music.
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
8,016
I'm using my old JBL 12" sub hooked up to an old stereo amp in my room at home. The low-level sub output from my Yamaha AV amp goes down an single RCA cable which is split into the L and R phono inputs on the amp, and a wire from each speaker output into the input on the sub, and adjusted to suit :)

Doesn't give pounding bass until the rest of the system is set to very loud, but it does start to compliment where my floor standing B&W 602.5's start to peter out in the lower frequencies :) However I'm sure that a dedicated HT sub will be miles better, but it's a free sub for the moment while I save up to get the most important speaker in a HT setup - a centre!

You'll need a lot of 12v juice however to run the amplifier!
 
Soldato
Joined
17 Oct 2002
Posts
13,345
Location
London
To be honest I would not bother, most subs will spoil music in a stereo systems. Even my parents Ruark Log rhythm at £800 does not sound much good when listening to stereo music. They are really designed for HC.
 
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