2009 Aerial Tower Speakers - No Wires and Great Price

I stumbled across these on EBay. The wires run through the clamp for a clean look. And at $332 shipped for two double pods (4 speakers total) loaded with Polk db651's, these have to be one of the best value in tower speakers out there.

My question to the group is, if I was to mount these on the rear crossbar of my 2006 LSV tower, how would I go about routing the speaker wires to the rear crossbar? I would have to snake the wires up the front tower leg, thru the front crossbar, make a hard 90 degree turn and go thru one of the oval connecting tubes to the rear cross bar, then make another 90 degree turn before exiting out a hole thru the clamp to the speaker. How in the heck would you do that?? Mounting them to the front crossbar is not an option for me as it would interfere with the bimini.

I currently have four of the old version of these speakers on my tower but they are single pods and they don't have the concealed wires. They are very good quality.

http://cgi.ebay.com/AERIAL-DOUBLE-BU...item4a9bcb6cf2

http://www.h2osportswarehouse.com/v/...TWBULSPP-8.jpg

http://www.h2osportswarehouse.com/v/...WBULSPP-15.jpg

Al,

I saw these as well and seemed like a great deal. I now have 4 pods but i think i want them postioned slightly differently

question how did you wire the existing 4 pods? 4 sets of wires or two and jump them paralell?

your lsv tower is different from mine. so i have no idea how the wiring would work.

I think Al only has 1 set and there on his rear inner bar of this tower. Hes concerned with how these would wire more i think.

Al i think you have the right idea on the wireing. Problem is if i recall the swing post on our towers is solid on the ends so you would end up with several jump points over hinges.

Ive never seen a LSV tower like ours wired tot he rear bar.

My speakers are mounted to the Outer bar for room on my Z5 but you can see the wire jump from the Inner tube to the speaker. I just used the plastic wire covers to make it look factory.

I really like those cans and the way they look. It has me thinking..But i know i dont want Polk DB651s in the tower. They wont project to the distance i want. Id have to take them out and replace them.

They'll be wired in parallel @ 2ohms on two channels, you'll just have to adjust the gain down a bit so you don't blow them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jmvotto

Al,
question how did you wire the existing 4 pods? 4 sets of wires or two and jump them paralell?

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I think you mean "two and jump them in series". I have not wired the second pair of speakers pods yet but I am going to run one pair of wires from the amp to the speaker for each speaker, so 4 pairs of wires. If you run one pair of wires for two speakers, your amp will see an 8 ohm load and each speaker will receive 1/2 of the amps rated power at 4 ohms.

I'm going to refer you back to the link that you referred me to previously (which is very helpful btw):

http://www.termpro.com/articles/spkrz.html

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mmandley

I think Al only has 1 set and there on his rear inner bar of this tower. Hes concerned with how these would wire more i think.

Al i think you have the right idea on the wireing. Problem is if i recall the swing post on our towers is solid on the ends so you would end up with several jump points over hinges.

Ive never seen a LSV tower like ours wired tot he rear bar.

My speakers are mounted to the Outer bar for room on my Z5 but you can see the wire jump from the Inner tube to the speaker. I just used the plastic wire covers to make it look factory.

I really like those cans and the way they look. It has me thinking..But i know i dont want Polk DB651s in the tower. They wont project to the distance i want. Id have to take them out and replace them.

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Mike,

I only have one pair of my tower speakers wired currently. I installed the second pair on the tower but have not wired them yet. So that's why you only saw one set of wires going to each pair of speakers.

In looking at the tower again, I am pretty sure that there is no way to run wires from the front horizontal tube to the rear horizontal tube thru the oval connecting tubes as there would be no hole in the primary tubes where the oval tubes are welded to it. So like you say, you would have to go outside the tubes to go from the front tube to the rear tube, which defeats the purpose of having the wireless look.

Also, I noticed that they made the clamps about half the width of what they used to be so I would be concerned that they would rotate when I fold the tower down.

