At least now I know who came by and spit on my boat.
New stereo sounds great, I think it could be better though
- Thread starter mrsrobinson
- Start date
mrsrobinson
Well-Known Member
Should I ground directly to the battery too?
mrsrobinson
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I tried to stop the guy but he was going on and on about a dirty Sea Ray, how embarassing that was to the brand, and then wa la, hit spit on it....
Is it me or is the marina empty?
Ground to the battery or the engine block. Depending how big your stereo is and how large your battery cables are, a ground to the block could be beneficial. But, typically you'd be fine grounding to your battery.
btw, when I said GOOD wire, I didn't mean some of that 1000 strand gold plated, $76/ft stuff... just large size, quality, tinned wire; something capible of delivering the power you need. A 10 or 8 gauge wire doens't cut it. Just thought I should clearify
btw, when I said GOOD wire, I didn't mean some of that 1000 strand gold plated, $76/ft stuff... just large size, quality, tinned wire; something capible of delivering the power you need. A 10 or 8 gauge wire doens't cut it. Just thought I should clearify
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mrsrobinson
Well-Known Member
I was thinking 8 gauge...lower/thicker is better it sounds. Techs will be on the boat tomorrow. I plan to pay them to run this as I have no desire to do it.
teekster
Member
I mentioned this before. You are trying to run a free-air sub with a cheap amp. Sorry for being blunt, but you are starting off poorly. Tweaking probably won't help.
douglee25
Well-Known Member
Double check your gain on the 6.5's? Maybe it needs to be lower. I believe we had it set around 60% ish previously? Your problem sounds like the 6.5's are cranked way up for some reason. I would agree with Teekster that the components aren't top of the line, but when I left there before, the system sounded great!
Doug
Edit: Now that I think about it, it's possible that you have blown some of the speakers as well. Double check them all.
Doug
Edit: Now that I think about it, it's possible that you have blown some of the speakers as well. Double check them all.
So Doug... where were you last night around 11:30 PM?
mrsrobinson
Well-Known Member
I agree on the quality of the sub amp. Price was right, figured all it was doing was powering a sub.
What would be a good brand/size.model for this sub:
Kenwood 10" sub: http://www.crutchfield.com/S-twR0E6F...spx?i=113W254M
Anything else I need to improve the quality of? 6.5s, amp for 6.5s?
Doug, all 6.5s are alive and working. I experimented with the gain again. By reducing the gain I lose the pop, only because there is no volume. The HPF is on for the 6.5s amp too.
What would be a good brand/size.model for this sub:
Kenwood 10" sub: http://www.crutchfield.com/S-twR0E6F...spx?i=113W254M
Anything else I need to improve the quality of? 6.5s, amp for 6.5s?
Doug, all 6.5s are alive and working. I experimented with the gain again. By reducing the gain I lose the pop, only because there is no volume. The HPF is on for the 6.5s amp too.
douglee25
Well-Known Member
douglee25
Well-Known Member
Can you swap in another amp just to test the on the 6.5's? It's quite possible you have a bad amp if speakers are popping/breaker is popping. In fact, my brother just told me two weeks ago that his car sub was doing the exact same thing. Turns out his amp was blown.
Doug
mrsrobinson
Well-Known Member
Spoke with Crutchfield tech. He suggests hooking up another source, other than the head unit, directly to the amp for the sub and see what happens....confirm it's not the source versus the amp/sub. Like an MP3 player or even our home CD player. Good idea, did not think of that. He also suggested moving the sub rcas on the back of the head unit to the rear or front rca outputs and see what happens. These are not permanent solutions, just testing to see if the problem is the source vs. the amp or sub.
He thinks the amp is a good one but as he put it "Pioneer makes everything, you would be better going with someone who just makes subs and mono sub amps like Kicker or MTX".
He also suggests not bridging AND paralleling the 4 outside 6.5s like it was from the factory, rather run each 6.5 to it's own channel on the 4 channel amp. I will lose volume but gain quality. If the volume is to low then go with a 50W X 4 amp versus the existing 30W X 4.
He thinks the amp is a good one but as he put it "Pioneer makes everything, you would be better going with someone who just makes subs and mono sub amps like Kicker or MTX".
He also suggests not bridging AND paralleling the 4 outside 6.5s like it was from the factory, rather run each 6.5 to it's own channel on the 4 channel amp. I will lose volume but gain quality. If the volume is to low then go with a 50W X 4 amp versus the existing 30W X 4.
mrsrobinson
Well-Known Member
I spoke with Crutchfield again, this time from the boat. I hooked up a dvd player directly to the sub amp and the sub worked great. I then used the sub RCAs to run the dvd player, same result, sub worked great. So the sub is good, the sub amp is good and the RCAs are good.
He went over the SW1 and SW2 settings on the head unit. To turn the sub on from the head their is a SW1 setting "OFF", "NORMAL" or "REV". This was set to "NORMAL", which is "On". On that same setting is a number setting ranging from -24 to 6. It was set to 0. He suggested setting it to 6...bingo, sub started working. We set the crossover on the sub at the head to 125, set the High Pass Filter to the same 125 and now the system sounds great. He said I may need to set SW1 to "REV" based on different songs.
He went over the SW1 and SW2 settings on the head unit. To turn the sub on from the head their is a SW1 setting "OFF", "NORMAL" or "REV". This was set to "NORMAL", which is "On". On that same setting is a number setting ranging from -24 to 6. It was set to 0. He suggested setting it to 6...bingo, sub started working. We set the crossover on the sub at the head to 125, set the High Pass Filter to the same 125 and now the system sounds great. He said I may need to set SW1 to "REV" based on different songs.
douglee25
Well-Known Member
When we adjusted the sub previously, we left the sub in 'REV' phase. It seemed to sound better there.
Doug
mrsrobinson
Well-Known Member
I ran a 8 gauge positive wire directly from the battery to the sub amp. IMHO the sub sounds much better.
At high volumes, on tunes with lots of base, the 6.5s start to pop. The amp for the 6.5s is getting very hot too. If i turn the volume down the pop stops. The pop does not occur on all songs at high volumes.
Suggestions?
At high volumes, on tunes with lots of base, the 6.5s start to pop. The amp for the 6.5s is getting very hot too. If i turn the volume down the pop stops. The pop does not occur on all songs at high volumes.
Suggestions?
douglee25
Well-Known Member
Try turning the gain down on the 6.5's.
Doug
Doug
Carpedmman
Member
I agree that you will never get concert quality sound in a boat, BUT it is possible to be VERY satisfied with your install. I have an exact "concert stage" that I installed 5-6 years ago. Today, I'm still happy with the sound this system produces.
Personally it sounds like your amplifier could be the problem. I have a 6 channel amp with 600amps or so mounted in the engine compartment. The speakers are JL Audio. I can get the details if you want. Let me know!
Good Luck!
Stuart
Check out my pictures and you will see some photos.
mrsrobinson
Well-Known Member
Letting you know. The 4 channel 120 watt amp powering the 4 outside 6.5s gets real hot while the sub amp does not.
douglee25
Well-Known Member
mrsrobinson
Well-Known Member
Not yet, not on the boat til this weekend. I messed with it last weekend though and left it around 60-70%. The stereo sounds fantastic. It's my 'want it louder' side that causes the 6.5s to pop, so maybe it's just a limitation of the 4 channel amp and/or 6.5s.