Audio

After half a semester of college, I learned that my 8″, 40W woofer wasn’t enough. I wanted something bigger, but didn’t want to have to upgrade again in the future. So I decided on something reasonable for any 10’x15′ dorm room - two 15″ subwoofers powered by a 1000W car amp. My goals: keep it under $400, design it so one of the two subs can be placed in a car and be powered from a 12V source (like a car battery), and build them to be as durable as possible. ...

Running wire, head unit adapters, fuses, and less trunk space all suck. Let’s not do that. Modular setups seem more promising. A few months ago, I assembled a $6 tube subwoofer that could be used in a house or in a car. I only recently set up my car for this sub. It took an hour. No new head unit required. There’s only one real compromise to this, only the audio coming from the auxiliary port is sent to the sub. That’s how I listen to music 95% of the time, so no subwoofer with the CD player or radio is fine for me. I tapped into the auxiliary output right next to the cigarette lighter, so I ran power from there. The cigarette lighter is only on when the car is on, so I don’t have to worry about draining the battery when the car is off. There are no power supply issues, as the cigarette lighter supplies 20A, while the sub only draws 4A max. ...

Kicker’s Free Airs left a legacy in the market. They have almost no enclosure requirements and are often drop-in upgrades. I picked up two used 6.5″ Kicker Free Air subwoofers. “Free Air” is a misnomer, they still need an enclosure. However the enclosure space can be relatively large. The trunk of your car could be considered an enclosure, as long as the space in front of these speaker is sealed off from the space behind these speakers. I don’t plan to put these in a car, they are going to be for a home sound system. I like the early 2000’s sub look that these Kickers have: thickly stitched cones, paint chipped rusting frame, rotting seal, and corroded leads. At one point they were very nice, now they are fair. I can deal with fair speakers if they are free. ...