maveric

To sum up the story quick i sold my car and am wanting to build a portable stereo for camping using the deck from my car, an "Alpine CDA-9851" and a pair of Type S speakers. At the moment all the parts and pieces are at the shop and for the life of my i cannot remember if they are 5-1/4" or 6-1/2". As i said its portable for camping so its intended to be by the trailer thus in the great outdoors...no walls to bounce sound off of. I beleive that too small of a box and they wont play the maximum amount of sound, too big and it might sound like garbage. The problem is that the speakers are a few years older and i cannot find specs on them, then again it might say what model on the speakers and again they aren't here. On the other hand i doubt that 10 or 20 cubic inches/centimeters will make a drastic difference...or will it?

From what i understand if i were to build the box ported they need to be bigger but there is also a specific port size for specific speakers. Would a ported box maybe be a better option for these speakers in an outdoors environment? Is a ported box only for better/more bass? if so am i really concerned about that with only 6.5" in outdoors or would a ported box make the difference because its outdoors?

Lastly...magnets. I want to put the deck and both speakers in one box with seperations between the speakers and the deck. How much of a problem am i going to have with the magnets being close to the deck? is there a way i can "block" the magnets "effect" on the deck?

http://www.crutchfield.ca/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=500SPS500&Show=Tech Specs

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Thats the Closest specs i can find on the speakers i have. Those are the specs for the 5-1/4" (current model). The thing is the tweeter is a swivel design in the center of the woofer much like the one here but the "face plate" is more like the 6.5". Ill find out what the speakers are and try to find and post the actual specs later today.

I Much appreciate any opinion, suggestion, advice i can get.

Dukk

It will be almost impossible to give the speakers too much space.

They will return better bass if carefully ported but your best bet may be to leave them sealed.

Don't worry about how close the magnets are to the deck, unless it's a cassette deck

maveric

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-ICKGEgvmtjn/p_500SPS130A/Alpine-SPS-130A.html
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Thats what they are...5-1/4"

So i dont have to worry about magnets wrecking an electronic device aka CD Player. Sounds a little weird to me not to say your wrong. then why do they make some speakers (home theater...maybe a different topic) in a magnetically shielded box?

So if i cant go to big then what would be the smallest size i could go? I dont want to build what i would think to be big to find that its not big enouph. Ive tried using a DIY calculator to calculate box sizes but dont understand some of the things it asks me. Im really just looking for a general idea here.

So far it looks like my minimum will be about 8"w x8"h x10"d thus 640sq in per speaker. Those are rough measurements and if i cant go to big then i might do 10"w x10"h x10"d thus 1000sq in. I really dont want to go much bigger than that but again...dont want to be to small.

BradSk88

Because old tube tvs were very susceptible to magnetic influence. Decks won't really matter. If you have problems reading CDs then maybe you'll want to look at shielding, but I'm pretty sure the arm is already shielded inside the deck.

I wouldn't worry about it. Plus I've done something similar and the deck still worked fine.

Most 5.25" speakers are happy anywhere from 1/8 cubic foot to 1.5 cubic feet. If you build it on the small end, you will end up getting an increase in output around 160Hz, which is in the midbass range so you'll basically just have to turn down the bass on the deck, or it might sound good. If you build it too big, you'll lose control in the area in and below the midbass range, but if you're crossing over your speakers it will be fine.