I want to build a sweet stereo setup...

[danie]

Re: I want to build a sweet stereo setup...

I am so glad that my fellow boaters care for the sound of nature and have better things to buy than sound systems.

 

[waterone1@aol.com]

Re: I want to build a sweet stereo setup...

This post has become so funny. Everyday there are boats comming in and out of our marina every minute, and very rarely are they going above idle, yet I bet most of them have twin or tripple 300-700 horsepower engines. The boat I just sold had twin 385 horsepower engines, and would make noise, go fast and almost sink a smaller boat with it's wake if used improperly....yet no-one ever yelled at me for disturbing them. Why ?, because I knew when I could open her up, and when I should be at idle. Why is it so hard to think that a stereo could be used the same way. The whole ski-tower speaker thing has me concerned, because I know that is designed to do one thing....throw sound several hundered feet off of the boat.....worries me, but still I hope that my fellow boatter knows when this is acceptable, and when it is not. With all of the problems we face from brain damaged boaters, such as huge wakes in no wake zones, captain drunk while boating, throwing trash in the water , etc. Why can't we think that a powerful stereo can be used with discression ? I refuse to get into the brand wars and many missconceptions about sound that most people have, I do this for a living, and don't need to argue it, unless I'm getting paid. I can say this, most boats that I have owned, have left me with multiple amplifiers, several speakers, and will kick as@ when needed, yet most people in the slip next to me have never even known what type of sound system is on my boat. They have never had to hear it unless they were next to us, when we were blasting in the open with both engines screaming.

 

[waterone1@aol.com]

Re: I want to build a sweet stereo setup...

Sorry to double post, but a trip to another section of this message board sure confirmed my feelings about this. Everyone was so congratuatory to someone who just finished rebuilding their speed boat. They loved how fast it would go, how much rooster tail and wake it would make, and I bet how much noise it would produce. Are these the same people that think you should be wearing headphones if you are listening to the radio ??? Should some of us be asking how loud their engine is, how fast it goes and if they should be using a 6 horsepower engine instead, so it doesn't disturb other boaters ?

 

[amirm]

Re: I want to build a sweet stereo setup...

Not to jump into to this foray. But are folks really suggesting wearing a headphone while driving a boat? Can't think of worse thing to do: you won't hear any unusual sounds your engine/boat might make and of course, will not hear any audible warning from others. Headphones can be used with portable audio players when not messing with the boat but it is definitely not recommended for normal enjoyment of music by the boat owner.<br /><br />Back to original question, I would get a marine unit if the stereo is not housed in a sealed cabin. Otherwise, I would go with an auto unit as there are a lot more choices available. As to power, note that the engine swamps the sound of music much more than it does in a car. So you need a lot of power to overcome it when running the boat at full speed. <br /><br />The other issue is "idle current". Many high power amps use a lot of current even when playing nothing (this is done in class AB amplifiers to keep distortion down). This means that if you have a lot of channels driving speakers, you wind up with 6 to 8 amps of power consumption even when listening at low volumes. If you don't have a large set of batteries, this can become a problem. I put in a high-end 4-channel amp on our last boat and wound up not using it at anchor becaues it used more power than all of our other electrical equipment combined! The new boat only has a Pioneer Premier high power head unit for this reason.<br /><br />BTW, the Pioneer and Kenwood have units with DSPs that automatically adjust the volume (and frequency response) of the head unit. They have a microphone that picks up the ambient noise and adjusts the volume accordingly. This may be a good way to make sure that a) you can always hear your music at constant level and b) keep the fellow boaters happy when you come to a stop and the music level automatically goes down .<br /><br />Amir

 

[magster65]

Re: I want to build a sweet stereo setup...

I have an Alpine mp3 (45w. x 4), 4 x Prolinear 'boxed' speakers, an MTX 300 watt amp and an MTX 10" sub. It really cranks up and sounds awesome inside the boat. Outside it isn't so loud but that's fine with me. All this equipment is car stereo stuff... I opted for this because my boat has a warm dry cabin where it's installed.