DD Tower Speakers volume issues

[cepick]

Hey guys, I picked up a ‘13 Mobius LSV back in November with a good audio system. jVC head unit with 2 (Kenwood or Polk, can’t recall) Amps, a 10” sub box under the port storage, upgraded speakers, etc. All that seems to be working fine.

But the system also has 2 DD Tower Speakers that I’ve been having issues with. They worked fine when I demoed the boat but after towing it back and taking it on a test run, one of the speakers was not working at all. After letting it sit for a couple months, both speakers are now working but will not get to the proper volume at all. They are not nearly as loud as I feel they should be, and the other speakers overwhelm them.

I texted the former owner and asked what he thought could be the issue, he said he had never had any issues but to check the wiring and see if maybe it was knocked loose during the trial run or towing the boat back to my house.

Any thoughts? I’m new to the boat stereo game And perhaps maybe I just don’t know how to use the head unit or volume controls correctly.

Another issue is when I plug-in with the USB wire to the head unit I get some really bad buzzing and popping. This seems to come from the tower speakers.

Thanks in advance!

[MLA]

Battery voltage is always the first thing to check. After that, you may need to do some wiggle testing of the speaker leads and RCA. These can lead to one or both speakers coming and going. The trick is to induce the issue long enough to trace it down. Could be the tweeter(s) cutting out a protect mode due to high distortion/clipping. This is usually a tuning issue.

[cepick]

Thank you! Is there something I can do? We have a pretty good stereo shop here in town that I would trust to do it

[MLA]

Yes, check battery voltage and wiggle speaker leads and RCA to see if you can induce the issue. If you know how to tune an amp, you can check to amp's settings.

[cepick]

I just wanted to give you an update. I was able to go down to the boat today and the speakers weren’t working at all. I went ahead and put it on the trickle charger.

I called a local shop here that distributes DD speakers Just to see if they would have a look at it if I could not get the problem fixed by next week. And they made the same recommendation that you did. I’m going to let it charge and I’ll check on it early next week. I’m betting this takes care of it.

[cepick]

Yes, check battery voltage and wiggle speaker leads and RCA to see if you can induce the issue. If you know how to tune an amp, you can check to amp's settings.

MLA, I’ve put it on a NOCO 2-Bank 8 Amp On-Board Battery Charger and just realized 8 amps total may not be enough. Will this just elongate the charging time?

[MLA]

MLA, I’ve put it on a NOCO 2-Bank 8 Amp On-Board Battery Charger and just realized 8 amps total may not be enough. Will this just elongate the charging time?

That charger only delivered 4A per bank, which will take quite awhile to recharge a very dead battery. Longer for a larger battery. it may also not have enough output during its bulk rate mode, to de-sulfate the plates. This leads to a low state of charge return, and short battery life. Meaning, each time you run the battery down and recharge it, it never comes back as strong as it was before.

[cepick]

That charger only delivered 4A per bank, which will take quite awhile to recharge a very dead battery. Longer for a larger battery. it may also not have enough output during its bulk rate mode, to de-sulfate the plates. This leads to a low state of charge return, and short battery life. Meaning, each time you run the battery down and recharge it, it never comes back as strong as it was before.

Should I pull it and return for a 20A?

[MLA]

Should I pull it and return for a 20A?

For those that use their dual banks as a main cranking as one and house bank as the other, I do suggest a higher output. Rule of thumb, go with a charger thats output is at least 10% of the battery's total Ah. So if you have a 100 Ah battery, you'd want a charger thats going to deliver at least 10A to that bank.

[cepick]

Well I took it in today after charging the batteries was not a fix. It turns out there was a bevy of issues. The guys I worked with to get it fixed were awesome.

The DD 4- channel Amp running to the Sub and 8” DD tower speakers was shorting out and toast. They replaced it with a 5-channel Memphis Audio AMP. They also wired in 2 more RCA’s to make a a total of 3, one to the in-boat, one to the Sub, and one to the Tower Speakers. They had to rewire the tower speakers individually, as the previous owner had them wired together then to the AMP. Last they replaced the sub box that had been rotting away in the bulkhead with a Line-X box enclosure.

They also had an issue with the Tower Speakers cutting power at high volume levels due to Amps but they only had one battery running st the time and we chalked it up To that and/or the boat not having been run.

The system is living up to it’s full potential now. Disappointed to not be able to factor the shoddy work into the buying price but I got a great deal as is.