Hooking up home powered-sub in car

[flag316 10+ year member]

Hey everyone. I'm new to the car audio game. I have nothing in my car right now...I thinkin about putting a home powered-sub in my car. What are the bare minimums that I need? Would I be able to just get a deck, and connect a cable from the sub's line-level jack to the deck's "sub out" jack? And connect the sub to the cigarette lighter for power via a ac-dc converter. Will this work? I figured with this setup, I'll save on the cost of a car amp and a car sub. I do plan on slowly moving up to a real full system upgrade. Another thing is, when I do get some additional amps in the future, will this drain my car battery significantly? If so, what are some of the upgrades that'll take care of this?

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[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

You'll probably need to buy an actual AC/DC inverter and directly connect the power cable to the battery, properly fused under the hood.

Honestly, it wouldn't be worth the time and effort to do it. You could save money, sure...but not enough to justify an inefficient and possibly dangerous setup.

 

[flag316 10+ year member]

Thanks for the heads up. I'll take your advice not to do it then.

No wonder nobody does that...lol.

OK, so what are the first things to upgrade/get? In order of priority?

deck first?

then sub and sub amp?

then fronts?

etc?

What about the issue of battery drainage from all the additional amps in the car?(especially amps for subs)

 

[johnecon2001 5,000+ posts]

When I first started driving I did that in my car. But to be honest, I should have just spent the moeny on an actual system back then. Now that I have a kickass one, it makes me realize how crappy that HT sub did sound in my car.

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

Well, I did it deck first (because the Ford commercial factory radio is AM/FM only //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif), then front speakers, and then the sub system/amping everything.

To deal with battery problems, upgrade the stock battery at the very least to a newer one, or a deep cycle like an Optima Yellow Top or Hawker gel cell if you want. Also, upgrade the stock battery ground and alternator wiring.

Do some searches on this subject, it's been covered ad naseum.

 

[radel2dope 10+ year member]

If you dont have a CD player, you have to get a deck first, then sub/amp, then fronts