car audio vs. home audio

[dannv]

Ill start off by saying that i am on a college budget. 1st i was wondering if there is a way to hook up car audio equiptment in a houseing situation. second it apears to me that home audio is underpowered compared to car audio i see 2000 watt subs for cars at under 200$ and yet my 200$ polk psw10 cost me 200$ and only has 100 watt power. do hte 2 utilize power differently? my last question is if i am looking for a cheap audio system with extreme bass and good everything else how does home audio compare to car audio?

 

[markw]

They are not rated the same.

Car audio uses a totally different rating system that ignores many things that are important in home audo.

Car audio uses a "peak" power rating that will count a burst of power that lasts only a brief instant, say less than a second, while home audio generally uses contuinous power, which is constant and always available.

Home audio rates their power at low distortion figures while car audio can use any number they wish, which is ususlly a very high number. They don't even have to tell you what it is. Home audio does.

Hone audio generally states a frquenct range and a deviation from a set level. Car audio does not have to do this, and they don't. They tell you the bare minimum they have to in order to wow you with the numbers.

 

[Sheep]

Please specify what a college budget is and we would be glad to recommend a system

SheepStar

 

[MacManNM]

Ill start off by saying that i am on a college budget. 1st i was wondering if there is a way to hook up car audio equiptment in a houseing situation. second it apears to me that home audio is underpowered compared to car audio i see 2000 watt subs for cars at under 200$ and yet my 200$ polk psw10 cost me 200$ and only has 100 watt power. do hte 2 utilize power differently? my last question is if i am looking for a cheap audio system with extreme bass and good everything else how does home audio compare to car audio?

First off:
In car audio you are right on top of the drivers, 1/r^2 falloff is not much of a concern. 10 true clean watts in a car will have your ears bleeding.

Second:
****Admin***** Personal attacks like what was stated here, are no way to welcome a new member. Please refrain from this in the future. Thanks!

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

Ill start off by saying that i am on a college budget. 1st i was wondering if there is a way to hook up car audio equiptment in a houseing situation. second it apears to me that home audio is underpowered compared to car audio i see 2000 watt subs for cars at under 200$ and yet my 200$ polk psw10 cost me 200$ and only has 100 watt power. do hte 2 utilize power differently? my last question is if i am looking for a cheap audio system with extreme bass and good everything else how does home audio compare to car audio?

Other than using 4 ohm subwoofers to build an HT subwoofer with a plate amp, I'd shy away from using car head units and amps to power home audio speakers. Different volts for different folks.

Many car subwoofer drivers ranging from $150 to $200 are very inefficient, and require huge amplifiers. You take a 2 ohm dual voice coil sub, and parallel it in a car, and it's going to require a 1 ohm stable amp with a nice sized capacitor to avoid killing your alternator. Big bucks.

You need to look at the car subwoofer drivers' rms rating, and not peak rating to determine more accurate power handling. Most HT subs list rms power handling. That's not to say that HT subs don't use inferior drivers - many do. But most HT subs utilize 4 ohm single voice coil subs, the same subs used in car audio applications (minus dual voice coils for the most part).

Your 100 watt amp on your Polk PSW10 will do wonders in your car. That amp is rated at low distortion levels. Consider the amps size compared to that of a $150 car amp.

You won't get extreme bass in a dorm/house on a budget compared to a car. Think of the volume in the car versus a dorm room/bedroom. It takes multitudes of pressure from a HT sub to pressurize a room the same as in a small volume of space such as a car.

$400 towards a car system (subs, amp, box and wiring) which can ruin your hearing won't even touch a system needed to do that in a dorm/bedroom/familyroom.

My guess is you'd need over $4000 in HT subwoofers to even come close the to dB's of the car system. You would need a pair of these due to the difference in spacial volume:

http://www.svsound.com/products-sub-box-plus2.cfm

Compared to this (dirt cheap hearing loss):

2 of these:
http://www.ubid.com/actn/opn/getpage.asp?AuctionId=10586041&CATID=1016&SPOTID=3

powered by one of these:
http://www.ubid.com/actn/opn/getpage.asp?AuctionId=601520567

I'm not saying they'd sound the same, but for pure bassheads, stick with the car to impress the friends.