Thread: caravan sound system

Any of the better quality car stereos should cover that,perhaps with decent small house speakers,Bose etc???
I intend fitting a decent system to my camper trailer,Ipod to store the music on.
Andrew

sound like you want 3 way splits the have a 6in speaker for bass a 4 in one for mid and tweeters for high all set up with crossovers they sound good any car stereo place would have them, it will all come down to how much you want to spend focal and mb quart are good but can be exyi would also consider a 10in subwoofer to go with the 3 ways and a pair of 2 way splits aswell how big is your van you might only need i set of speakers?

Touchscreen Car Multimedia Player - Jaycar Electronics

click or copy and paste that. I have the blue tooth and GOOD speakers hooked up .(only prob now is election stuff everwhere,come on next week)
they also have xovers in the catalogue

I think the first thing you need to decide is whether you want to run the thing off mains, inverted 240V or 12V.

For 12v stuff, you are pretty well limited to car audio gear which may make the ability to include TV, DVD etc. that you mentioned frustrating if not impossible.

My suggestion is to go with a 'bookshelf' system of good quality. I have a Panasonic system that absolutely rocks my house. $399.00 7 years ago. Tons of power for a caravan.

Run it off inverted 240V and/or mains as is available. This should also require less 'wiring' as most connections can be made with readily available patch cords.

Try it in the van and, if necessary, add satellite speakers(inc. sub) later. Most computer audio systems are now 5.1 surround sound jobbys that give really good price v. performance results. If these don't tickle your fancy, then you can go nuts and get a Bose Project X type setup with corresponding price tag.

Originally Posted by discomuzz

I think the first thing you need to decide is whether you want to run the thing off mains, inverted 240V or 12V.

For 12v stuff, you are pretty well limited to car audio gear which may make the ability to include TV, DVD etc. that you mentioned frustrating if not impossible.

My suggestion is to go with a 'bookshelf' system of good quality. I have a Panasonic system that absolutely rocks my house. $399.00 7 years ago. Tons of power for a caravan.

Run it off inverted 240V and/or mains as is available. This should also require less 'wiring' as most connections can be made with readily available patch cords.

Try it in the van and, if necessary, add satellite speakers(inc. sub) later. Most computer audio systems are now 5.1 surround sound jobbys that give really good price v. performance results. If these don't tickle your fancy, then you can go nuts and get a Bose Project X type setup with corresponding price tag.

I am not sure I agree.

The standard is 12v. My experience is in Video Conferencing and you may say they are different but at the end of the day they are not. You just have to look around.

I would personally go a car sterio system with that all said, most of the hard work is already done and they are compact units with great sound. It is one of those things that the sky is the limit (or should that be the wallet)

start off with bose and work your way down

I guess it depends on how compact you want the setup to be.
If you want compact, then a car system and speakers inset into a set of overhead cupboards seems to be the way.
You would need to lose some cupboard space to make "boxes" inside to give good high bass mid range.

Treble is directional; so you would need to have them pointing towards where you sit , probably also mid range. The sub can be anywhere.

My recommendation would be a popular head unit with the features you want, and I would recommend Pioneer or I am told JVC if you also want good FM radio reception. A Pioneer 4250SD priced at $210 on ebay has aux input, USB and SD card input, so you could run TV, DVD via Aux or USB. this model also translates MP4a so you can run and control an Ipod.

If you want good classical music detail , I recommend that you run the Pioneer through a 4channel amp with provision for a sub via the 2sets of RCA outputs . Power of 100watts RMS would be ample to run reasonably efficient mid range and treble speakers and give excellent detail. Probably use car speakers as they are much more robust than home speakers.

Jaycar have a very good range of high quality car speakers, and probably a tweeter, and maybe twin cone 6 inch round would be sufficient in a suitable box.. They could advise on crossovers. The sub would be driven separately and they have their own roll of frequency control and volume control and own amp. Someone like JB HiFI have a good range of subs.
That's my suggestion.
I bought some small 4 inch rounds to fit my RRC doors some time ago and they had inbuilt tweeters that swivelled so they could be pointed independently of the main speaker to some extent.
Regards Philip A

Its a caravan, not a concert hall so exactly how good do you want it to sound?

Bookshelf speakers are a good option. They're usually 8 ohm so you'd need an amp to run them.

Another option is computer speakers, on a budget they're a very good solution, and I have see some that run 12v.

Problem with car audio speakers is you will need to build enclosures for them. Avoid 3 way splits (ie 6+4+tweeter) as they are easy to mess up if installed wrongly. 2 way components or coaxials are probably a better option in a caravan.

I reckon you could spend a heap of cash on a car audio setup that would not give you much performance gain over something like computer speakers.

I'm thinking something like a JVC headunit with usb and aux input, then use the rca preamp outputs to connect to computer speakers and you're away with something that'll sound pretty decent and be cheapish and easy to install. Plus you can go listen to them in store and get a realistic expectation of the sound you'll ghet in the caravan. Car audio speakers are notorious for sounding different in store to in car due to enclosures.