Trayson's adventures in stereo upgrades

[trayson]

Well, I figured it might be fun to start a thread on the system in my 2008 XLV.

When I bought the boat it has the following setup:

• MB Quart Nautic CD/MP3/USB/IPod headunit
• MB Quart remote for Helm
• MB Quart remote for swim platform
• Kicker 700.5 five channel amp
• Kicker 350.4 four channel amp
• Polk Audio db651 Cabin Speakers (4 in main area, 2 in bow)
• 2 pairs of Ariel Tower speaker cans with Polk db651 coaxials
• 2 Polk Audio db1040DVC subs with dual 4 ohm voice coils
• Exile ZLD MK2 zoned line driver EQ

[trayson]

[trayson]

So with all of that, it was a good baseline to have as a starting point. However, when I got the boat, there was a short that would cause one side of the tower speakers to cut in and out. Turns out it was a bad RCA so I spliced a new end onto the cable to fix it for the time being. I also found that one of the tower speakers wasn't putting out any sound despite the RCA fix. And lastly, I realized that the bow speakers were powered via deck power and controlled only by the headunit volume while the two amps were of course controlled by the ZLD. That drove me CRAZY so I rewired the bow speakers to the 700.5 amp so everything was controlled by the ZLD.

I also found that the headunit had an unused RCA auxiliary input, so I took a spare RCA to 3.5mm cable and wired that into the glove box. Likewise, the deck had a rear USB input, so I got a USB extension cord and wired that into the glovebox also.

I like to use my phone as an audio source, and I have a handful of phone docks, so I dedicated one to the boat. I connected the phone dock to the ZLD's Aux input and ran the micro USB charging cable to the driver's 12v outlet.



On my last boat I had a pair of 8" Bazooka Compression Horn Tubbies. They did a good job and I wanted to have HLCD speakers on this boat. Since I already had the 6.5" Ariel cans, it was a quick, easy, and cheap upgrade to put in a set of Kicker KM6500.2 components into the Ariel cans. I was able to get the kicker components for a great deal and to make sure I had clearance, I relocated the crossover from the back of the horn so that I'd have enough mounting depth for them. In the process of installing them, I found that the reason why one of my Polk's wasn't playing in the can is because the connection had become unsoldered.

Finished product and once again, I have tunes at wakeboard length.


I only had the boat for a couple months before my season ended, so that was all the upgrades for 2014.

[trayson]

While the ZLD Mk2 is a good unit, I'd gotten used to the WS420SQ I had in my last boat. I like the ability to set the EQ separate for the cabins vs the towers. I also like the PA system (my 9 year old son loves it!).

So I figured I'd sell my ZLD Mk2 while it was still a new and attractive item and I swapped it for a 420SQ. On my last boat I had a Bluetooth deck, but it was honestly more hassle than it was worth. When I started the boat's engine, the BT would blip just long enough to have my phone pause the music. Then I'd have to instruct someone from the water on how to unpause my phone when they couldn't see the display in bright sunlight and also change the volume back up on the phone. All that to say, that since I have a phone dock, it's easy to use the phone as a source and the BT just wasn't worth the extra money to justify a 420BT.

Couldn't be an easier swap to throw the 420SQ in place of the ZLDMK2:


I was also messing around with the boat so I decided to pull the Polk subs and take a look at what I really had going on there. I found out that they were dual 4 ohm voice coils wired to give the amp a 4 ohm load for the pair.

The Kicker 700.5 puts out 210 x 1 at 4 ohms, but puts out 420 x 1 at 2 ohms. it got me wishing I had a 2 ohm load on the amp rather than a 4 ohm load. So I figured, what the heck, another quick/easy/cheap swap to double the power of my amp would be to get a pair of 4 ohm speakers.

I decided on a pair of Infinity Reference 1060W subs each with a single 4 ohm voice coil. They had the best sensitivity specs and had plenty of power handling and excursion ability and were priced right.

They are a little deeper than the Polk's so I had to order up a pair of subwoofer rings. I was going to go with Plexi rings, but the plastics shop would have charged me more for the rings than I paid for the subs by the time I was done. That's okay, I have some ideas and ultimately my subs will have rings that will facilitate LED's. Stay tuned...

