06 DA320 Stereo Upgrade project

[hack4alivin]

My audio upgrade winter project is coming along now. I have already replaced all 4 cockpit speakers with JL Audio M650 CCX speakers. I have the JL Audio M101 B5 subwoofer on order and should arrive any day now. That one I am going to have to cut a hole for and mount myself and it is going on the wall under the cockpit port side seat, plenty of room for it there.

I have made up my amplifier section and this piece here will be mounted under the sofa bed in the cabin. The old amp was there so speaker wires where already there, the only wire pulling I needed to do was for the heavy gauge power wires and the extra speaker wire for the subwoofer.

I was able to find a small solid state relay board which I am using one relay to turn on the 12 volts to the cooling fans and the other relay turns the 12 volt signal to the remote on feature of the amplifier and sub amp only when the radio is on. I did not want to drive the fans directly from the remote output of my stereo since I did not know the current capacity of this output. This was a safer solution, so my radio remote feeds the transistors that turn on the relays, the relay contacts then turn on the fans and the remote on signals to the amps. With most of the wiring done on this board and brought out to the terminal strips it makes it easy to install and remove if needed.

 

[At Ease]

Do you have vents into the space where the amp assembly will be located? Nice looking job.

 

[hack4alivin]

Do you have vents into the space where the amp assembly will be located? Nice looking job.

No there are no vents in that area but it does have plenty ventilation space. There is a lot of room in that area to move air. In fact as I was working in there the other day the natural air flow in the area was enough to keep a flow of air on my lighter while I was using it to melt the heat shrink. Of course it was 20 degrees outside with a 30 MPH wind!

 

[At Ease]

Did you consider putting the fans on a T-stat?

 

[hack4alivin]

Did you consider putting the fans on a T-stat?

Yea, I did think about that option…. But I decided it would be easier to just keep the fans running the entire time the amplifier was on. The relay board cost 8 bucks on EBay, so a thermostat would be about the same or maybe more. The fans are very quite as well.

 

[hack4alivin]

Well one of the winter boat project is almost complete. I cut a hole in the boat today… scary huh? The subwoofer is now mounted and the only thing left to do is pull the speaker wire to it. This cable will come through the bilge and since I can’t open the hatch because of the shrink wrap this last remaining item will have to wait till spring. Just for testing purposes I did run a cable across the floor. Man does this thing sound good. It will require some fine tuning of the crossovers on the amp once the shrink wrap is off and the acoustics are better. The power of the subwoofer really makes the difference and this is one of the best investments made in the sound system upgrade.

Cutting the hole for the sub....

The subwoofer mounted....

Here is the amp board mounted under the seat in the cabin..

After the seat is back in place I can still get to the amp adjustments and the circuit breaker and fuse.

 

[Kendall]

Very nice.

How much power does the JBL amp make to the speakers and sub? What does the overdrive component do?

Wish my interior was that clean......:smt100

 

[Alex F]

Bill,

Very nice job. I'm sure the sound will be awesome.

 

[hack4alivin]

Very nice.

How much power does the JBL amp make to the speakers and sub? What does the overdrive component do?

Wish my interior was that clean......:smt100

The speakers get 80 watts RMS and it is 120 RMS watts to the sub. The Overdrive module is a preamplifier. The radio output signal feeds this, and this in turn will feed the amp. This module was highly recommended by some stereo experts here on CSR and I went with it. I can tell you that right now the sound is increditable and I still have the shrink wrap on, so my acoustics in the boat are terrible now. I can’t wait to open it up in the spring.

 

[Cincy Aquaholic]

Looks great. One bit of advice . . . make sure you place the correct size fuse inline with the power line as close to the battery or power connection as you can. Probably no more 8 to 12 inches away.

 

[techmitch]

Looks great. One bit of advice . . . make sure you place the correct size fuse inline with the power line as close to the battery or power connection as you can. Probably no more 8 to 12 inches away.

+1 :thumbsup:

Looks great Bill.

