Preface: Yes, I am a techy DIY nerd. Yes, this project could have started an electrical fire. Yes, I had a fire extinguisher close at hand at all times (really). Yes, these subwoofers are far too loud for a small dorm room, and everyone in my building is going to hate me in 4 months.

In case any one was interested in why I haven’t posted much over the last couple days, on top of having a gig at This Is London tomorrow I’ve been working on a project that I’ve meant to do for a while – get my old car subwoofers working in my dorm room.  Yes, they are insanely loud – each have dual 300W voice coils, and the amp is 600W regulated power.  With some very simple modifications to a standard computer ATX power supply I am able to power my amp with no problems – the amperage on the PS is more than sufficient!

The steps are simple: pick a connector – in this case i was able to plug ‘extra’ connectors in to the side of the PS (I didn’t want to chop up one of the main wiring harnesses) – attach its yellow +12v lead in to the power and remote on the amp, attach all black wires to the ground, and your amp is connected.  To have the PS turn on when you flip the power switch you need to short the green wire on the main 20 (/24) pin connector to a black ground wire (doesn’t matter which).  I did this by using a wire ‘jumper’ (seen in one of the pics).  You could cut the wires and splice them together, but as I said, I didn’t want to chop up any of the wiring harnesses because I could always use the PS down the road!

So here are some pics..