Basics on home amplifiers

[mabel4life 10+ year member]

Well, I am completely in the blue when it comes to home audio and was wondering how home amplifiers work. I had some old subs and some mdf laying so I made a box for one of the subs with the intentions of using it for some music around the house or in the garage when i'm working on whatever. Could someone tell me all the connections that need to be made on the amp and what else I would need to get this ball rolling. I also have some speakers laying around so i figured i would just get a 2 channel amp and run the two together. Maybe around 400 watts.

I know its possible to hook an amp up to a laptop. What would I need to do this? Thanks.

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[mabel4life 10+ year member]

bump

 

[ballstothewall 10+ year member]

An amp is an amp, there is gain.

If you want an amp for subs, go to http://www.partsexpress.com and look at the plate amps there, you'll probably be wanting something in the 200-400watt range.

Just take a 3.5mm to RCA cable and plug it in to the RCA jacks on the plate amp and hook it up the the speakers.

 

[mabel4life 10+ year member]

Thanks

 

[mabel4life 10+ year member]

whats the difference between a plate amp and a rack mount

 

[ballstothewall 10+ year member]

A plate amp is generally used only for subs, it has a built in lowpass filter which makes it very convinent for sub use. A rack amp has no built in crossovers so if you chose to use a rack amp you have to have an external crossover for you sub. One can generally be had for a little under 100 bucks. Rack amps also use XLR jacks normally, along with the pro-audio crossover units so you have to buy different cables and converters to go from XLR to RCA and vice versa.

For a basic use, a plate amp is the way to go.

A rack amp will be more powerfull as a rule of thumb, but a plate amp is very convinent. In home audio you usually don't need gobs of power like you do in a car environment.

 

[mabel4life 10+ year member]

Thanks for all the good info here it is really appreciated.

 

[joetama 5,000+ posts]

What sub and what impedance are you thinking about using???

Also, are you going to be having some full range speakers also? Because if you don't it is going to sound like anus just having the sub-woofer...

 

[mabel4life 10+ year member]

the sub is a cheap one i started out with when i first got into car audio. it was collecting dust so i just decided to make a box for it. it's a 4 ohm sub. i do have two cheap 4.5" inch speakers also. i wanted to get a two channel amp and run one of them along with the sub. im assuming plate amps are only mono, so i was a little dissapointed when i found that out. this was something i only wanted to drop around $130 on, but that looks far off at this point. i dont want to drop alot of money on this because the speakers are cheap and they will also be used outside and in the garage. i wanted to use this as a stepping stone for when i actually get a nice ht setup.

 

[joetama 5,000+ posts]

Well just save the money... Get a nice system.... And forget the stepping stone... //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

 

[mabel4life 10+ year member]

I was thinking of doing that, unless i can find a used amp for pretty cheap, then i would jump on it

 

[joetama 5,000+ posts]

Check out eBay... You can almost always find discounted audio gear there...