 

[EarmarkMarine]

The Audio Control preamp line driver is a nice addition to a source unit that has limited output voltage such as 2 volts or less. It should be placed as close to the source unit as possible. The added source voltage will manifest as improved dynamic range as in greater transients, contrast and clarity and not necessarily a large difference in volume once all gains are correctly adjusted. If you already have a source unit with a substantial 4 to 5 volt preout and the source unit is in close proximity to the amplifier and you are not dividing the signal into multiple amplifiers then this component is not needed. However, it will compensate for losses do to inordinately long RCA runs or multi-amplifier systems where any given preout is divided up among several inputs.
JL Audio and Kicker also have line amplifiers with the addition of a remote level control that you can place at the helm console in order to have convenient multi-zone operation at your fingertips. This would be useful if you want control over independent zones such as cockpit, transom/arch/hardtop rear projecting speakers, bow deck speakers and/or a sub level controller. The connecting controller cable is a 'voltage only' RJ and carries no 'to and from' audio signal so the RCA signal path remains short and in the cabin.

David
Earmark Marine

 

[hack4alivin]

The Audio Control preamp line driver is a nice addition to a source unit that has limited output voltage such as 2 volts or less. It should be placed as close to the source unit as possible. The added source voltage will manifest as improved dynamic range as in greater transients, contrast and clarity and not necessarily a large difference in volume once all gains are correctly adjusted. If you already have a source unit with a substantial 4 to 5 volt preout and the source unit is in close proximity to the amplifier and you are not dividing the signal into multiple amplifiers then this component is not needed. However, it will compensate for losses do to inordinately long RCA runs or multi-amplifier systems where any given preout is divided up among several inputs.
JL Audio and Kicker also have line amplifiers with the addition of a remote level control that you can place at the helm console in order to have convenient multi-zone operation at your fingertips. This would be useful if you want control over independent zones such as cockpit, transom/arch/hardtop rear projecting speakers, bow deck speakers and/or a sub level controller. The connecting controller cable is a 'voltage only' RJ and carries no 'to and from' audio signal so the RCA signal path remains short and in the cabin.

David
Earmark Marine

My source unit is very close to the preamp, and that is why I choose to mount it on my amp board rather than behind the radio. It is no more than several feet away with a good quality RCA cable coming from it, also no “noise” generating equipment around it. Just as you say here, my primary reason for adding it was to improve sound quality not the sound level, good lord it is plenty loud enough as it is. In fact the output gain of the preamp is set a little below two thirds the max output. The rated output of the preamp was I believe 9 volts and the maximum input level of my amp is 6 volts so I did not want any clipping of the signal. The input gain of the amplifier is set to just a tad above the minimum level. With all 4 four the JL 650 speakers being full range speakers I set the crossover to them to eliminate as much bass as possible, and then did just the opposite for the subwoofer side of the amp. It sounds really great now even with the shrink wrap on, so I can not wait till it is out in open air. I will probably due some tweaking then.

 

[hack4alivin]

+1 :thumbsup:

Looks great Bill.

Thanks Mitch, ready to rock out Hart Miller! I can’t wait to see the look on Sandy’s face when she sits on the seat with the subwoofer under her. I was playing with it today and that bench seat now vibrates to the music, sure hope she enjoys it!:smt043:smt013:smt043

 

[EarmarkMarine]

hack4alivin,
I realize that you already know the content of my post since you have installed one. I was responding to Kendall's question as to what is the purpose of the overdrive component and while I was at it I wanted to do a thorough job for the other readers. Btw, very clean installation. Tough to beat the smoothness of those JL coaxials.

David
Earmark Marine

 

[Gunn]

Bill, nice install, looks great. I have a similiar upgrade in mind, replacing all cockpit speakers with JL audio speakers and adding a subwoofer beneath my cockpit sink (where a factory one would have been).

