Topic: Suitcase stereo?

[Scott S]

 I have a Creepy Van that I use to haul bikes in occasionally. It has an aftermarket stereo that gets basically one channel. Luckily, it's a good Oldies station and sorta suits the van.
 However, I can hear the RH speaker or the LH speaker....there is no fade or balance here. And the old Chevy's have molded grills in the dash. You damn near have to take the van apart to get to the speakers.

 There's plenty of room between the front seats. I want to take an old suitcase (or cooler) and make a boom-box.

 I'm thinking a couple of speakers should be fine, some type of amp, and an input for my phone, Sirius radio or Kindle as the music source.
 Here's where it gets a little tricky: I'd also like to be able to take the case out of the can and plug it into a 12V outlet....for hotels, campsites, etc.
 While it's in the van, I'd like to use the cigarette lighter to power it.

 So....would I need some type of inverter to do that or ??

[faux fiddy]

It it's a regular car stereo it should work fine without an inverter.

I have a 100w inverter that I  was given, it seems to work okay to power a laptop, not sure what else it would power- Skill Saw needs a kilowatt.

[mrbreeze]

I've never seen a set up in a suitcase like that but then I never really looked for one. That is a cool idea though. I would have 2 suitcases so you can have the stereo effect. You could have your radio/cd deck with one speaker and the other case has the other speaker. I used to keep a spare car battery for powering things up while camping. I had it set up to charge in my truck and then take it down to the campsite. At home I would put it on a 10 amp charger every now & then to keep it fresh.
 I built a sorta boombox thing back in the early 80's when I was driving big rigs. I worked for this one company that had me in different tractors all the time so I had a car casette deck and a cb mounted in with 2 speakers. Magnet based antennas that plugged into the rear of it along with a cig lighter plug. I went the extra step and bought a DC converter at Radio Shack. I put in a panel that had jacks & switches so that I could plug it in to house current in my garage plus speaker jacks for bookshelf speakers. I don't recall what became of that setup but I do still have the converter. I don't know why I never thought of using an old suitcase. It would be easy to carry around and just open it up to work on it.

[333]

A radio is one thing, but when you start adding amps and other things, a cig lighter plug isn't going to have the current to run all that.  If I were you, I'd bite the bullet and take a day to install it properly.  If you do it right, it'll only have to come apart one time.  It'll sound better too.

[Duke McDukiedook]

I have heard good things about people using chip T-amps on my audio forum- I think they run off 12V wall wart transformers.
You might want to look those up and run some fairly efficient coaxial or triaxial speakers off it.

[vames]

There are so many awesome boomboxes where you can have a car 12v and home plug, bluetooth, mp3, etc. Super cheap. Why bother trying to build out an old suitcase into something with 1/10th the functionality?




http://www.amazon.com/Lasonic-i-931BT-Portable-Built-In-Bluetooth/dp/B008RUF5DC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1402681821&sr=8-2&keywords=boombox


With the time and money you save, you can buy an airbrush and do an awesome medieval dragon slaying scene on the side of that bad boy!

[Stev-o]

Is this too big?

[Dusty54]

It it's a regular car stereo it should work fine without an inverter.

I have a 100w inverter that I  was given, it seems to work okay to power a laptop, not sure what else it would power- Skill Saw needs a kilowatt.

@faux fiddy it seems you know yourself around head units. Can you recommend me one?

Sorry for being off-topic. I'm looking for a good stereo and can't make my mind up which one is the best.

There are so many aftermarket stereos that it's hard to find a good one. Many of them have one digit difference in their name. Anyways I've been reading reviews on the nets and they are all hype. Most of them downplay the negatives and hype features like 7" as if it would be that important. I've found a different blog. The thing I liked about this site is that it says it how it is. No sugar coating no BS. Even so there are ten or more head units on the site. How to pick the right one?

Is the parking brake bypass a thing for all the stereos? Any tips?