My old audio system.

[alienware]

Seeing as there seems to be a bit of interest in audio here I figured I would post about my old sound system.

I used to be incredibly passionate about audio equipment. One could say far more than computers. I used to go all out for power and SPL as well as quality.

Between 1996 and 1998 I worked for Rogers (AKA Swisstone Electronics) who used to make all of the BBC's sound equipment (the legendary LS35A).

Any way here was the last audio system I built. It comprised of -

Panasonic 3DO for gaming and CD player.

Rogers E40 valve amplifier to run the mid/high stages. This was a £4000 amplifier.

Soundmaster 400VZ modded running at 2ohms to power the subwoofer.

Subwoofer was a hand built (by myself using blue prints) Cerwin Vega T-36 Intense trapezoidal folded horn cabinet with a Cerwin Vega Stroker mobile series sub. This was wired dual coil to 2ohms where the amp was capable (on modded power stages) of putting out 2000w @ 2 ohm.

Crown Macrom 10" compression drivers in the cupboard flaps (look up) as well as two 6" Crown drivers in the middle flaps for when the rest of the system was idle and I was just watching TV.

Just trust me when I say that I never met any one man enough to stay in the room when this thing was cranked. In the end I was served a noise pollution notice by the local council so I sold it off.

And the woofer running inside the T36 cabinet.

In this pic you can see my South Park display sitting on top of the subwoofer. It was over a meter deep.

 

[alpenwasser]

Subwoofer was a hand built (by myself using blue prints) Cerwin Vega T-36 Intense trapezoidal folded horn cabinet with a Cerwin Vega Stroker mobile series sub. This was wired dual coil to 2ohms where the amp was capable (on modded power stages) of putting out 2000w @ 2 ohm.

I went to college with two guys for a while who were into building their own speakers. Once went to visit one of them, his room looked like a mix between a very high-end scrapyard, a carpenter's shop and an electronics lab :lol:

In the end I was served a noise pollution notice by the local council so I sold it off.

:sad:

Once I get a proper salary I'll have to start spending on some decent audio equipment, but that's still a few years off

 

[alienware]

I had a load of equipment ceased by the council but that just made Cerwin Vega laugh so they sent me loads more :lol:

I used to run 3 18" subwoofers.

Safe to say I wasn't very popular with my neighbours.

 

[MrKambo]

Just trust me when I say that I never met any one man enough to stay in the room when this thing was cranked. In the end I was served a noise pollution notice by the local council so I sold it off.

i would have accepted that challenge LOL!

i dont have much room in my house to get all the stuff i want, then theres actually using it, im hardly home enough to enjoy my current toys let alone getting more

at the moment i only have a couple of sets of headphones

 

[alienware]

i would have accepted that challenge LOL!

i dont have much room in my house to get all the stuff i want, then theres actually using it, im hardly home enough to enjoy my current toys let alone getting more

at the moment i only have a couple of sets of headphones

The only thing I can liken it to was being continually kicked and punched in the chest.

The subwoofer had a power rating of 1600W RMS and could take 3000 for brief periods. These are woofers you normally sit 200ft or more from, not stand right in front of :lol:

My nextdoor neighbour smashed on my door one day shouting that I had made her glasses fall from her shelves in her kitchen.

 

[SPS]

Shoulda stuck it in the back of a car.

 

[alienware]

Shoulda stuck it in the back of a car.

Would need to be a big car lol. The Stroker needs a 15,000+ cubic inch box. So basically if you built the front @ 2ft x 2ft it needs to be over 4ft deep :lol:

Due to the dual concentric spiders (AKA diaphragm) it has an XMAX of about an inch and a half (IE full woofer motion). Thus it needs a lot of space and pushes an awful lot of air

 

[SPS]

Yeah like this:

4 18s 30k watt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywKV4rAl3EU

 

[alienware]

haha yup I used to have long hair and if I sat in front of the sub it would do that :lol: great way of drying your hair

I used to have an 18" high excursion woofer in my car. One of these.

With three amps. Didn't look best pretty but was enough to dislodge the false ceiling at work and earn me a write up :lol:

 

[mrapoc]

Wicked man! I do love a bit of good audio kit. Rocking an old yamaha amp and bookshelf speakers here. Below £1000 but once you get the bug....