You are right that these speakers won't project like your KMT6's. I am still interested in giving yours a try :) Currently, I have the tower speakers only for listening to tunes while swimming around the boat, not for the wakeboarder to listen to tunes while riding. But that may change.

Thx,

Al

Why not run them at 2 ohms? Most every amp can handle 2 Ohm stereo no problem, and you can get more out of your amp. I have these same speakers on my tower and they do need some juice to hear them at 70feet.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 501

Why not run them at 2 ohms? Most every amp can handle 2 Ohm stereo no problem, and you can get more out of your amp.

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Not sure if that was meant for me or jm. I was just responding to jm's question. Nothing wrong with running the speakers in parralel with a resulting 2 ohm load to the amp. I currently have one 4 channel amp running a total of 8 speakers so every channel feeding a 2 ohms load and it works fine. I've added another pair of speakers though so I am going to change out the amp at this point. It won't run 10 speakers very well :)

Just to clarify......these cans do not have wires coming out of them, right? Does anyone know if the wires run through the tower clamp? If so, I would jump on these. I'd take out the polk's, replace my kenwoods in the boat with them, and then buy some hollow points to put in the cans. That is if the 6.5 Bullet Hollow Points fit in the Aerial cans.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 2007 Outback V

Just to clarify......these cans do not have wires coming out of them, right? Does anyone know if the wires run through the tower clamp? If so, I would jump on these. I'd take out the polk's, replace my kenwoods in the boat with them, and then buy some hollow points to put in the cans. That is if the 6.5 Bullet Hollow Points fit in the Aerial cans.

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I e-mailed them to clarify and yes, the wires are routed thru the clamps. I believe it says so in the listing description as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cab13367

I e-mailed them to clarify and yes, the wires are routed thru the clamps. I believe it says so in the listing description as well.

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Cab,

Thanks, thats awesome. Now I just need to verify that I can fit Bullet hollow points in the cans. I had another thought, Aerial has single pods with a 55 watt light on the other side. http://cgi.ebay.com/WAKEBOARD-TOWER-...item2ea8ca6709 I don't have docking lights on my boat, do you or anyone else think that two or four of these cans would help me dock on my lift. Docking at night of course:mrgreen: If the Bullets fit, anyone think that they will rattle the light around to much and make vibrating noises?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 2007 Outback V

Cab,

Thanks, thats awesome. Now I just need to verify that I can fit Bullet hollow points in the cans. I had another thought, Aerial has single pods with a 55 watt light on the other side. http://cgi.ebay.com/WAKEBOARD-TOWER-...item2ea8ca6709 I don't have docking lights on my boat, do you or anyone else think that two or four of these cans would help me dock on my lift. Docking at night of course:mrgreen: If the Bullets fit, anyone think that they will rattle the light around to much and make vibrating noises?

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I saw those too but since the cans would sit level, then the lights would be level so I don't think they'd be much use for docking lights. I think they are more for show. I would buy their light bar (see below) and ask them to build you one with all 5 lights pointing forwards. For $149, it's a pretty good deal. Just click on "Sellers other items" and you will see them. I'm thinking of buying one and mounting them to the front tower tubing (and the speakers mounted on the back tubing).

Also, I believe the hollow points are pretty long speakers so I don't think they'd fit length wise in the cans with the lights in them.

http://www.h2osportswarehouse.com/v/...TE225-PA-2.jpg

Thanks cab,

I'll check into that light bar. I didn't even think that the pod lights would be pointed too high. Guess that's why all you are here.

Thanks

Yup, that's what this forum is all about - to bounce ideas of each other and learn from each other. Glad to help. I've learned plenty from the good people on this forum as well.

