Can I hook an mp3 player directly to car speakers...

[newsqlman]

I'm kind of an idiot when it comes to this stuff. What I have is an
old car with just an AM Radio in it with one speaker in the dash. I
don't want to change any of that as its original and looks nice that
way.

The car has two rear mount locations on the left and right side of the
back passenger areas that I can mount some 4" speakers in without
changing the look or drilling any new holes. What I'm wondering is if
I run speaker wires out and to the trunk or even to a spot accessible
to the back seat can I hook up an mp3 player with the correct spliter
and jack to play through them or not? I know that I've seen where the
speakers need to be powered to do this but I was hoping for an easy
way to get some good music that sounds good playing through a portable
device if possible. I didn't really want to buy a new car stereo and
mount it in the trunk as I don't drive the car that often.

Hopefully someone can help me out.

Thanks.

[newsqlman]

So is there anyway easily to fix that problem? Or is the easiest
thing to do, just put a stereo in the trunk with a remote control.

[Matt Ion]

newsqlman wrote:
> So is there anyway easily to fix that problem? Or is the easiest
> thing to do, just put a stereo in the trunk with a remote control.

All you need is a small amp. It's a bit cheezy, but if you can find one,
an in/under dash EQ/amp with an input jack will do the trick. Most of
them claim some outrageous output power, but for your purposes, where
you're only using small speakers anyway, would be more than sufficient,
and can generally be mounted under the dash, behind the dash, in the
glove box, or any other out-of-the-way location.

[Mister.Lull]

On Jun 10, 9:08 pm, Matt Ion > wrote:
> newsqlman wrote:
> > So is there anyway easily to fix that problem? Or is the easiest
> > thing to do, just put a stereo in the trunk with a remote control.
>
> All you need is a small amp. It's a bit cheezy, but if you can find one,
> an in/under dash EQ/amp with an input jack will do the trick. Most of
> them claim some outrageous output power, but for your purposes, where
> you're only using small speakers anyway, would be more than sufficient,
> and can generally be mounted under the dash, behind the dash, in the
> glove box, or any other out-of-the-way location.

Yes, that would be the way I'd go about this as well...

Hook up an amplifier in an 'out of the way' location and wire it to a
couple of speakers. From the 'input' plug on the amplifier, plug in
some RCA cables and route them to somewhere nearly accessible from the
driver's seat (glove box?), then get an adapter that converts RCA
female (to plug into the end of the 'typical' RCA cables you've used
to get up to the glove box) and terminates in a 3.5mm jack (the
typical plug/jack for any device that uses earphones). Adapters like
this can be picked up just about anywhere, including Radio Shack.
I've set up something similar in my car, though it uses the deck, that
also incorporates a retractable headphone jack (see it here:
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2462751).

Upon getting all of this wired, you'd want to turn your mp3 player up
to 3/4 full volume (or full volume, depending on who you ask) and set
the amp levels accordinly (to the maximum levels before distortion).

I can recommend a good amplifier for this application; the JBL CS 60.2
(http://www.cardomain.com/item/JBLCS602).
Also, I know that these speakers work beautifully with that amplifier:
Polk Audio db650's (http://www.cardomain.com/item/POLDB650).

~Mister.Lull

[Nick and Tina]

This has come up before. A simple and cheap headphone amp usually does the
trick. It goes inline between iPod and whatever the source will be (HU, FM
adaptor, pre-amp, ect.).

They come in all price ranges and sizes. Some are battery driven. Here's a
good place to start:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=blended&field-keywords=headphone%20amplifier&results-process=default&dispatch=search/ref=pd_sl_aw_tops-1_blended_25111122_1&results-process=default


MOSFET
"Matt Ion" > wrote in message
news:_U3bi.14545$xq1.11728@pd7urf1no...
> newsqlman wrote:
> > So is there anyway easily to fix that problem? Or is the easiest
> > thing to do, just put a stereo in the trunk with a remote control.
>
> All you need is a small amp. It's a bit cheezy, but if you can find one,
> an in/under dash EQ/amp with an input jack will do the trick. Most of
> them claim some outrageous output power, but for your purposes, where
> you're only using small speakers anyway, would be more than sufficient,
> and can generally be mounted under the dash, behind the dash, in the
> glove box, or any other out-of-the-way location.
>