Where / How to fit loudspeakers??

[eastlaked]

Hi All,

I fitted a car stereo to the boat this weekend and wired in a loudspeaker from the junk box. Its ok for listening to the shipping forecast, but not much good for anything else. I am not after hi-fi, but just good enough quality to listen to music.

As I see it two options:
1) Fit small boxed loudspeakers (e.g. cube like) on the forward saloon bulkhead. Any suggestions of suppliers/makes etc?

2) A pair of parcel shelf loudspeakers from the local car shop, but where / how to mount them. I am not that good (neat) at woodwork and don't want to cut holes in the saloon furniture. Any good locations and ways to mount them?

Where and how are your speakers ??

Cheers,
David.

 

[elton]

Hi All,

I fitted a car stereo to the boat this weekend and wired in a loudspeaker from the junk box. Its ok for listening to the shipping forecast, but not much good for anything else. I am not after hi-fi, but just good enough quality to listen to music.

As I see it two options:
1) Fit small boxed loudspeakers (e.g. cube like) on the forward saloon bulkhead. Any suggestions of suppliers/makes etc?

2) A pair of parcel shelf loudspeakers from the local car shop, but where / how to mount them. I am not that good (neat) at woodwork and don't want to cut holes in the saloon furniture. Any good locations and ways to mount them?

Where and how are your speakers ??

Cheers,
David.

I have a nice powerful pair of 3-cone Pioneer car parcel shelf speakers attached to the saloon bulkhead by speaker mounts I got at Maplins.

Looks and sounds great.

 

[Boreades]

Try some NXT flat panel speakers

 

[lenseman]

. . . . I fitted a car stereo to the boat this weekend and wired in a loudspeaker from the junk box. Its ok for listening to the shipping forecast, but not much good for anything else. I am not after hi-fi, but just good enough quality to listen to music. . . .

First of all, you have to make sure that the impedance of the loudspeaker(s) matched the output of the radio that you have fitted, usually, most probably but not always 8Ω, check with the manufacturer.

That said, the possible cause of poor quality might be the fact that you have not given the loudspeaker (LS) a dense enough baffle? Best audio quality sound comes from loudspeakers which are mounted correctly on something heavy and dense so that the LS cone vibrates and not the LS frame.

Roberts Radio built their reputation in the 50's and 60's on good high quality audio and it was mainly down to having a solid mounting for the LS.

Get yourself some ½ inch or ¾ inch thick plywood, cut your oval or circle in the centre of it and mount the LS. You will find a huge improvement over the plastic enclosures which are standard on modern equipment.

Of course, your LS might be jiggered before you even turn on the radio?
.
.

 

[Beyondhelp]

Car/Marine audio is 99% 4ohm for the speakers (actually some base drivers are 2ohms).

Anyway, You want two way speakers. The type with a tweeter mounted in the middle. Most car audio ones will work fine, as they have mostly plastic cones and rubber suspension so it will keep the front from absorbing moisture. Avoid cheap paper cones or cheap water resistant speakers. They sound horrid.

The next thing is you need as already mentioned a baffle. If you have a speaker in free air (not in a box) then the pressure waves on one side cancel out the pressure waves on the other. Low end frequencies will be all but non existent. Anything will help, but the more solid the better.

 

[nimbusgb]

Richer sounds have a pair of Wharfedale bookshelf speakers for £40. Superb sound. Fit them on proper brackets on the bulkhead or on shelves to stop them catapulting across the saloon when you tack.

http://www.richersounds.com/product/bookshelf-speakers/wharfedale/diamond-9.0/whar-9.0-blk

 

[SlimRick]

I have a pair of bulkhead mounted parcel shelf speakers, not the nicest looking but they do the job just fine:

 

[kalveinarthur]

It will suite flat speakers, no doubt about that.

 

[DanTribe]

Rule nr 1/
Keep them well away from your compass.

 

[samwise]

Rule nr 1/
Keep them well away from your compass.

And the autopilot. I thought a nice pair of cockpit speakers would be good to be able to enjoy some suitable music on long passages ( we don't use them in port!) and I thought my luck was in when the local chandler was selling off a pair of shop-soiled units. I could arrange for one to take a feed from the VHF and assumed that because the speakers were "marine quality" from a reputable maker, I would not have any EM interference problems. They are sited well away from the compasses, however the tiller pilot sits over the starboard coaming and over the starboard speaker which is in the cockpit locker. It was (just) outside the manufacturers' recommended distance from anything thatb might be affected by interference.
It wasn't until we were well on our way to Ijmuiden that the autopilot suddenly went berserk and started taking us around in circles. Our reserve AP did the same. Later we tried some experiments and when the speaker was removed, the problem disappeared.
However I persevered and tracked down an outfit in the US called Less EM who sell screening material. I made up a kind of pudding bowl of this stuff and fixed it over the rear of the speaker retained in a metal sieve, I guess a kind of Faraday Cage.
It works, but I have to say that halfway through this exercise, I wish I hadn't started!

 

[Fantasie 19]

...bit rough and ready, but you get the idea....

...speakers were from here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000IUOH60/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00

Water resistant, and only £17 for the pair... amplifier was from eBay (Hong Kong) and pretty much the same... stereo for about £30 and sounds OK - very pleased, a step up from last year!