Waterproof speakers

[paulineb]

Can anyone recommend the best waterproof speakers?

Mr B wants 4 new ones for the flybridge, which will make a total of 12 speakers throughout the boat which I think is a bit excessive, but then when I counted that there are around 80 light bulbs in all, 12 speakers doesn't sound that bad at all.

Pauline B

 

[jfm]

Depends if you want best sound or best waterproofness. If latter, Sony IMHO. If former, Bose IMHO assuming you have a car stereo unit providing the sound. Did you get the BOse hifi upgrade in the E240, if yes you will know how fab they are.

With 12 you will have to wire them very carefully, combo of parallel and series, or the amp will phut out (assuming it has 4 outputs).

Getting worrid about my favourite boat the superamerica. Presum the 80 lightbulbs get taken down after christmas, right?

 

[paulineb]

Got the Bose speakers inside, really after waterproofness for flybridge so will opt for Sony. My car is fitted with a Blaupunkt (spelling?) ...and the 80 lightbulbs are not Christmas decoration, Mr Riva fitted them into his design. If you think that there are 26 in the main bedroom and 15 in the main loo (it has Hollywood style lights all around the centre mirror), then it doesn't take long to get to 80 when you go round the rest of the boat.

Pauline B

 

[jfm]

Co blimey. I hope when one bulb goes they dont all go out like fairy lights. Sounds very fab, very Riva.

The Sony loudspeakers are in west marine mail order / internet catalog I think, if that's easier than finding a chandler. They're the white ones, if that's what you wanted. Bog standard fitments to f'line, princess, et al these days.

Still confused how to wire up 12, hope you or Mr B can fathom impedance etc for series/parallel wiring etc etc, not sure I remeber it all.

 

[paulineb]

I don't understand it. I think he's wiring up 3 separate systems which can be linked, there are woofers, tweeters, base boxes, balancers, links and wiring all over the place. Hope it's not to messy when I get there tonight, we're taking her out this weekend.

Pauline B

 

[Dave_Snelson]

Now if I remember my apprentice days correctly....

Wiring in series increases the impedence (resistance)in ohms, so therefore two speakers wired in series at 4 ohms = 8 ohms which also equals "safe" because you will be sucking less juice out of the output trannies.

Wiring in parallel halves your resistance and therefore doubles the power drawn down from the output and causes overheat mit spitzen-sparken und blowen-fusen ein poppen-corken!! So a combination of the two will be OK. You can find the output impedence rating either on the back of the amp or in the handbook.

Good Luck (and sorry for my temporary lapse into German!)

 

[jfm]

Re: impedence calcs eek

Yes all crect but you cant have a combo of the two that gives the right answer. I'm assuming 12 speakers as pauline said, plus 4 channels of output from the amp, and therefore 3 speakers per output. If the required impedance per channel is X ohms, and the impedence of each speaker is X ohms, there is no parallel/series combo that will allow three speakers together to have a combined impedance of X ohms. The only possible answers are 3X, X/3, 1.5X, 2/3X....but not X. I think......

But from Pauline's post MrB is very on top of all this so I will defer to anyone's greater knowledge as I might be talking rubbish. In fact I would guess that 1.5X is near enough to X as makes no difference, so just wing it!

 

[oldgit]

Make sure it all wired in phase or you wont get any thump thump thump from your
woofers!

 

[byron]

I just put new Sony ones on my Flybridge, got them from some company here on the net, ic. P&P they came to about £30

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[ToMo]

Dreadfully confused!

Reading through the thread, I was convinced that we must betalking about a submarine that had been converted from Blackpool tower, that was pulling battersea power station behind !
Aahh but I know better cos Battersea doesn't produce power anymore...just rather strange piccies and things!!
.....so there I was listening to Reginald Dixon on the organ wondering what on earth he was doing playing in Davy Jones locker....and how the hell did the Monkeys get into this anyway ???

 

[ccscott49]

Pauline, I was going to fit a new stereo system to the boat, I think I might leave it to a professional! I dont have any offspring to understand all the woofers and thingy's, have to get local kids to program the video! But I at least now know where to get waterproof speakers for the after deck! Does Mr. B have the speakers switched, so you can isolate the music to one or two areas of the boat?

 

[byron]

Re: Dreadfully confused!

Reg Dixon? Showing your age now Tomo.

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[paulineb]

Yes. You can isolate the speakers on the aftdeck and flybridge from those in the saloon and cabins. He didn't do anything majorly dramatic, all the wiring was installed when the boat was manufactured, he's just upgraded the whole sound system.

Pauline B

 

[stefan_r]

I have got some nice white Alpines on the flybridge...dunno if they still make them though. Bose do waterproofs too but they are quite big.

Do you need help with the install?? Have a fair amount of experience in installing multi amp, multi speaker systems.

Good tip is not to skimp on cables...decent RCA cables from the head unit to amps and oxygen free copper to the speakers if you can get it. Also might want to think about sound deadening around the speakers themselves to stop vibrations in the GRP.

And 12 isn't excessive...a decent car system could have 14+!! In fact if you have a Merc 320 that prob has 8/9 as standard..

mailto: stefan@athito.com