Al,
I reread the link i think i want to run them parellel with two wire in order to pull a 2 ohm load. therefore i don't have to run more wires up the tower and get more power from the amp. ( using two channels from six channel amp)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jmvotto

Al,
I reread the link i think i want to run them parellel with two wire in order to pull a 2 ohm load. therefore i don't have to run more wires up the tower and get more power from the amp. ( using two channels from six channel amp)

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It's not as easy as it might seem to run four strands of 16 gauge, trust me! I did it on mine as the JBL 6x9's i have are 150 rms/330 peak and the ZX650.4 is perfect for them on their own channels. It's a pain having to run them and route them through the existing holes and make it look factory.

jm,

You will need to run a pair of speaker wires from the amp to each speaker in order to drive two speakers from one channel (wire them parallel). This way, the amp will see a 2 ohm load. Yes, u will have to pull another pair of wires for each speaker u are adding.

If you don't want to pull the additional wires, then u can wire the speakers in series but again, your amp will see an 8 ohm load and it's power output will be cut in half (and each speaker will only get 1/2 of that). So u are going from 70w at 4 ohms to 35w at 8 ohms divided by 2 speakers = 17.5w to each speaker.

Does that make sense?

Al, Jim;

You can also run parallel by running one wire pair to speaker one and then jumping from speaker one to like terminals on speaker two. This accomplishes the same thing allowing you to still run parallel without running additional strands as shown below. Also here's a nice link to explain more. http://www.installdr.com/TechDocs/999016.pdf

razz,

The top illustration in your post is an example of two speakers being wired in series, not parralel. Look at the ullustration on the left on page 2 of the pdf that you provided - it's the same illustration as in your post and they are calling that wiring in series.

Again, the problem with wiring in series is that your speakers will not receive nearly as much power as wiring them in parallel.

The M6600 is rated at 75 W per channel at 4 ohms (my earlier post above says 70W but that's wrong, which I will correct in a minute). So if you wire the two speakers in series to one channel as your diagram shows, then each speaker is only getting 18.75W.

If you wire them parallel, each speaker will get 50W of power. This will require running additional speaker wires for jm to his two additional tower speakers.

I get these numbers by using the formulas at this link:

http://www.termpro.com/articles/spkrz.html

razz.

I just noticed that in the pdf that you provided, page 3 is all jacked up. Page three is all about wiring in parralel but I noticed that in some of the sub-headings, they it says "series" where it should say "parallel". Check it out.

Looks like they copied and pasted the sub-headings then forgot to change the word "series" to "parallel".

Al

jm,

According to the pdf that razz provided, you could wire two speakers together in parallel without adding a second pair of speakers wires by just connecting the "+" post from the first speakers to the "+" of the second, and the "-" post of the first to the "-" of the second. However, doing it this way means the wires from the amp to the first speaker is going to be carrying twice current so I don't know if that's a good idea. At a minimum, I would think that you would need to increase the size of those wires.

So in my mind, it's safer to go all the way back to the amp with the second speaker instead of piggybacking onto the first speaker.

Al

I have their older version of cans, and YES the hollow points will fit because that is what I upgraded mine too.

Al, How are double ups wired normally.? also that is a good to know on the power if i were to jump from speaker A to B. I will check with a meter the current. I could split it as it comes out of the tower instead of split at the amp( the four wire model) so they get the same current equally and still run parallel at 2 ohms. I deally i should add another amp, i want a new HU first.

thx for all the comments

Running parallel that way is a very common way to do it. In fact if you look at pre-made harnesses made for towers you'll notice that most if not all will only have two pairs in addition to wires for lighting, etc. If you were to take it to a pro audio place i'll bet they'd do it the same way as well. When i took delivery of mine at the dealer the towers were hooked up the same way.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jmvotto

Al, How are double ups wired normally.? also that is a good to know on the power if i were to jump from speaker A to B. I will check with a meter the current. I could split it as it comes out of the tower instead of split at the amp( the four wire model) so they get the same current equally and still run parallel at 2 ohms. I deally i should add another amp, i want a new HU first.

thx for all the comments

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jm,

The quote and illustration below is from http://www.termpro.com/articles/spkrz.html:

"Figure 2A shows how to wire a pair of speakers in parallel. A wire from the positive terminal of one channel of the amp is wired to the positive terminals on speakers A and B. (The simplest way to do this is to run a wire from the amp terminal to Speaker A and then run a second wire from that terminal to Speaker B.) Then the negative terminal of the same amp channel is wired in like fashion to the negative terminals on both speakers. The second channel is wired the same way."

http://www.termpro.com/articles/images/image34.gif

So it sounds like it's okay to just connect the "+" and the "-" terminals from the first speaker to the second which razz says was the way his was wired from the factory. If it was me, I would still run a second pair of wires from the amp to the second speaker so that the speaker wire doesn't become a bottleneck. But that's just me.

