House speakers in a van?

[ZedBed]

I have some great speakers in the house. Very old. After a lifetime of dedicated service, soon I won't have space for them anymore. ahhhh.

Funny thing is they're 4 ohm speakers - same as a car stereo likes.
They're rated at 40 watts - but that's from the good old days when 40w was 40w and the Beatles played live with 15w guitar amps. What I mean is they are very loud, bassy speakers.
Each speaker has 2 tweeters, 2 mid, 4x 4" bass and a 10" bass radiator. Lots of speakers to spread about. Obviously I have to keep the bass units together.
My questions are:

If I take them to bits and install them in the van how to judge what amp to get for them? I'm guessing wattage is exaggerated approx 10x nowadays but I'm only wild guessing.

Will my battery go flat?

Any other reason this is a bad idea?

 

[Bwuttonmoon]

Most half decent head units will power 40W house speakers no problem so I'd try without an amp 1st

 

[the_troupster]

I'd say give them a try especially if they hold some sentimental value to you. Only thing i can think maybe a problem is the frequency range maybe tuned for a living room not a relativley small van. Just be prepared to tweak the EQ's on the headunit to taste.

Jim

 

[sparkywig]

Go for it, I had a set of Missions in my old Dormobile, loads of bass.

 

[5erge]

Remember they will sound totally different once out of their original enclosures so you maybe dissapointed.

There are some great threads about BOSE speakers and how shite they are, it's just BOSE spend the $$$ on researching speaker enclosures which makes cheap speakers sound half decent.

Des

 

[sparkywig]

I put the complete enclosures on the engine cover so you could turn them round and blast out of the rear hatch.

 

[terrier man]

What you got to look at with running speakers is the sensitivity measured in dB my Kef Q5 are rated at 91dB 8 ohms & can be run by a 15-150w amp these are big floor standing speakers the higher the sensitivity the easier they are to run,
so Zed you could run yours being 4 ohms with a modest amp me thinks, then it shouldn't be too juicey for your battery.

 

[jonboylaw]

I agree with Serge, taking them out the enclosures will change their sound.. still you could turn your bed box into a bass box.

 

[ZedBed]

After some more thought - they're paper cone speakers after all and won't stand the damp vbery well - I'll get some new plastcated van stylee stuff and start from scratch.

Thanks for your in put.

 

[K@rlos]

Grazy gave me some old house speakers which I then fitted in my buses front kick panels. They sounded really good bit my foot slipped off the clutch 1 wet morning and went through it :-@

Got Fli tri-axial speakers there now........

AWESOME :-D