Hello everyone! I'm a newbie looking for advice selecting a speaker for a solar powered system I want to build. The goal is to get ~40 people dancing at my upcoming annual camping trip, while being compact so I can fit it in my small car along with all my camping gear.

I'd like to have it charging up + playing quietly during the day and then raise the volume in the evening, hopefully lasting past midnight.

I already happen to have:

Ok, above all look for some thing with a decent SPL - like 97/98dB, 1W @ 1m. Don't worry too much about the wattage. 

And as ever - what's the budget? 

For compact, look at co-axial drivers, eg. Tannoy. I do like their VX 12. Otherwise, EV, Turbo, RCF, etc. are all worth looking at. Even something like an EV SX200/300 will do the job.  

Hey! Thanks for the help.

Seeing as I've limited power is efficiency something I want to worry about?

Hard to say really! I'm just dipping my toes into the soundsystem world so I don't know how much things should cost really. There seems to be a huge range of prices and I don't really know how to judge how good any of the options are.

Seeing as this is a bit of an experiment it would be nice to spend a few hundred quid and get something and then if I'm bitten by the bug I could upgrade later.

Think VX12 will be outside my budget.

See some second hand EV SX300s on ebay + facebook marketplace, could be a good option! Any tips on what to look for when buying?

You say "an"  so one rather than a pair?

Are there other speakers similar to EV SX200/300s that could be good to look for?

Cheers,

Louis

Well for starters that Sony amplifier is no good for your purpose .... its a class AB design - and as such it'll drain your battery miles faster than a class D amplifer (which is whats needed for this kind of setup).

Have a look around for full-range class D amps - plenty around, but not so many used ones. I'll vouch for Pioneer as a good one - other brands that are likely to be quality are

Kenwood

Alpine

Vibe

JBL

A very common o/p power for these amplifiers is about 60W-120W/channel into 4R - which into a single 8R speaker (and I agree that something like a SX300 would be just the job) - giving you about 120W - 240W into 8R in bridge mode.

When looking at speakers in ebay et al, filter your results for passive speakers - passive are in the minority these days.

Thanks for all the help guys, really useful. I found an EV SX300 in good condition locally which seems like it'll do nicely.

Good tip with the amp there, efficiency is key. Are there particular Pioneer amps you would look out for? Or other brands.

Well I use a Pioneer GM-D8704 .... which is a 4-channel jobbie. If you bridge 1 pair of channels and use that with a SX300 (8R, so equivalent to 2 channels running into 4R)

you should get around 250W into that box. It'll be loud. The amplifer seems to be clean-sounding and has been reliable for me so far.

Obviously its a car amplifier, so you need to adapt all the connections somehow, wire a small switch across the +12 and REM terminals, and remember there are no input signal level meters - so gain structure is a bit "seat of the pants".

Yeah I use my 4ch Pioneer amp to drive 1 speaker (prob pushing it a bit hard really, as that 1 FBT MAXX4 is a 4R version). OTOH the amp is rated as being 1R stable, so 4R bridge should be OK (and so far _has_ been OK) - but my hunch is that the amp o/p is limited by the PSU section, and running the 2nd pair of channels (especially 4R) might very well limit the total power - mebbe clip earlier or something. If I decide to run 2 x FBT's (or 1 x FBT + a bass box) I think I'd rather get a 2nd Pioneer amp .... (I already have a 2nd 50Ah LiFePo4 battery for it :-)

Nice one, thanks gang.

Slaz how long do you find your battery lasts with that setup?

After a lot of head scratching and a few pointers from the old man (a retired electrical engineer) I've got something working.

Sounds great! I love it and I'm sure the folks at the camping trip will too. Thanks slaz, bitSmasher and Earplug, I owe you one.