A plate amp will be what you're looking for, car amps are designed for a different power supply and for speakers with lower impedence. With a plate amp and a pair of cheap 8 Ohm speakers you will be on your way and possibly within your budget, but you still need something to decode signals prior to amplification - unless you want to rewire the audio output of the TV through a plate amp and speakers.
A cheap second hand stereo receiver will still be the best route. New 2 ch receivers can be had for $300 such as the Harman Kardon 3000 series.
tell me if this would work... get a pioneer reciever, one at best buy (i know best buy sucks) for 175, then use preouts on it to go to an amp. then speakers. possibly some 6.5s and small subs
There are many differences between home and car stereos. There is no simple explanation as to what is different because that would imply too much simplicity in design within each camp. There is good car audio and there is cheap home stereo. While a good design in either camp isn't going to necessarily work well when transposed to the other, the answer implies that you should evaluate each product on its own merit.
Plate amps are not the best choice for home audio. Buying a plate amp will not give great results in the home though I have no idea how sensitive you are to what sounds good and how critical you might be to the various problems of running car stereos in the home. Most plate amps are class D amps which have less than stellar sound when asked to run full range into a home audio speaker. They will make sound of reasonable quality and are not that different from what is found in many mini-systems and rack style components. If this is good enough for you, you probably won't notice the problems clas D and chip amps have. You will probably notice the grounding problems and noises that most car stereos have when run off inverters and connected to home audio players running off AC voltage. For the sound quality you get, you are better off buying a cheap home system meant to run together.
The largest problem among others when trying to bring car stereso into your home is it will never be better than adequate sound and there is no way to expand and improve the system without scrapping everything you've rigged together to get sound on the cheap.
Using a receiver is the better option despite the limitations of a receiver. If you have a receiver, you don't need an external amplifier as a receiver has a power amp built into its chassis that will surely be of better quality than a car stereo amp that you attach to the receiver. All watts are not created equally and it is better to have the receiver operate on its own rather than starting to jerry-rig pieces that aren't meant to operate together. You'll run into ground loops and more problems than could possibly be worth the effort. The home audio receiver is best connected to some good home speakers and go from there.
i think im going to agree with you after researching it a little bit. car amp should stay in the car the bad thing is that home audio stuff is sooo much more expensive. for example a 1000watt car amp you can get for 200 but a 1000 watt home amp is like 600
so what would you suggest for home audio? what i want is something with decent sound quality and something that will get LOUD without being all distorted.(im not too picky about Sound quality, as long as it isnt distored, im happy) i like bass i plan to acheive this by spending the least amount of $$$ possible any help is greatly appreciated thanx
You might want to head over to the pro sound shop in your area. Ask about the active, powered speakers they have. These will almost always play louder than any other combination you can come up with for the same amount of money.
