Upgrading Aquatunes

[Buster_boy]

I'm looking to upgrade my stereo. It's an ancient Aquatunes am/fm tape deck. Radio plays fine but the speakers are shot.

I'm looking at an inexpensive Boss or maybe a Pyle system.

Do I need a wiring harness kit like I do for my car or are marine systems standard across manufacturers - plug and play type deals?

 

[jbcurt00]

Buy all new wiring, battery to head unit, head unit to all speakers. Wiring is the low cost part, and not worth hassle of trying to re-use 15yrs+ old wiring. If you have it torn apart to replace speakers and head unit anyway, it will never be easier then now to replace the wires?

 

[Buster_boy]

Good point jb. Will I need the harness like I do for my car though? I haven't removed do it yet so I don't know.

 

[jbcurt00]

I doubt theres anything to plug a harness into.

The new head unit should come w basic hanging out the back that you wire up wire by wire. There wont be an adapter plug on the boat side to try and match up.

You wouldnt use it anyway if you're running new wiring.

Best I know, the harness you're asking about, in a car, is to adapt typical wiring hanging out the back of a head unit to a factory harness in the car so you dont have to run Pos/Neg wiring to each speaker or the +/ground power wires so you dont have to splice into or cut original factory wiring.

Unless its a fairly new (10yrs old or less) boat, which i have no experience w, I dont know of a single boat I've ever seen wired (here, other forums I frequent or IRL) w a plug and play system for a stereo.

As its older, w a tape deck, I'm 99% confident it wont have a harness to plug into, for power or speakers. And as I said, I'd replace all the wiring for power and speakers.

 

[Buster_boy]

It's a 2000 Sylvan. I've never owned a boat before so I didn't know.

Thanks