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[matqc23]

Hi! I was wondering how one would go about installing a full fledged car audio system on a PC.

I am a big car audio enthusiast and I dropped lots of money to put a good sound system in my car. I'm going to sell my car pretty soon and gonna install a completely new sound system in it. Now I'm stuck with this old sound system and since I have a big gaming rig with poor speakers I figured I might as well install them on my pc.

This is what I got :

1 - 600 Watts RMS Pheonix Gold Xenon x 600.1 Amp (4 ohms)
1 - Orion  2 x 120 w rms @ 4 ohms amp(2 pairs of speakers both at 120w)
1 - Pair of CDT audiophile 6.5'' 4 omhs 140 w RMS speakers
1 - Pair of CDT audiophile 6x9'' 4 ohms 120 w RMS speakers
1 - Image Dynamics audiophile  IDMAX12-D4 1000w RMS Dual Coil SUbwoofer (with crossed coil connect for 4 ohm impedance instead of
1- Panasonic cd player with 5v Preamps

I was wondering how I would go about installing such a setup on my PC. Will I have to buy myself a pc power supply to drive the amps? WIll I have to buy a tv sound system setup to drive it? How will I install it and with what wires?

All I have right now is the standard car audio wires. (Gage 2 for battery to splitter, gage 4 from splitter to amps, gage 12 from amps to speakers)

Thanks for at least reading.. hoping to get helpfull replies.

[Mr ChriZ]

I've got this vision of a desk with holes cut out for the 6x9's :-D

[Siafu11]

You can buy some '3.5mm to RCA' jacks at Radioshack or Walmart and run those from your sound to your amp.

You can drive the amps with a computer power supply....if you don't mind chopping up some cables on a (presumably) brand new supply. I actually bought a bunch of extra 24, 6, and 4 pin power supply extension cables and chopped those up so I could just plug in power supply cables into those. You'll want to tie all the red wires from the power supply together into one large wire, and then do the same with the black wires. To turn on the power supply, you will have to jump one of the wires from the 24- pin connector to the power supply's ground (generally green or purple, I can't remember which, but google should be able to tell you).

When looking for a power supply, look up the the amperage rating on the 12V rail. Almost all manufacturers will list this. I am assuming you are using two amps, one for the sub and one for a pair of 6x9's? If that is the case, I would say look for one with a 35A max rating for the 6x9 speakers, but this is just a guess. That would give you a maxiumum power rating of 360W, which should be enough to drive 6x9s. Driving the subwoofer is another story. You would be hard pressed to find a power supply that supplies enough amps for ~600 watts RMS on a single rail. DO NOT use a power supply with 2 or more 12V rails. The reason I say this is because I tried it once (tied the 12V rails together) and ended up with a room full of smoke.

You could also use a normal receiver to drive the 6x9s, just make sure it is compatible with 4 ohm impediances. If not, then you could also try stringing 2 6x9s in series for an 8 ohm impedance receiver. You can use the same 3.5mm to RCA cable to connect your soundcard to the receiver. The subwoofer would still require an external power source though.

Hope this points you in the right direction!

[quattronut]

Yes it can be done, to give you an idea, here is the set-up in my office. You will need a power source that can supply the amp sufficiently, I used a group 24 Gell Cell battery and a charger to supply the system. It includes (4) Bose 101 monitors (60 watts each), (2) MTX competition 10 inch subs in an isobaric box (300 watts each on bridged channels).  I had to cut back the gains on the amp, It was creating so much pressure that it was effecting the hard drive which was freaking out the computer. Otherwise it was a direct connection to the PC with a 3.5mm to RCA adapter and some fiddling to get it to sound right.
Best of luck to you.