Change in-cabins from factory to Polk MM651's worth it?

[sivs1]

its funny reading through this thread, last year I replaced my 6 Kicker in cabins with 6 kicker in cabins. Have been super happy with them and they are still powered off the head unit, new amp is needed, just not sure what direction to go.

[David Analog]

When you add a sub you will improve your cabin speakers too. How? You can run them on HP and let the sub take care of the low end which will make the cabins much more efficient and better sounding.

This article explains some of it:

http://knowledge.sonicelectronix.com...nd-bass-boost/

Respectfully, I wouldn't be so quick to follow the advice of the Sonic tuning link. The author of those instructions read a few things on-line and created his tutorial but without much real audio knowledge. Not at all what you should do. In fact, you never, ever connect a sine wave tone to your speakers. It's a super fast way to smoke a speaker. And unlike music, we are not equipped to discern when a sine wave clips. By the time you hear something ugly it may be too late for your speakers.

[bjrow]

Thanks for the input. A few options there when reading thru your responses.
Will wander thru a few shops here and see what's on offer amp and sub wise.
With the Mondo has anyone put a closed enclosure under the helm where ones feet normally go? Was it restrictive at all?
Any pics to help the grey matter here would be appreciated.
Just trying to fill in the lows that are missing in the stock setup without pounding my insides.....
Cheers

[Jwredmon101]

I had a sealed box in my Mondo .. Could not get enough cubic inches to do a ported box under the helm .. but I still had plenty of foot room.It did cover the farthest back cup holder . So that should give you some insight on how far it came out.

[bjrow]

Thanks Jwredmon101 for the reply.
Tried out a small 8" sub we pulled from a car a while back, boat is a lot different to a car environment, being an open environment (with a sealed sub enclosure) the JL Audio 8" speaker really needed a fair amount of drive to hear much addition to the music. So a bigger sub is required and am looking into options that wont take up too much room.
We don't intend to use any tower mounted speakers so will look at pulling these wires connected to amp2 (factory Kicker 200.4) and connect the paralleled cabins to this and see if they play any better. Did find that the bow speaker pair driven off amp1 had been set to highpass on the amp so changing that to full made things a bit better.
Will have a play in the coming weeks and see what the outcome will be.

[MLA]

Did find that the bow speaker pair driven off amp1 had been set to highpass on the amp so changing that to full made things a bit better.

That's exactly how they should be set. As noted in earlier posts, mid-range speakers are not subwoofers. I would inspect the cross-over frequency maybe, but honestly, I would make any changes there until a permanent sub is in. The whole in-boat system should be tuned as a whole, rather then as 2 individual setups.

We don't intend to use any tower mounted speakers so will look at pulling these wires connected to amp2 (factory Kicker 200.4) and connect the paralleled cabins to this and see if they play any better.

You will likely not gain anything. IIRC, the OEM 5chnl puts out about the same wattage in terms of perceived volume. Any differences will come from tuning. Again, I wouldn't do too much tuning, until a woofer is in place. That's where the low end is going to come from.

[bjrow]

Well I bit the bullet and coughed up some $$ for 3 pairs of Polk MM651UM's, installed and tested Sunday morning (all church music of course.......).
A significant difference indeed noted, low to mid bass much improved all round. Yes I will look at a sub for those really low notes another day but these speakers have added a lot to what was missing to my ears and I'm pleased with the results. The Sony head unit is back to all zeros for the Low, Mid and High EQ settings (was 10, 3, 6 previously and lots was missing from around 300Hz downwards). Will adjust the amp gain to suit the higher efficiency of the speakers to ensure the amp doesn't become overdriven.
Thanks all for your input, much appreciated. Highly recommended mod from my experience.