light weight/ cheap / easy / removable set up...

**sen2two** · 07-10-2009, 03:06 AM

ok heres an idea i had. i can pretty much build and fabricate anything on cars. but my downfall usually comes in custom wiring. mainly for stereo equipment. mostly cause my cars dont have radios or speakers cause of the added weight. and usually gauges take the spot for the deck...

so my idea came to me because of this... I dont really like carrying my big ass CD case in the car. Plus, I have a lot of hard to find CD's and dont want to get the case stolen. I also, NEVER EVER listen to the 6 garbage songs on the radio that they repeat over and over again. So I have no real need for a CD deck either. But I have an 80GB I pod. So if I want to just have the ipod, and no radio. Also, I dont have any wiring for speakers in the car anymore anyways. So it would all have to be custom either way...

the idea is this:

~ I-pod
~ a 3 way set of speakers (ones for a computer would be fine)
* have a nice bass speaker, and usually 2 tweeters. I have a nice set that only cost me 30 bucks and sound real nice in my garage. So they would sound even better in my small 2 seater car.
~ Something to power the speakers. They usually run off 120v source you plug into the wall in your house. But I could just get a small inverter that plugs into my cigarette lighter for this. Hide it all under my dash and the only thing seen would be the I pod and a custom mount i make for it...

Im pretty much sold on the I pod and a nice set of upgraded computer speakers. But is there a better way to power the speakers? Like a 200-300 watt amp? Any ideas would be good. thanks...

**Henry** · 07-10-2009, 03:29 AM

I would really just pick up a cheap 2 channel amp and a single channel, run the ipod right into those. Run 2-4 6.5 speakers off the 2 channel and a single sub off the single. I know there are boxes out there for something like 1 12 and 2 6x9s. Mount both amps ontot he box. Just pull it out when you want to lightweight it.

**sen2two** · 07-10-2009, 04:35 AM

i dont really want a box... i have a fuel cell in the back and its a smaller 2 seater car (rx7). that would really take up some space. plus buying all that would be about 4x the price.

my reason for the computer speakers mainly is the small size with high sound/quality output. and they are pre-boxed. just so much simpler. and, i already have a set im not using too...

**cd6ccord718/407** · 10-28-2009, 08:37 AM

yea it possible. from the speaker outlet on ipod plug in the headphone plugs and on the other end of the cable cut it and put an RCA tip on it. get a 4 channel amp or get a power inverter that will run off off the 12 volt cigarette lighter and hook up speakers then ipod and u should be gud to go. did it to my old civic dat had no cables for speakers or a radio. worked just fine. had logitech 6 inch speaker running off a 350.4 lightning audio. didnt sound to bad

**Excelsior** · 10-30-2009, 03:54 AM

Old thread, but I'll add a little bit of info anyway...

You don't even have to cut and splice wires to make a headphone-plug-to-RCA cable, because they sell such a cable ready-made at most electronics stores. On one end of the cable is the 1/8-inch 3-conductor stereo phone plug (or mini plug), and on the other end is a pair of RCA plugs. That could go right from an iPod to the input RCA jacks of an amp.

[This assumes that your iPod uses a standard Walkman-style headphone jack. If it doesn't, you'll need a different cable or some sort of adaptor.]

If you're using amplifled computer speakers, you might need just a cable that has the 1/8-inch mini jack on both ends, because it seems to me that computer speakers have a mini-jack input, not RCA's, but check them to be sure. And again, such a cable is also available at most electronics stores.

My only concern about computer speakers would be that, even though they may sound great in your home, they might not sound very loud against the engine and road noise of a car -- especially a car built for racing.