I got TUNES!!!

lonesouth · Oct 30, 2009

This went from concept to product in about 24 hours. I lay awake last night thinking about MattW and Don, their two threads on stereo installs. I kept coming back to just using an iPod, amp and some speakers...Well I checked around and found my 100watt 2 channel Optimus amp I bought from a friend 13 years ago when I was 16. A little more searching yielded some Dual 5.25 coaxial speakers I got when the wife was working at best buy. I still had the better part of a sheet of 3/4 MDF and a bunch of left over carpet from my last sub box build. The wife had her school's homecoming game tonight, so I went to work when she left.

I really didn't measure things very well. I used a tape, but didn't measure twice, cut once. I didn't take pics along the way since I was under some time constraints and most of what I did is standard sub box construction. I'll post step by step next time I build a sub box. I was originally planning on coating the box with some leftover dupont bedliner, but after hacking up most of the cuts and using the skill saw as a belt sander, I decided carpet would cover the bruises better. Total build time was about 4 hours.

mango · Oct 30, 2009

Rock on!

lonesouth · Oct 30, 2009

I powered it up and it sounds surprisingly good. For some cheap speakers they have decent range, but tend to wash out at higher volumes. I may be able to play with the iPod EQ some to find the best sounding setting.

I put the box between the front seats, I had originally intended it to double as an armrest, but I'm not sure I made it tall enough. Also, it is a bit tight, the speakers add an extra inch or so, making it a tight fit. I don't think the seats will cause a problem with the speakers though, also, they don't impede the sound much either, and again, they sound much better than I expected.

I am also planning on installing a 5v regulator to power the ipod and maybe a power outlet into the back. All in all, I'm very happy with a good night's work!

av bronco · Oct 30, 2009

pretty good idea!

bax · Oct 31, 2009

I love it when a plan comes together. Like Mango said, "Rock On"

rhino2104 · Oct 31, 2009

Looks good. If you want to turn it into an arm rest you can always add an a couple of brackets and a "shelf" on top to bring it up to where you want it. Enclose 3 sides and you have a cubby hole to store stuff or, alternately, you can enclose all 4 sides and hinge a lid for a little extra storage as well. I don't know though... Just a thought.

sprdv1 · Oct 31, 2009

mango said:
Rock on!

LITERALLY.. LOL Good job on that

Pedestrian · Nov 1, 2009

The box looks great. When it comes to carpentry I have two left thumbs.
I would suggest porting the box for some kind of ventilation, amps get hot.

Buldozer · Nov 1, 2009

Good job, some of the best projects seem to just unfold some time!

lonesouth · Nov 1, 2009

I'll monitor the temps. I'm not going to be running it wide open like I typically do on my subs, so I don't think it'll heat up that much. It should have some thermal protection, so if it cuts out I'll add some vents. I need to get some quality speakers and see how much of a difference that makes.

Orange Crush · Nov 1, 2009

How does the ipod "jack in" to the amp? Do you just have an adapter cable going to the audio in ports?

rekoj71 · Nov 1, 2009

most amps have RCA (the round red and white plugs) inputs and most electronics stores (radioshack to walmart) sell a basic cable that goes from a headphone jack on one end to the RCA jacks on the other, and an MP3 player has just about the right amount of output power for those inputs. It's very easy to do, and in this case he won't be out hardly nothin since it was just stuff lying around if it gets stolen. The amp would probably run better with a vent but to just power two 5.25 inch door speakers it probably won't get very warm at all. Great idea to just get some tunes if you don't need/want all the other bells and wistles.

lonesouth · Nov 1, 2009

That's right on. Radio Shack has 1/8(headphone) to RCA cable. Straight from the iPod into the amp. Turns out though, they are 6.5" speakers, not 5.25. Just wanted to clarify that.

If you wanted to make one for yourself you'll need the following

Some speakers 5.25 or 6.5
5.25 Speakers
6.5 Speakers

An Amplifier

1/8(3.5mm) to RCA Cable

Two colors of wire, 16ga should be fine for this application.

Carpet of your choice

3M Spray Adhesive, one can will do several boxes.

MDF, 1/2" would be fine, I just happened to have 3/4" laying around.

I like Parts Express for most things electrical or acoustic. They have a great selection and have never let me down.

msweb · Nov 2, 2009

That's a "rockin" idea, I love it!

So using the plug/RCA cable, you could use pretty much any MP3 player, right? What would you say the minimum size of the amp should be? Is MDF better than standard plywood or boards?

msweb · Nov 2, 2009

Rhino's ideas for an arm rest are good ones. You could also just take a piece of your MDF, put some padding on top of it (even old towels work, doen't have to be the foam padding if water isn't an issue) and then pull it tight and cover it with the matching carpet or some vinyl, denim from some old jeans, etc.

lonesouth · Nov 2, 2009

Anything with a headphone output will work with this setup.

For this app, amp size is probably not as important as speaker quality. The better the speakers, the better your sound will be, to a point(i.e. don't install a $200 set of boston acoustic speakers in this box, unless you just have them sitting around). Most head units put out at least 22 watts per channel so just about any amp you can find will be fine.

I used the MDF because it was what I had. The enclosure is meant more to hold the components than to provide stability in a high pressure(bass) environment where you would want the MDF density. Any kind of plywood or MDF you can screw and glue would work equally well for this application. If I were building a subwoofer enclosure, I wouldn't use anything other than MDF.

broncokak · Nov 20, 2009

I have an old Pioneer GM-600 amp out in the garage. Would that work for something like this? It has the two RCA plugs. I can't remember how the speakers were hooked up though. It has two green and two gay wires, each color has one with a black trace.

FRANKO289 · Nov 20, 2009

hey parker ..... never mind the nice BoomBox !!!!

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY ....
SINCE WHEN DO YOU HAVE A BLUE BRONCO AND WHATS THE STORY WITH IT ???

;D

grs44310 · Nov 20, 2009

One way to improve the performance of your 6.5" speakers is to use some kind of an enclosure to seal the speakers from each other. With the open chamber each speaker is effecting the performance of the other and will muddy the sound at higher volumes. This is also true when you run a large sub with smaller open basket component speakers in the same box.

I have used appropriately sized Rubbermaid containers to seal the back of smaller speakers before and it works pretty darn good. The lip on the edge provides a great spot for screwing the container down. A little silicone or PL400 around the edge and walla instant enclosure!

rekoj71 · Nov 20, 2009

Broncokak--- your amp should work. Looking at a picture of your amp on the web it looks like you should have a quick connect plug with 8 pins in it. I can only think of seven though. A black for ground, A red for power, probably a blue or yellow for switched power, and the green and gray ones are your speaker output wires. The ones with the black stripes are usually the negative side for the othe wire of like color. Without a book I'm not sure which color would be left or right but it would be easy to switch them around if you could even tell the difference. If you have more wires than 7 I don't know what the other would be for.

The amp you have is relatively small but for door type speakers like the ones shown in this thread it would work great.

I got TUNES!!!

Bronco Guru

Attachments

Sr. Member

Bronco Guru

Attachments

Bronco Guru

Old Member

Sr. Member

REBEL

Bronco Missionary

Bronco Virtuoso

Bronco Guru

Bronco Guru

Sr. Member

Bronco Guru

Bronco Guru

Bronco Guru

Bronco Guru

Bronco Guru

Bronco enthusiast

Sr. Member

Sr. Member

Similar threads