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Sencheezy

External PA Speaker?

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Ok, so I know that doing this is generally wrong, frowned upon, and "ghetto" for the lack of better term. But my question is this. Is there a "right" way to do this, or "proper" way to do so. If so, what equipment should be used. Any product recommendations? 

 

For those not understanding what I'm referring to, is when people have, generally, weather proof PA Speakers mounted externally of their vehicles, playing music. Again, please skip the whole, "this is wrong and retarded" phase, and just provide some good advice. And no, don't do it, isn't the advice I'm looking for lol. 

 

So from experience, what I have seen people use is those PA speakers, that are mounted to cop cars, and they splice those into an car audio amplifier, and the horns are facing downward. 

 

For whatever is recommended, I know that the speaker itself has to be waterproof, something like marine speakers. I don't want to use marine speakers as they don't, generally, have the same output as an PA Horn, tho more clarity. Anyways, any advice would be great!

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Genuinely curious, what's the purpose for these? Shows?

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post6as.gif

So are we getting so loud we need muscic outside the vehicle....lol

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Genuinely curious, what's the purpose for these? Shows?

 

Yes. 

 

Initially, I didn't want to take the ghetto route of just splicing some generic PA speakers and hooking them up to the system playing full range, no eq, garbage. So I wanted to take maybe some mini horn body, couple them up with some nice motors, get them on an amplifier and do some basic EQing. But I'm not aware of any methods of making that weatherproof. Which is my concern. Not that we get much weather here in TN, but we do get rain, and just general outside debre. 

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This might not be super durable, but may be an idea to start with. Wrap said horn in pantyhose and spray with scotch-guard? Should be acoustically transparent and keep moisture at bay.

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This might not be super durable, but may be an idea to start with. Wrap said horn in pantyhose and spray with scotch-guard? Should be acoustically transparent and keep moisture at bay.

 

HA! Great idea!

 

I had an simliar idea, of sticking foam inside the throat, but that foam obviously could for example, get wet, which would have really negative results haha

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I've seen a few people do that down here. Most of them just use marine horns, or outdoor use PA horns.

Not a fan of it, but I can see your reasoning.

J

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Kicker has some horns for use on wakeboard boat towers. Might be worth a look as well considering they are designed for a wet environment.

 

Edit: Godsmack kinda beat me to it: marine horns.

Edited by hdrox88

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http://www.proacousticsusa.com

 

 

Not sure exactly what your saying,but maybe this can help you find your weatherproof horn.

Edited by mikel7829

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I love going to radioshack and digging through their resistors,diodes ect...I stock up when I cant find the dei resistor packs..lol

Edited by mikel7829

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Kicker has some horns for use on wakeboard boat towers. Might be worth a look as well considering they are designed for a wet environment.

 

Edit: Godsmack kinda beat me to it: marine horns.

 

Marine Horn! That's something I can google. Thanks!

 

http://www.proacousticsusa.com

 

 

Not sure exactly what your saying,but maybe this can help you find your weatherproof horn.

 

Holy crap, theirs a lot of products they offer! haha. Thanks, I'll dig through this to see what I can find. 

 

 

Ok got it!

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, the main reason why I wanted to avoid the whole PA system type of horn, is because of the sound it makes. It doesn't really sound musical at all. Lol. Which I don't think it was designed to. It sounds echo'y, and hollow'y lol. But, I didn't want marine speakers either, because they lack the output compared to an PA horn. So that's how I came up with the idea to use a real Pro Audio Horn and body, but need a way to make it weather proof. 

 

With the suggested links and info, I will do some more searching. 

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Good luck on the search....look under pro audio or commercial outdoor..

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Use a PA horn. Mount it somewhere its least likely to reach water and blast away. We did this a few years back to a friends car. Could hear vocals and bass about a mile away. the pa speakers continued to blow after a while. two horns worked wonders.

Edited by supaduppaman

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I made this popular. In the late 90's mobile one autosound built an impala for master p full of Bazooka equipment. One of the things installed was a couple pair of 6x9 marines

Somewhere around 2003 I installed 8 pair of 6x9's under a 69 caprice droptop for New Orleans Saints tightend Boo Williams. Soon after I was installing on average 100 pair a week. The people who couldn't afford my work went to radio shack and bought PA speakers.

I had a 2005 Tacoma with 48 pair of 6 1/2 marines in vacuum formed abs enclosures under it.

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Use a PA horn. Mount it somewhere its least likely to reach water and blast away. We did this a few years back to a friends car. Could hear vocals and bass about a mile away. the pa speakers continued to blow after a while. two horns worked wonders.

 

Hey, thanks. Ok, so how did the PA speakers sound musically? Like, compared to traditional in car 6.5"s for example. Did it sound hollow and echoe'y?

 

I made this popular. In the late 90's mobile one autosound built an impala for master p full of Bazooka equipment. One of the things installed was a couple pair of 6x9 marines

Somewhere around 2003 I installed 8 pair of 6x9's under a 69 caprice droptop for New Orleans Saints tightend Boo Williams. Soon after I was installing on average 100 pair a week. The people who couldn't afford my work went to radio shack and bought PA speakers.

I had a 2005 Tacoma with 48 pair of 6 1/2 marines in vacuum formed abs enclosures under it.

 

OMG! 48 pair really!? So 96 6x9's!? I just couldn't imagine haha. 

So since this work was done in the history, if you was to do this work again, today, what equipment would you go with?

 

A shit ton of marine 6x9s again, or maybe just a few PA speakers, or any other methods?

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My advice would be to buy/build some external PA monitors for use at shows wired up to some quick disconnects. Will sound better, don't have to worry about water proofing them, far less ghetto, etc. Only downside would be transporting them to/from the show.

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Selenium d250-x. google it. It's a medium frequency horn driver. I coupled them with with selenium 4x10 horn body's. I have 2 of them on my truck. Have 10 for the new Yukon build on stand by. Loud and clear. I get all my my pa drivers and Bodys from parts express.

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Omg..No he didn't!! tell me It was not the Mr.Ice cream man vid...

 

What in the hell would he want with Bazooka equipment?If Boss audio was out at that time,he would have been better off!

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My advice would be to buy/build some external PA monitors for use at shows wired up to some quick disconnects. Will sound better, don't have to worry about water proofing them, far less ghetto, etc. Only downside would be transporting them to/from the show.

 

Hmm, great idea! And great point, transportation haha. I suppose I could use the rack mount on top of my vehicle. But this would require more labor to build everything together.  But would make for a great winter project. I'll keep that in mind as I didn't event think about that. 

 

 

Selenium d250-x. google it. It's a medium frequency horn driver. I coupled them with with selenium 4x10 horn body's. I have 2 of them on my truck. Have 10 for the new Yukon build on stand by. Loud and clear. I get all my my pa drivers and Bodys from parts express.

 

Googling now!

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That truck has had the same speakers in it since 2006.  He pressure washes them weekly.  The MDF boxes had to be replace with birch about two years ago but the speakers are in perfect condition.

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underxrunner.jpg

 

 

^ that is a pic under the driver side of my Tacoma. The boxes on the tail gate was the vacuum formed enclosures.

 

back.jpg

Edited by Quentin Jarrell

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