Thread: Not running a head unit? Carputer for only source of audio

You still can keep your HU to be FM and amplifier and use either AUX adapter or just have interface to your PC through the CDC interface.

a word of advice, the signal coming from your computer is next to nothing (something like .5mv?) meaning that your sound will sound like crap. Run a eq, or somehting of that nature, to bump up your voltage to reasonable amounts, from there into your amp.

You will be surprised how much better it will sound. I don't care what card you have, what amp you have....if you don't have the voltage going to the amp in the first place the rest doesn't matter....

btw, I haven't had a head unit in my car for over a year and a half now....of course I refuse to listen to FM radio as it sucks ***....other than that I see no reason for a head unit (and even then there are ways around it)

I'm fairly sure the Audigy NX is doing substantially more than .5mV (dunno where that figure came from ) as are almost all (if not all) sound cards. In any case, you can safely run most pc sound hardware directly into your audio amplifier. If your amp has a gain adjustment, you can fiddle with that to get the best sound / volume match for your speakers. If you still have problems or amp doesn't have the adjustment range you need, get a level converter. Any car audio store will have them.

Originally Posted by dingofarmer

Any pics on your setup, Im in the same boat, but the ac300 made life easy.

I don't have any old pics of my set-up hosted anywhere and I don't have them on this computer.....if I get a chance I'll post em up.

And rando, it's not .5mV, it's .5V (my bad) and I got that off of the specs for the mini-itx boards. Most good headunits now are 4v.

that should work...most amps can't really take much more than 8 volts

you can actually burn up the input stage of an amplifier by giving it too much voltage...

for instance, you wouldn't want to just slice off into the output of a radio and make em into RCAs and plug those directly into your amp...most amps couldn't take it

=]

If it were me, I'd run the PCouts into an AudioControl Three.1 in-dash crossover/eq/linedriver

Great box of tricks, will solve many of your problems