Hey guy's, I realize this topic/music system will probably not end up with any Bryston components, but i trust your opinions and i think a few of you will think it's fun to help design a new system for a very unique environment.
I belong to a small 50 yr old Hunt Camp in the Ottawa Valley. Up until recently we have not had any AC power and relied totally on propane for lights and cooking. A few years ago our old propane stove bit the dust and we acquired a newer model. While the new stove uses propane as a fuel it does require AC power to operate a glow plug safety device in the oven, therefore to operate the propane oven you require approx. 300 watts of AC.
To address this issue we installed a small battery bank, permanent solar panel/controller and AC inverter for the oven . We also installed DC lights throughout the camp which were much cooler to operate in the summer than propane lights. We have recently upgraded our battery bank to approx. 800 amp/hours of capacity.
We are very musical hunt camp, with approx. half the members playing guitar. Therefore a sound system was a must when the pickers fingers got sore. They all appreciate a great sounding, loud system.
Our 1st sound system turned out to be excellent, it was a a Cambridge sound works DC powered sub woofer and satellite speaker combo. We typically used a iPod or laptop as a music source. This system sounded remarkable for the cost, but after a few years of use the mini jack input started to fail and required soldering on the main board to by pass the jack. The soldering job was a one time event, and it is likely that it cannot be repeated. So it is time to re-design the camp sound system, myself and one other member were tasked with the project (because we designed installed the AC/DC solar system).
I am looking for idea's, suggestions etc for this new system. A couple of things to keep in mind, it is much more efficient to power using DC than AC in our system , therefore we would like to keep the majority of the components DC powered. We would like to wall mount the speakers if possible, ( for stereo separation, to keep them out of the way and keep the mice from nesting in the port holes
)and perhaps a floor mounted sub. A efficient full range floor speaker could be an alternative.The environment can be rather hostile. The camp is used all year round, but sit's empty for weeks at a time. Temperature in the camp can range from 40 C (100F) to -45C (-45F) in the winter.
Here are a few idea's that I came up with. use a 3 channel car amp to power two small surround speakers and a car sub woofer and a car deck with a mini jack Aux. input. Or use above mentioned car amp with a home stereo preamp (pre-amps typically don't draw much AC power), therefore it would be easy to switch between sources, such as a squeezebox and iPod. I find most car sub woofers rather boomy, therefore mod's might be required.
Has anyone used car sub's in conjunction with home bookshelf/surround speakers? If so what was the results. Any comments suggestions would be appreciated.
i want this system to sound as good as possible, Eccentric idea's are welcome, but keep in mind I will be buying/scrounging mostly used component parts, the environment is hostile, and equipment will likely be abused (played loud from time to time).
Cheers, and thanks