When I get my own place the sitting room is getting some nice self standing tower speakers, probably go for 2.2 setup and then expand to 5.2 when i feel rich enough

 

[alienware]

Wicked man! I do love a bit of good audio kit. Rocking an old yamaha amp and bookshelf speakers here. Below £1000 but once you get the bug....

When I get my own place the sitting room is getting some nice self standing tower speakers, probably go for 2.2 setup and then expand to 5.2 when i feel rich enough

It was best when I lived in the USA. We used to live on a 13 acre farm with no direct neighbours for about 1/4 mile. That meant that there was only one setting on the volume knob :lol:

I did refine the system in the car in the end. Due to my love of folded horn subwoofers I ended up with a 10" JBL pro series sub (1200w) running three amps. A Marc Anthony (made by Cerwin Vega) pushing out a kilowatt into the sub with two Phoenix Gold amps running the mids and high stages.

Here's a couple of pics of a folded horn being made to explain how it works but basically you have a sealed enclosure loaded with a sub. You then build another enclosure around it and duct it so that it pressurises the low frequencies before firing them out.

Here are the internal ducts or planes.

Now the internal sealed enclosure.

And here is how it works.

So the internal parts.

The two small amps for high stages were here.

And the power cap like so..

All enclosed.

Refurbed amp.

Fitted.

Ignore that light bar it was only there because I did a tail shave and got a fine for not having a brake light

Couple of shots of the car.

^ Holographic Kameleon pearl.

DVD player ETC ETC. Serious audio equipment. Had a 10" overhead monitor with a Gamecube in the center console

 

[MrKambo]

a 4 farad capacitor
that bass drop must have registered on the richter scale LOL!

 

[SPS]

I take it you don't have this car anymore, what are you running now?

 

[alienware]

I don't drive any more.

Back to PCs for me now :lol:

 

[jamesriley94]

I don't drive any more.

Back to PCs for me now :lol:

I'd so rather play around with cars than PCs!

If I had more money, and insurance costs were lower, I'd probably think about doing something a little more fun. I'm not so interested in having massive subs in the back, but just something to make the car more fun - which looking at your Hyundai being an auto, I can't imagine you had a great deal in waheeey!

It's just annoying how expensive things are with cars in the UK.

I found an unrepairable puncture in my tyre yesterday... The tyre was only a 5/6 weeks old, and it's so annoying having to pay £60 to replace a near brand new tyre.

Also with insurance here - not sure what it was like in the states for you - but considering we have to declare every single modification we make to the car here. I mean, legally, we're even supposed to tell our insurance company if we change the standard radio! Could be a £30 radio that puts the insurance up over £100 for young drivers. I may consider doing something with cars once I've racked up a couple of years of no claims.

 

[alienware]

Don't be fooled by the gear stick. The car had hidden secrets, namely a turbo with a Injen induction high lift cam ETC ETC.

Hyundai built a twin engine car on the same gearboxes

Here are the audio front stages. Front was all Clif Designs. Cost a fortune tbh.

There was a 6" mid in the door and then 3.5" in the heating vent

Quick pic of the car as it was intended. I only fitted the spoiler to attract Fast 'n' Furious kids when I sold it on Ebay.

See what I mean about a tail shave? no badges no locks nothing.

That's the turbo. Came from a Subaru Impreza. A friend of mine worked for Subaru so after I'd done stripping it down and painting it he rebuilt it for me. Sadly my camera was stolen on the way home so I lost all the photos of the engine bay

Here's one from when the car was NA. Had an Injen induction with a 1.8l cam (car was 2l, they only did 1.8 and 2l in the states and it's called a Tiburon)

Also had Magstar racing cables and lightweight flywheel. Never been one for looks on the engine but it was a quick car.

I have a couple of videos somewhere will try and dig them out later

 

[iBeInspire]

Always been a big fan of cars since I was a little kid ^_^
Currently doing my driver's license and once I manage to sort out some money I'll be going down the route of turbo-ing up something sexy (So jelly of your car) ^_^

On the audio side of things, I'm no where near as experienced as you guys are. My dad once built his own 2.1 system for the house, but I think that may have cost him £600 at the very most, so again not something quite as extravagant as your setup

I do own a pair of DT770s, paired with a fiio e9 on the headphone side of things and also a 4.1 setup with microlab FC330's running front/sub, and a Cambridge audio amp + 2 sony hi-fi speakers running rear, all bought second hand for pennies ^_^