cab speaker advice

[stuntpuppy]

Hi , slightly off topic I guess, I'd like to start using the jukebox in gameex but the 2.1 speakers i have in my cab just dont sound decent with music blasting out.

They were fine for arcade games and emulation etc

So i think i need something meatier !

Any recommendations .. looks are unimportant as it will all be in the cab.

[Mayhem]

1) Use a car amp and speekers ...

2) by a new set of pc speeker such as a decent set of logitec or sound blaster or better (normaly better costs more)

3) Add seprate stero amp and speekers .....

thats about it realy...... 3 nice choises there .....

[gryhnd]

1) Use a car amp and speekers ...

But will require a 12V power supply of sufficient nut to drive the amp(s).

I actually went this route in my HT, reusing some old car amps to drive my transducers. If the amp isn't a power hog, you may get away with being able to use an extra PC power supply as I did with a 16w+16w amp. However the other one is a 4x60w, and I used a regulated 12V 25amp switching power supply. You can find them on eBay for around $25-$30.

[bkenobi]

Another option that I've gone with and works surprisingly well is to take a set of powered PC speakers and gut them. Take the volume control and the amp circuit and hook up a pair of lower power car speakers to them. The impedance won't match, so technically this could be an issue. However, I've been using my setup like this for a while and the sound is MUCH better than I expected. Admittedly, I'm not using car speakers, but speakers I repurposed from a Rush the Rock machine (4.5" arcade speakers from what I recall). These fit perfectly in my Championship Sprint cab's original speaker locations and had much larger magnets (bigger magnets = good).

The PC speakers I used were a 2.1 setup, so I have the sub in the base of the cab and the R/L below the marquee. Like I said, I expected mediocre and ended up with really good sound.

[Mayhem]

we should rename our selfs BYOAC lol

[stuntpuppy]

Well i think they are car speakers in the cab, connected to a sub and then to the onboard sound of an asus mobo.

I dunno, they just sound mediocre to me. I do actually have a set of logitech 5.1's for my main pc, so i might see what sort of sound i get with that before spending out for something that wont make much difference !

ps sorry for being off topic with that .. lol

[bkenobi]

If you are hooking up a pair of car speakers (or any speakers for that matter) directly to your sound card, then it won't sound very impressive. Your PC won't have the power to drive any speakers worth listening to. You really need powered PC speakers for anything other than the error beeps. That's what my donor pc speakers were for. They have a cheap, low powered amp in them that provides enough power to get ok sound out of the speakers I'm using. If you use high quality, high power speakers, then you probably will be disappointed by what you hear with such a low quality amp.

[GeorgeT]

I have my wife's old car amp in the garage...thought about installing it in my cab, but for now the 2.1 speakers are doing alright for arcade emulation...spose if I have a party and want the jukebox on, I might wish for some more speaker power, but I don't wanna figure out the wiring for the amp at this time