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From: Grinder on 24 May 2010 21:21
Is it completely insane to run a PC line out into the inputs of a car
stereo amplifier, with some sort of pre-amp or attenuator? If no,
what's a cheap way to do that with a minimum of crazy?
From: Paul on 25 May 2010 02:11
Grinder wrote:
> Is it completely insane to run a PC line out into the inputs of a car
> stereo amplifier, with some sort of pre-amp or attenuator? If no,
> what's a cheap way to do that with a minimum of crazy?

If the car stereo has line level inputs (about 1 volt), your
PC should be a good match.

If you want to test, you could try a portable music player,
as that would represent what your PC would be like as a
signal source.

Paul
From: kony on 25 May 2010 15:37
On Mon, 24 May 2010 20:21:39 -0500, Grinder
<grinder(a)no.spam.maam.com> wrote:

>Is it completely insane to run a PC line out into the inputs of a car
>stereo amplifier, with some sort of pre-amp or attenuator? If no,
>what's a cheap way to do that with a minimum of crazy?

It's quite do-able, no preamp should be needed... that's if
as Paul mentioned your amp has a line level input, which if
it has any input at all would tend to be the line level
type.
From: Grinder on 25 May 2010 19:33
On 5/25/2010 2:37 PM, kony wrote:
> On Mon, 24 May 2010 20:21:39 -0500, Grinder
> <grinder(a)no.spam.maam.com> wrote:
>
>> Is it completely insane to run a PC line out into the inputs of a car
>> stereo amplifier, with some sort of pre-amp or attenuator? If no,
>> what's a cheap way to do that with a minimum of crazy?
>
> It's quite do-able, no preamp should be needed... that's if
> as Paul mentioned your amp has a line level input, which if
> it has any input at all would tend to be the line level
> type.

I don't have the amp in front of me, but it's been explained that it has
"standard" preamp inputs, whatever that means. Crutchfield has said
that it's not possible unless the amp has an aux in specifically
designed for that purpose.

From: kony on 25 May 2010 21:37
On Tue, 25 May 2010 18:33:32 -0500, Grinder
<grinder(a)no.spam.maam.com> wrote:

>On 5/25/2010 2:37 PM, kony wrote:
>> On Mon, 24 May 2010 20:21:39 -0500, Grinder
>> <grinder(a)no.spam.maam.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Is it completely insane to run a PC line out into the inputs of a car
>>> stereo amplifier, with some sort of pre-amp or attenuator? If no,
>>> what's a cheap way to do that with a minimum of crazy?
>>
>> It's quite do-able, no preamp should be needed... that's if
>> as Paul mentioned your amp has a line level input, which if
>> it has any input at all would tend to be the line level
>> type.
>
>I don't have the amp in front of me, but it's been explained that it has
>"standard" preamp inputs, whatever that means. Crutchfield has said
>that it's not possible unless the amp has an aux in specifically
>designed for that purpose.


That should work, what they are either misunderstanding or
not conveying is that you wouldn't want to hook the speaker
output from an in-dash receiver, or similary the speaker
output from a computer speaker amplifer, into the car amp
"preamp input".

Taking the PC's sound card or integrated audio line out and
connecting to the car amp preamp input should be fine
providing you don't have one of those rare motherboards that
has a speaker amp integrated onto it... I've seen a few
several years ago but it is very rare today and any that had
such a power amp chip on them had a jumper to pick between
headphone or line-out and speaker out to drive passive
speakers.

Just remember that since the volume would be adjusted by the
PC, you'd want to start with the volume set low and
progressively raise it until you get the desired output
volume from the amp.
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