[harley52]

Danny,

If you have some idea on this subject pls. post.

I'm thinking of trying something that I saw done back in the '80's. Have a sealed 12 volt/18AH or 35AH battery and use a Soundstream class A car amp to drive a pr. of speakers in house. The older Soundstream car amps sounded as good as alot of home amps. They where designed by Krell, not that that is great and built here in the states. I read about this in a mag. with Carver car amps driving a pr. of maggies, with much success.

What problems do you fore see. I can make a box for the battery. That class A amp is good to 1 ohm at full power.
Thank you

[Danny Richie]

Most of my system is off the grid. I have two sealed Power Sonic batteries in my system that are 100 amp hours each.

There is some BIG advantages in being off the grid. I don't know how good those old car audio amps are but being off the grid is an advantage.

[FullRangeMan]

I wonder if 12 Volt car batteries are suited for audio equip??
Since price is low, sell everywhere and current are huge.

[mikeeastman]

I use unsealed golf cart batteries in my system, as long as batteries are in a sealed box that is vented to out side they  to work just fine.  I think your amp has a pretty high draw if I remember correctly, used one to power my subs in a car audio system I built in the early 90s, so you should have at least 50- 100 amphr battery bank and a good charger. I use the Cetek 7002, it can be left on all the time and is completely quiet.

[Danny Richie]

I wonder if 12 Volt car batteries are suited for audio equip??
Since price is low, sell everywhere and current are huge.

The funny thing that we have noticed is that not all batteries sound the same. And Dave's Battery Buss product made quite the difference as well.

[richidoo]

The output impedance of batteries varies a lot. The Optima red tops are very low impedance which is important for high end audio. You will hear the difference. They are also pretty safe to use indoors, since they are leak proof and can be used in any orientation. I think it has gel electrolyte. I used them in audio, they work well. The best thing for me about battery audio is playing music during thunderstorms which are every afternoon in early summer here in NC.

[OzarkTom]

A somewhat new trend is to use a solar trickle charger. You can keep this charging the amp and never have to plug an AC charger in while listening.

http://www.amazon.com/Sunforce-50022-Battery-Trickle-Charger/dp/B0006JO0TC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357264945&sr=8-1&keywords=sunforce+trickle+charger

[FullRangeMan]

The funny thing that we have noticed is that not all batteries sound the same. And Dave's Battery Buss product made quite the difference as well.

Thanks for reply Danny, I appreciated it.
I feel it was a silly question, but I always had that doubt.
Regards

[mikeeastman]

That 5 watt solar panel will not keep the battery charged, on a good day you might get 30-35 watt hrs of charge out of it.

[OzarkTom]

That 5 watt solar panel will not keep the battery charged, on a good day you might get 30-35 watt hrs of charge out of it.

Some are using it with no problem. It is designed to charge 12v batteries.

[OzarkTom]

I am tempted to try it.

Product Features

Trickle charges and maintains 12 Volt batteries
 
Made of durable ABS plastic and amorphous solar cells; Built-in blocking diode protects battery discharge at night

Weatherproof amorphous panel charges in all daylight conditions-even on cloudy days!
 
Works with automobile, tractor, SUV, boat batteries and more!

Each panel includes 4 pre-cut holes for easy installation, as well as battery clamps, a CLA adapter, and 10 feet of wire
 

[richidoo]

I used Battery Tender. It did not change the sound even when charging, but the amp had decent rejection.

[jules]

Harley,

it should work but you need to work through some figures first. If the amp is class A [?] or perhaps AB biased to A, it will probably need a fair amount of power/watts to run it. If you choose to use solar charging you'll need to have enough stored power not to draw your batteries down below about 80% charge while they're in action [and the panel isn't recharging your battery]. This might mean you need a huge battery or several batteries to do the task at which point things start to get complicated for various reasons.

In addition, while a 5W panel can deliver 35W hr over a day, it might still not be quite enough for the amp you're considering. You could use a larger panel of course and there's a fantastic choice of really high quality voltage regulators available for battery charging so it's all quite possible with solar but if cost is important it would probably be wiser to use a mains/grid battery charging system that can work while you're using the amp.

In short, before you go any further, find out what current the amp draws .......

Jules