Thread: Surround sound in a van - How to ?

What sizes are you looking for I can get you JVC, JBL, Infinity, Rockford Fosgate, Audio control, Clarion, Diamond audio, Orion, Directed... just to name a few go to there website and check it out see what sizes you want... I would recomend infinity for great sound without killing the budget. They are the best bang for the buck not cheap but affordable. They have a center channel speaker that works very well. JVC offers a center channel speaker as well. If money is not as big a concern I would use Diamond audio and Orion. The Orion HCCA subs will blow anything on the market today away...

Check out this link and judge for yourself... http://www.orioncaraudio.com/Promos/...e_Results.aspx :cool

is this for when the van is parked or while driving?

if its true surround / 5.1 the important speakers are the front 3, eg Left, Right and Centre (plus your sub) the rear speakers are more positional audio and filler, and therefore dont often carry alot of low frequencies so small premade ones might do the job.

just as an example some bose home theatre stuff


if you want rocking loud music out of all the speakers all the time, thats not 5.1 but stereo with a front/rear and L/R control.

depending how you wire your sound card up eg 5.1 from the PC to a 6 channel amp to speakers, music will have to be encoded to play as 5.1 to hear it from all speakers. or you will just get sound from the left and right front speakers (unless you do trickery somewhere which never sounds that great to me)

Its very possible, it all actually depends on the soundcard rather then the speakers. If you can, I would go for a 7.1 surround sound setup, since it is a van. I have updated mine to 7.1 in my SUV. speaker wise, since it is a car, I am using only car speakers, infact the original ones. My setup is so over powered that the speakers are dying, so i will have to upgrade. I havent bought the 3rd rear speakers yet (car didnt come with them) so currently im running 5.1. I use SoundBlaster products, they have settings that if it isnt surround sound it will simulate it then. I originally had the SB Live 24bit, but due to so many USB devices, I couldnt get it to play in 24bit mode. I decided to go PCI and get a SB X-FI xtremegamer, which has THX, etc.

I have to appologize about the Infinity center channel speaker comment, We did an install with an Infinity 5.25 and a seperate tweeter at one time and it was half of a component set that we used... Which is what I use in my car except I used Focal and scanspeek 6". I know that the Eclipse center channel was fair and the Alpine was ok, but if you use half of a component set you will be able to have surround and Rock out all you want. The others cannot handle the power capacity of an SPL system... and yes you can have power and phenomenol sound with 5.1 there are a total of ten speakers and a Sub in my car and I will say everyone who sits inside and watches a movie would rather be there than in the theatre... Bring the popcorn

Well I dont have a center speaker, because it didnt really sound any better when i had it in (sitting ontop of the dash). Some soundcard manufatuers know that not everyone uses thier cards in a home enviroment. The SB Live 24bit takes the center signal and splits it between the front left and right if you turn off center. Honestly i see no diffrence with it, infact i seem to hear the voices alot better. I dont know if my new soundcard will be able to do this though, its a SB x-fi xtremegamer. Speaker wise i guess it all depends on watt, i would honestly go with car speakers though, they are more durable and will be able to handle a car enviroment.