Wetsounds horrible sq

[stevemarich]

Anybody having sound quality issues with the wetsounds rev 10's at surf speeds , I can't seem to get very good sound quality,they are extremely high pitched and can barely hear them when surfing , after a crash and the boat is 25 feet away they sound decent , I'm pushing 300 watts rms to each of them have tried amp at all pass , and high pass , played with about every variation of amp and deck settings , and they have yet to impress me at all , they just sound like loud noise not music any help would be appreciated

[hawgtitan]

I have the Rev 10's with Wet Sounds HTX4 pushing them and at 3/4 volume I have to make them turn it down when surfing. I don't wakeboard, but my kids tell me they can hear every word and every note of the songs from 70 ft. Love them!


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[David Analog]

steve,
The Wetsounds Rev10 has the largest radiating surface area (every other alternative is an 8"), and the largest pod displacement of any tower speaker. Those two issues, more than any other elements, determine the speaker midbass and warmth. Thus, the Rev10 is the warmest HLCD available, and by a fair margin. However, because of the horn-loaded-compression-driver-tweeter (HLCD), the Rev10 is still aggressive in the treble, and that is purposeful for long distance projection. And, because the 10" speaker is housed in an elongated Tupperware container of sorts, rather than a 50 gallon drum, deep bass is limited to midbass. Furthermore, an HLCD is ten times more sensitive than a conventional tweeter so it will ruthlessly reproduce any system flaws, and in particular, source unit or amplifier clipping. Most boaters that have been through the evolution of tower speakers understand what I have stated and their expectations are in line. You could drop back to an 8" surf speaker, like the Wetsounds Icon8 which has a conventional dome tweeter, but you lose size in both speaker and pod, which would make that more of a backwards move. At this point, not knowing every detail of your system, it is hard to predict whether this is an issue of expectation, execution, or product. I can tell you that with the right hideaway EQ, and within reason, the Rev10 can be molded into whatever you want it to be. But based on your comments, that solution may be a bit premature. With certainty, and at minimum, a good marine audio dealer should fully inspect your system and retune.

[viking]

yup sounds like a tuning issue. Have 1pr and Love them. No FAE so boat is loud and can still hear tunes just fine at surf distances over engine & exhaust.

[stevemarich]

David that is why we made the switch from an 8 to a 10 , I did have our local wetsounds distributor help with tuning after the install , we could go back 70+ feet and here them at the store, but the issue is while being close to the boat, the over powering treble makes hard to enjoy,and the people in the boat are covering their ears because of the high pitch.I have the fusion deck , and a rockford marine 600.4 powering the speakers , and in order use the zone control on the head unit so the cabins and sub we're on zone 1 and towers were on zone 2 the towers are ran through an lc2i , maybe I need to run the with the syndx4 instead of current amp , there has to be something I'm missing, these things should rock at surf speeds

[stevemarich]

yup sounds like a tuning issue. Have 1pr and Love them. No FAE so boat is loud and can still hear tunes just fine at surf distances over engine & exhaust.

We will keep trying to tune them , because at this point the Rockford 8s I had last year are blowing these away in sound quality, and I don't by it , something is missing,

[David Analog]

David that is why we made the switch from an 8 to a 10 , I did have our local wetsounds distributor help with tuning after the install , we could go back 70+ feet and here them at the store, but the issue is while being close to the boat, the over powering treble makes hard to enjoy,and the people in the boat are covering their ears because of the high pitch.I have the fusion deck , and a rockford marine 600.4 powering the speakers , and in order use the zone control on the head unit so the cabins and sub we're on zone 1 and towers were on zone 2 the towers are ran through an lc2i , maybe I need to run the with the syndx4 instead of current amp , there has to be something I'm missing, these things should rock at surf speeds

The Rev10s are in a league by themselves and the Rockford speakers aren't in the same conversation. Several independent issues come to mind. First, that which is incredibly loud at 70 feet is painfully loud (MUCH louder) in the boat, and there's no way to get around that simple fact. If the treble is bothersome, then use your darn tone control. If you are at all clipping the amplifier then that shows up immediately as highly strident treble --- and an HLCD forgives nothing. Forever, people have been incorrectly bridging 4-channel amplifiers which sounds harsh, although you would be shocked how many people don't seem to mind. No doubt you can make a large improvement with the Wetsounds SYN-DX4, a really great amplifier....but you have issues that need resolving before you make that upgrade. You must run in the highpass mode, try 100 Hz to start. Narrowing the range prior to the amplifier stage means the amplifier doesn't have to produce as much current, and that translates to less clipping at the same high volume level. You need a true pro to go through your system from voltage supply to the final tune.

[stevemarich]

The Rev10s are in a league by themselves and the Rockford speakers aren't in the same conversation. Several independent issues come to mind. First, that which is incredibly loud at 70 feet is painfully loud (MUCH louder) in the boat, and there's no way to get around that simple fact. If the treble is bothersome, then use your darn tone control. If you are at all clipping the amplifier then that shows up immediately as highly strident treble --- and an HLCD forgives nothing. Forever, people have been incorrectly bridging 4-channel amplifiers which sounds harsh, although you would be shocked how many people don't seem to mind. No doubt you can make a large improvement with the Wetsounds SYN-DX4, a really great amplifier....but you have issues that need resolving before you make that upgrade. You must run in the highpass mode, try 100 Hz to start. Narrowing the range prior to the amplifier stage means the amplifier doesn't have to produce as much current, and that translates to less clipping at the same high volume level. You need a true pro to go through your system from voltage supply to the final tune.

David , we will tune some more, the amp is currently in the 80 hz range high pass mode , and the treble on the tone control was - 4 , which meant we lost some of the cabin sound , and the volume to blow the people in the boat wasn't to hear it at 70 feet it was to hear it at 20 ft , and all we hear is high treble and limited vocals and no mid bass, I might just be a fan of the none hlcd speakers ,this is my first set of them, we will keep tuning to try and figure it out

[David Analog]

David , we will tune some more, the amp is currently in the 80 hz range high pass mode , and the treble on the tone control was - 4 , which meant we lost some of the cabin sound , and the volume to blow the people in the boat wasn't to hear it at 70 feet it was to hear it at 20 ft , and all we hear is high treble and limited vocals and no mid bass, I might just be a fan of the none hlcd speakers ,this is my first set of them, we will keep tuning to try and figure it out

You don't get more midbass from smaller speakers in smaller pods. You just get less treble from a non-HLCD surf-speaker, which creates the false perception of more midbass. Having a large 10" driver in a large pod, you have all the true midbass you will every get from a contemporary tower speaker....unless you have other undiscovered issues.
With dominant tower speakers, many run the sub and tower speakers only, getting the fullrange from the tower speaker residual, and giving the in-boat occupants a break, particularly those with forward leaning towers, or low towers, or both.
Wetsounds created the only dual zone EQ for this exact reason, so you can address the tower and in-boat zones independently. With the right equalization, you can easily bend a Rev10 into a surf speaker with a warmer balance.
But from your comments, I suspect that you still have some other system issues to deal with first. Maybe even some fundamental issues like polarity. Once those issues are in hand, there are some options worth exploring, such as a WS420 EQ, or DSP with multiple EQ settings for different usages.

[MLA]

Just a thought, but have you confirmed the mid-bass driver are working by sight and feel. Does the amp have a 1X/10X switch? if so, whats its position.