Marine Audio Speakers - advice please

To couple a 200/600/700 series unit to either of those type of speakers doesn't really do it any justice, unless all you care about is to hear something.

Neither of the two options above can be classed as "really good sound quality".

Look at the speaker options by Fusion. For example they do 4 and 6 inch speakers MS-FR402/MS-FR602. The 6 inch if fitted would sound pretty good, good enough that I'd be prepared to call it good sound quality at least.
 
We purchased two inexpensive small cube speakers from Radio Shack and supplemented them with a powered subwoofer. Sounds great down below. Amp draw even when loud is only 2 amps. Cockpit has those inexpensive 6 inch round speakers.

There are a lot of choices out there, almost too many.
 
picardy said:
What about the Bose Acoustimass 3. Do you feel that would be quality albeit at a price?

www.bose.co.uk/GB/en/home-and-personal-audio/speakers/stereo-speakers/acoustimass-3-speakers/
Click to expand...

I would not go down the 'household' route but the Car HiFi route instead.
(240V v 12V)
On our boat we have a standard head unit (although it is also a digital receiver.) This is connected to Amp to drive two component speakers in the saloon. Genesis 2 channel Amp. http://www.genesis-ice.com/uk-en/products/series-three.php Diamond Audio Hex speakers. http://www.diamondaudio.com/products/
Two Bose Marine speakers in the cockpit but not driven by a separate amp but driven by the head units internal amp. The iPhone/iPod is the main source of music and connected to the head unit via a long lead.

Things have moved on since and if I was doing it now I would still go down the car components route.

My set up would be:
Pioneer Head unit with Bluetooth at Chart table.
(Bluetooth because I would now want to connect the iPhone via Bluetooth or cable.)
Speakers down below would be a pair of Diamond Audio Hex 6.5".
These would need to be driven by a 2 channel Amp. Diamond Audio, Genesis, wide choice but avoid the 'Halfords' type for better sound quality.
The cockpit speakers are less important in terms of sound quality. The over-riding factor would be 'weather proof'. I would stick with our Bose Marine speakers for quality.
http://www.bose.co.uk/GB/en/home-an...onmental-speakers/131-environmental-speakers/
(I ended up ditching the housings. Just used the speakers as I couldn't find anywhere to fit them.)
These could be driven by the head units internal amp. No need for another amp.
I have in the loft a Diamond Audio Hex 12" sub woofer but never fitted it. Haven't considered it necessary.
A lot of marine speakers are not. They have some protection with a rubbish sound.
The difficulty with cockpit speakers is where to fit them. Whilst you can get shielded ones the location relative to the compass is important.

Regarding the Fusion Units: I have no experience of these. However, inserting the iPhone into the unit has no appeal to me.
The iPhone is the bit that can stay portable so you can use it as the remote for shuffling back and forth, volume etc.
 
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How big is your boat?

Unless you are a music fanatic the speakers I referred to are way more than up to the job. We have a 44 foot boat and have fitted 4 in the saloon. It sounds awesome!
 
Ex-SolentBoy said:
How big is your boat?

Unless you are a music fanatic the speakers I referred to are way more than up to the job. We have a 44 foot boat and have fitted 4 in the saloon. It sounds awesome!
Click to expand...

39 foot.

I think your speakers would fail to impress the audiophiles.
It looks like you've gone for volume but clarity could be a significant weak point.
Suspect you don't play much classical.
 
This would be a good choice
CAMBRIDGE AUDIOMINX MIN10! , but a very small speaker like this will compromise sound quality, so listen to them first and see if the result is acceptable.

If you want the best sound quality on a boat it generally comes from domestic bookshelf speakers. These are easy to fit (no holes to cut) and sound much better than car speakers, but they are large so you need to have a suitable mounting place.

Most car head units have enough power for resonable sound on a boat, without the extra power consumption of an external amp, but most of good small speakers are not very efficient, so, particularly with very small speakers like the MIN10 an external amp will help. Look at the speaker efficiency this makes a big difference in deciding if an external amp is needed.
 
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On Rogue we had a JVC AVX2 head unit, played through 4 Kef Egg speakers..... great sound and DVD through the TV.

Currently looking at a second hand JVC AVX44 head with perhaps only 2 Kef Eggs on the narrow boat.

Not marine, but the system did us proud for 4 year on Rogue in the Med.
 
picardy said:
Many thanks for these comments.

What about the Bose Acoustimass 3. Do you feel that would be quality albeit at a price?

www.bose.co.uk/GB/en/home-and-personal-audio/speakers/stereo-speakers/acoustimass-3-speakers/
Click to expand...

If you feel they will physically fit for you, then yes they would sound fine. The only down side is being home audio they are probably 8ohm rated so you would never see the full potential of your audio source. In reality however unless you really want to blast your ears this probably wont be an issue.
 
I went down an expensive route with a wiring headache that is now defunked. what we now use is one of those fancy bose speakers that you can plug in your ipod. the sound is awesome with the benifit of taking it to other boats for a party. everyone can bring there own music. The down side is power. When the battery is new will last a long time but when it runs out you need to use the invertor unless pluged in to shore power(might pee the neighbours of though) The other nice thing is you cantake it anywhere on the boat cockpit saloon and even plug it to the TV DVD and laptop. It just keeps things very simple.
 
Talulah said:
39 foot.

I think your speakers would fail to impress the audiophiles.
It looks like you've gone for volume but clarity could be a significant weak point.
Suspect you don't play much classical.
Click to expand...

I was actually asking the OP, but never mind.:)

That was the purpose of the question.
Unless you play a lot of classical music and can REALLY tell the difference, and unless you are an audiophile then those speakers are perfect.

The selection of kit seems to hint to a lot of ipod music which is probably recorded at a low encoding rate anyway!

P.S. actually we do not play the music very load. I have a very expensive music system at home and neither I, nor any of our friends/family think it sounds any better than the one on the boat.

If you want really great sound on a boat you should fork out for proper headphones anyway.:p
 
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