Al

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cab13367

So it sounds like it's okay to just connect the "+" and the "-" terminals from the first speaker to the second which razz says was the way his was wired from the factory. If it was me, I would still run a second pair of wires from the amp to the second speaker so that the speaker wire doesn't become a bottleneck. But that's just me.

Al

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mine are wired the same way on the tower. it came that way from skiers..

running 2 extra sets of wire is overkill if you are using a good quality 16gauge or better speaker wire(not lamp wire from home depot).
some think you need to buy the best/biggest/most expensive wire you can, but if you look at the leads coming off the speaker terminals, anything more than that is really overkill. good quality stranded 16 gauge will work for most all car audio door/dash applications(12 gauge on the sub channel). just make sure that you have a good solid connection at each speaker. that's where your signal loss will happen. a good solder joint is the best way, especially in a boat with all the abuse and pounding it takes.

it's funny, I just got my JL 12w6v3 for my new sub. the +/- terminals will accept up to a 4gauge wire, but then you look at the factory wires that are used for jumping the voicecoils together and they are using a good quality stranded 16gauge.. I can't imagine how many have spent $$ buying wire that they don't need. 12gauge is plenty good for a power-hungry sub.

In my experience, you rarely wire speakers in series. The most common time to do this is on subwoofers with dual voice coils when you are trying to acheive a specific load for an amp.

In most cases you wire in parallel. Wiring in parallel will lower the ohm load placed on the amp by 1/2, essentially getting apx double the power out of the same amp. Any amp worth putting in your boat will run at 2 ohms just fine. The pioneer amp I used for my tower speakers is close to 9 years old now (Ouch) and it ran subwoofers at 2 ohm loads (I even had it run comp subs at 2 ohms bridged) for years and now I've got it in my boat and it's running the towers at 2 ohms very nicely.

Now I have some of the Bullet HLCD's but I don't think I'll have a chance to hear them behind the boat till next season.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 501

In my experience, you rarely wire speakers in series. The most common time to do this is on subwoofers with dual voice coils when you are trying to acheive a specific load for an amp.

In most cases you wire in parallel. Wiring in parallel will lower the ohm load placed on the amp by 1/2, essentially getting apx double the power out of the same amp. Any amp worth putting in your boat will run at 2 ohms just fine. The pioneer amp I used for my tower speakers is close to 9 years old now (Ouch) and it ran subwoofers at 2 ohm loads (I even had it run comp subs at 2 ohms bridged) for years and now I've got it in my boat and it's running the towers at 2 ohms very nicely.

Now I have some of the Bullet HLCD's but I don't think I'll have a chance to hear them behind the boat till next season.

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Agreed. I have an older Sony 4x50 that I am running 8 speakers with so each channel is seeing a 2 ohm load and it works just fine although I could use a little more power. Yes, the power output of your amp increases when you run a 2 vs a 4 ohm load (but not quite double - mine increases from 50 to 65W per channel) but remember that the amp is pushing that power to two speakers per channel so each speaker would get 1/2 of the output.

I didn't realize that you can hook the speakers together in parallel so I ran speaker wire from each speaker all the way back to the amp.

FYI, my two rear cabin speakers were wired this way to the head unit's amp from the factory - i.e., they ran wire from each speaker all the way back to the head unit instead of wiring the two speakers together.

oh geez. just read this book of a thread. something tells me I'm going to have to take you guys through some audio 101 at our Moomba Jam in Portland. I'll do a nice post later... to tired at the moment. -Brian