Magical, Musical, Mini Monitors

Wow, I didn't know he had to replace them that offen. It's cool to see an update on Zausmer's beamer. I just saw the article in the Feb. 1995 of Car Audio and Electronics which did little but describe the layout of the system. Guess he had a tough time finding silver sigs every six months. I'd be surprised if Tireguy's bit of info doesn't disuade you, Cwlondon. Maybe you should look in to Dynaudio. You can think of them as home speakers for the car. They are easily the best availible.

The car Ohlala was refering to was a BMW 540i it was red and used the drivers from a B&W Nautalus 801 including the 15 sub woofer in the floor/kick panel area. The milbert amps powere the mid and tweeter pods and zapco comp. series z-600 powered the subs. The chap that owns the car claims he has to replace drivers every six months due to the wheather conditions they were NOT designed to deal with. Good coments were made by Sdcampbell and Ohlala what ever you do do not put a monitor cabinet in your car unless it is a 1978 subaru. Good luck :-)tim

As someone who also explored the idea of using "home audio" gear in his car, I have to urge you to re-think your idea. The combination of road noise and a less-than-optimal listening enclosure makes most home audio gear ill-suited to car audio applications. There may be ways to adapt home audio gear to the car, but you will have to throw a lot of money at the problem. In the long run, I think you will a lot happier, and experience far fewer problems, with going with high-end car audio gear. I think Xtant is building the "Ferrari" of car amps, and the Diamond Audio "Hex" line of speakers is outstanding. Even if you choose the best equipment, you must still be prepared to extensively sound-treat your vehicle: DexDamp or DynaMat virtually all of the floor pan in both the interior, doors, and trunk; replace the under-carpet jute with a vinyl mass-loaded foam under-carpet pad; DexDamp the roof under the headliner; DexDamp the hood and trunk lids; etc. Without the sound-proofing, even the best car audio systems will sound mediocre.

Proacs employ Seas drivers in their mini monitors and are quite on the low side of sensitivity....if you are somewhere in Europe,you are better of getting a mission car speakers which,is rare in the US. Take the one with the aerogel material. Mission electronics had won awards both in home and car audio arena.

There was this guy a while back that used milberts with the drivers from a pair of silver signatures. They mounted the drivers in custom pods located in each corner of the dash. The pods raised out of the dash whenever the head unit was turned on, so that the drivers faced the person on the opposite side of the speaker. Maybe something you need to top. I hope you're not considering mounting the speakers with the cabinet. I've seen it done, and it is always stupid looking. Just look for a monitor that has a woofer with a small mounting depth. You'll have more mounting options that way. I'm not positive about the extent, but there is one problem with home audio drivers in car applications. The weather. Car speakers are treated for heat and humidity, Proacs and silver sigs aren't. Good luck, let me know what you've done.

What about the Gallo Micros? Not really highend, but in a car, they might work well - plus they are very efficient.

The tiniest of the Proac line are quite magical . . .no bass however. Mounting would be an obvious challenge however.

Woudn't you want horns for a car?