Connecting car subwoofer to Home stereo/surround sound system?

Question

I wanted to connect my car subwoofer/amp system to my Bose surround sound system in my theatre room. My amp is a 1000watt Kenwood KAC-7205.... and my sub is a 10" clarion that is 375 watts RMS. The amp is at 500watts RMS x 1 at 4 ohms. The sub is 4 ohms as well. I have an older Yamaha reciever and I wanted to connect my car subs to my home audio system..... how can I do this?... my standard bose subwoofer is alright but doesnt pack that booming bass I need.. help!

Answer 1

The best advice I can give to you is to sell everything you have.

With the Bose acoustimass system, yamaha amp, clarion sub... You should recoup about $1000 or maybe more... You can also sell your kenwood amp as well if you want to upgrade to the newer receivers that handle hdmi and newer surround formats like Dolby TrueHD. Even a $200 receiver from Yamaha, Pioneer, onkyo will do.

Craigslist, kijiji, eBay does wonders!



With about $1000, you can get a decent speaker set with satellites that would be able to handle and produce mid-bass + a subwoofer of 8-12"'decent size to handle and produce quality, tight bass.



Brands to check out that have speaker sets in your price range: Jamo, Klipsch, Audioengine, paradigm, Kef, Polk, etc. Buy only when these speakers are for sale* and don't buy their cheapest line (although even the cheapest line will do better than your current Bose system).



Black Friday is coming up! Perfect timing: but you'd better sell your stuff soon.



Hope this helps!

Answer 2

Car amps and subwoofers are designed for 12V. They may also seem relatively louder when compared to typical home subs because they typically operate in a much smaller area and benefit greatly from an effect called "cabin gain" which is simply lost when the subwoofer operates in a huge room.



I'd recommend that you use the stuff designed for 120VAC for home theater and such and leave the 12V stuff in the car.



If you need higher levels of bass, there are many 120V solutions out there. Hsu research has some reasonable priced subwoofers that will simply knock Bose out of the water. Even a little Hsu STF-2 (10" subwoofer, 200 watts power) will probably outperform most car audio amp and sub combinations costing twice as much. Go up to a VTK-2 MK3 (15" subwoofer, 350 watts power) and it will positively shake the floor and walls.



http://www.hsuresearch.com/subwoofers.html



Or if you want something a little less expensive, try Parts Express. Here's a Dayton Audio powered sub. Just plug it into a 120V electrical socket and give it an input from your Yamaha.



http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=300-635



If you insist on using a 12V amp and a car sub in a home installation, you'll need a power supply. A typical 2-channel amp like your Kenwood is most often about 40-50% efficient, so your power supply would need to output about twice the RMS watts your amp outputs. The Kenwood claims 500 watts with the channels bridged, so you would need a 1,000 watt power supply. This one claims to output 996.9 watts at 12V, so it should be sufficient and provide adequate current for the Kenwood amp.



http://www.trcelectronics.com/Meanwell/se-1000-12.shtml



If the Kenwood is more than 50% efficient, you could probably get by with a smaller power supply, perhaps as small as 600 watts or so.



http://www.trcelectronics.com/Meanwell/se-600-12.shtml

Answer 3

You need a deep cycle battery and a charger to run the automotive 12 volt amp. You dont give the model of the home reciever so cant tell if it has RCA output or not. If it does then its pretty much plug and play. I think the first poster said something about getting a home 110 volt amp instead of using the automotive 12 volt amp. This would be a good idea. Have found them at pawn shops cheap. Just make sure you dont bring Ohms to low if you do that. Those home amps are easy to blow if you get the Ohms to low.