home speakers as car speakers?

[buchi 10+ year member]

im an avid home audio fan. i have this b&w dm-603 s3 floorstander for my main speakers being driven by an onkyo amp. no surrounds for me since im for music only. and i love the sound and clarity of my system.

my question is, i know one can possible install home audio drivers on a car but would it sound ok? any experiences with such installs? apart from my plan to buy rainbow or velocity 3-way comps, i cant help but ponder on buying a set of bookshelf full range b&w s3 speakers instead of the said speakers. its way cheaper but its hi-end already.

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[kappa546 10+ year member]

it depends on the individual speaker. some may like small sealed enclosures while others might take IB best... and then theres the dilema or powering 8ohm mids, unless they are really sensitive. im using home speakers and it works for me, try it

 

[brandontw 10+ year member]

hey, someone else that listens to b&w... cool. i have the same speakers you do powered by a high end parasound amp and it sounds pretty freikin awsome, but i think i would not put it in my car. youd be alot better off with a set of nice comps then those bookshelf speaks, like cdt comps are 300 for a set or somthin' so you could get two sets of those for the price of some nice B&W home speaks. and then you save room too cuase i dont know how you would attach those bookshelf speaks to your car so they would look decent and not get stolen here is some link to some awsome comps:

http://www.audionmore.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=ANM&Product_Code=CL641&Category_Code=CDTC

Spendy but you get what you pay for:

http://www.onlinecarstereo.com/CarAudio/ProductDetail.aspx?ProductID=13570

http://www.sounddomain.com/sku/FOC136K

theres pleny more too, ask people around here and you could prolly get a better deal than you were plannin

 

[Shugarra 10+ year member]

The things I've heard about in regard to home speakers in a car environment are of course the ohm load, most home speakers are made for on axis listening and home speakers may not be quite as durable as ones made specifically for car audio use. I don't mean to say they'll break just that the car environment is much different than the home environment. I know a lot of people do use home speakers in their car, though, and have great success.

 

[buchi 10+ year member]

thanks for the replies guys! but im still pondering though. i really really would want to try it out. i know some series 3 b&w that are around the cdt prices i came across. maybe the difficulty would arise on how to attach such to door panels. but hey, what are fiberglass for? with the impedance, ill do research on those.

as with brandon tw, nice to know we share the same interest with regards to home audio. im saving up to buy me a musical fidelity dual mono if not a simple integrated amp. any advice? hi-end brands are really hard to come by in our place here.

by the way, sorry for the late reply, i was in cebu having my wonderful vacation! check it out guys! the city was darn great! with one lacking factor though, there arent any cool sounding vehicles there!

 

[Pete 10+ year member]

try and find the specs for the individual driver and post those. Another thing to look for is the frequency response for off access listening.

As for home components try out http://www.bkcomp.com they make some incredible amps and integrated receivers too. http://www.rotel.com another great company. jbl synthesis is another model line I like... and harmon/kardon is also very good for a little less money than the others listed.

 

[infrabass 10+ year member]

hey, just thought i'd mention that not too long ago (like 2 weekends), i thought pretty much the same thing as you were thinking. my rabbit came with really bad front speakers, back ones are ok. so i took my front ones out of the dash, no new amps or anything, and i hooked that up to a pair of speakers you find in those portable cd players (not the cd walkman type things, but something youd stick in the corner of your room for some tunes while getting ready for school), and even though the speakers in the car were 4 ohms and i changed it to my 8 ohm speakers it worked perfectly, sounds much better then those other ones. theres my 0.02 of a dollar.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Earl Zausmer's BMW used B&W separates mounted in motorized pods in either end of the dash. They angled themselves in to provide on-axis listening. His car is still regarded as one of the best sounding ever.

 

[454Casull 10+ year member]

Off-axis response is less important for home audio than it is for car audio.

 

[buchi 10+ year member]

as to helotaxi: really? do you have links to that bimmer? might want to check it out. darn you really keep me thinkin!

as to pete: rotel is good. but ive seen outsourced rotels (made in taiwan) here in my fave audio store. sounded baaad! musical fidelity is still somewhat within range as to pricing and sound quality. thanks for the advice tho!

as to infrabass: nice input! but i want to know how did you convert an 8 ohm home speaker to a 4 ohm?

as to 454casull: i agree with you. home speakers (b&ws in particular) are designed for wider sound dispersals. they have this sound efficiency dispersal area and distance and the distance normally falls within range as the driver to the speakers. but of course one must also follow correct speaker placement just the same inorder ot achieve better if not great imaging from such home speakers.

as to anyone: i know not all might agree with the idea i brought out, but if theres anyone out there that could give me one good reason why shouldnt i opt with a home speaker in my car, stand up and deliver....hehehe. of course, thatll be any reason except that its hard to install, that its normally 8 ohms, that its pricey and why bother.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&client=REAL-tb&q=earl+zausmer

The first page is all pretty much links to the car. It is insane. 12 in subs in the kicks. The speakers retract into the dash when the system is off. Milbert tube amps provide in-car heating. Good stuff.

 

[buchi 10+ year member]

thanks for the link! and you answered the thread that ive just posted about vaccum car audio amps. any other brands other than milbert?

 

[Pete 10+ year member]

US Amps makes some nice tube driven power amps... just remember that in car audio I don't think there are any true tube amps, just solid state amps with a tube driven front end. Is that correct?

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Milbert IIRC is a full tube design. They are also very expensive and are not very powerful by current standards and horribly inefficient. On the plus side they are good for keeping the car warm //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

PPI/Butler/Phaze Tubedrivers pop up on eBay fairly regularly.

 

[buchi 10+ year member]

i guess so. but they do produce the purest and clearest sound. and they are very durable too.