[trayson]

After going out in Jester's boat and hearing his set of Four XM9's powered off the 30.2 amp, I was impressed. driving his new Enzo I could hear the XM9's hitting and putting out bass I'd never really heard from a tower speaker (aside from my other friend that has a pair of REV410's! LOL). Yes, Mandley has 6 of the XM9's but there is so much sound and bass coming from everywhere that I didn't realize his towers were putting out some lower frequencies.

Anyway, it got me thirsting for more from my tower (even though I'd only put a month on my current Kicker 6500.2 setup. I started thinking about all the big boy options... XM9, Rev8, Rev10, Rev410, etc. etc. Bottom line is that it really wasn't in my budget this year to throw down on a bad boy system. I had too much going on with my ballast upgrade, hydroturf, etc. I decided that I'd make due with my tower speakers as is for a season...


That decision lasted a couple weeks. I can't resist those "bang for the buck" upgrades, so I ordered up a pair of the Kicker 6500 midrange speakers and a pair of Krypt 6.5" tower cans. at $97 for the speakers and $130 for the cans, it was a pretty damn affordable way to bump up to the Kicker 6500.2 six-pack setup. The Cans will be close enough in appearance to look decent. I wasn't willing to shell out the extra money for the Ariel cans.




I was already powering my 6500.2 setup with the Kicker 350.4 bridged giving 175x2 to the set at 4 ohms. Because the amp is bridged, it's not going to be happy running the extra two mids because that would bring it down to a 3 ohm load. So I needed a 2 channel amp that would be 2 ohm stable and put out enough power for the Kicker 6-pack. I didn't want to hassle with fishing another set of wires up my tower, so having something that was just 2 channels was my preference.

In the long run, I'd love to have something like the Exile 30.2 or even the Harpoon because it would support future tower speaker upgrades. But I can't justify the money for that right now unless I came upon a crazy deal, so in the meantime to get me by, I'm going to try out the Precision Power Phantom P600.2 which is a class D amp with the following specs:

RMS Power Rating (14.4V):
4 ohms: 190 watts x 2 chan.
2 ohms: 300 watts x 2 chan.
Bridged, 4 ohms: 600 watts x 1 chan.

RMS Power Rating (12V):
4 ohms: 100 watts x 2 chan.
2 ohms: 200 watts x 2 chan.
Bridged, 4 ohms: 400 watts x 1 chan.

Sure, I'd like more power, but this should be decent for the time being. And it wasn't a big investment for a mid-tier amp so I'll still be able to upgrade later on if I choose. There's a lot of people running PPI Phantom amps in their boats and while they aren't Exile or WS, they seem to get the job done.


So I'll rock the six-pack for the season and see what presents itself for upgrades in the future. One thing to note about the kicker 6500.2 is that is sports the same size voice coil as the 8" HLCD setups. It obviously isn't going to be able to put out the lower frequencies that an 8" or 10" HLCD speaker will. However, it'll have a decent amount of output from the midrange given that there's no horn taking up any of its area. When I add the 2nd set of mids, it'll substantially increase the midrange output and I'll set the horn to the +DB jumper and get more out of the horn to compliment the added mids. In theory I'll be louder than a single pair of 8" HLCD speakers, but at the expense of a narrower frequency range because a 6.5" will never be able to dip as low as an 8" or larger speaker. In the end, it's a compromise, but one I'm willing to rock because of the affordability.

I've got a lot planned with Speaker LED's so I'll update when I get the chance to make progress on any of that. Of course as I get the new stuff (above) installed, I'll post up pics.

[KG's Supra24]

Check the books moderators ... That's gotta be a record

All the mods look great. Sharp boat.

I went a similar path on the stereo mods my first season and then fell victim to the larger towers. Beware of jesters boat!

[kaneboats]

What? 5 replies to his own post. You haven't been paying attention. He does that in every thread every day.

[bergermaister]

Images pulled directly from the web do not count. They must be original and unique in nature, preferably done in selfie fashion or shameless self promotion from the end of a telescopic handle, or demerits will be issued.

[newty]

Lol classic.

[viking]

wait till someone comes along and deletes the pics! there won't be a happy camper.