Curious as to your choice of amplifier. I actually have that same JBL amp in my 175. But I think my stereo in that boat (a BOSS audio) and the speakers are of poor quality. I also added a Polk audio subwoofer to it, but could never get a nice sound out of it. Maybe it's that I don't know how to adjust an amp properly (minimal knowledge of "crossover", etc.), but...it was a bit frustrating.

So on my 280DA, I want to go with components that others have proven sound great. Like the JL Audio speakers. If you're saying the JBL amp is performing nicely, then I may be tempted to rip it out of the 175. It's that or buy another brand, but amps are very pricey.

Tom

 

[hack4alivin]

Bill, nice install, looks great. I have a similiar upgrade in mind, replacing all cockpit speakers with JL audio speakers and adding a subwoofer beneath my cockpit sink (where a factory one would have been).

Curious as to your choice of amplifier. I actually have that same JBL amp in my 175. But I think my stereo in that boat (a BOSS audio) and the speakers are of poor quality. I also added a Polk audio subwoofer to it, but could never get a nice sound out of it. Maybe it's that I don't know how to adjust an amp properly (minimal knowledge of "crossover", etc.), but...it was a bit frustrating.

So on my 280DA, I want to go with components that others have proven sound great. Like the JL Audio speakers. If you're saying the JBL amp is performing nicely, then I may be tempted to rip it out of the 175. It's that or buy another brand, but amps are very pricey.

Tom

Tom,

Which model of the JBL Amp do you have? Is it the MA6002 or MA6004? The 6002 is only two channels and is not going to be able to drive your subwoofer. I am using the 6004 model which is 4 channels. Having at least 4 channels was a minimum requirement for my amplifier as I did not want to use two of them. Channels 1 and 2 are used for the 4 cockpit speakers. The right side and left side channels each has two speakers wired in parallel for an impedance of two ohms, and they get 80 watts RMS to each channel. Channels 3 and 4 drive the subwoofer in bridged mode, and it gets 120 watts RMS. The wiring to the speakers is clearly defined in the manual, which you can get online by the way if you don’t already have one.

The subwoofer is really the key to the excellent sound, and tuning your amplifiers crossovers is really easy. If you play with your crossover adjustments before you bring the subwoofer online you can clearly hear the effects of the adjustments. As I said in an earlier post, I basically tuned channels 1 and 2 with the 4 JL 650 speakers for high and midrange by placing the switch on the amp to high pass mode, and then adjusted the crossover frequency to remove the base. Then I set channels 3 and 4 to low pass mode and added base to the subwoofer. I got my JL 650’s for Christmas, from the Admiral, and I had the amp and the 650’s installed and tested before I got the subwoofer. I can tell you for sure, if you really want the good sound, get the subwoofer!

As far as buying the new components, I (we) spent a lot more money on my speaker replacements than I did on the rest of the system. I did not want to spend a ton of money on the boat I may sell, but I really did want to upgrade the system to enjoy while I still have her. To me, a good sound starts with the speakers and all recommendations pointed me to the JL’s!

I am no stereo expert and I got a lot of good advice and help right here on CSR (special thank you to CSR member HIFI). And just as many times in the past the good people here on CSR always come through with great advice and an excellent knowledge base! Do your researches before you go out and spend any money, and then you can make good choices on your equipment.:thumbsup:

 

[EarmarkMarine]

Gunn,
You mentioned that you were disappointed with the Polk subwoofer in the 175 but didn't mention the application in which it is used. For example, factory has used the Polk MOMO 10-inch in free-air applications. Howewer, since this is actually a small box woofer (designed for an acoustic suspension or bass-reflex enclosure) it stands no chance of living up to its potential in an infinite baffle arrangement. This kind of miscue is common in OEM applications and is often duplicated in the aftermarket. So in any case, whether it be the DB, MOMO or MM series, Polk does make a good sub. Its a matter of how its put to task.
For a free-air/infinite baffle sub, there are only a few true FR/IB units and JL Audio may make the best of the bunch.
As for amplifiers you might look into the JL Audio fullrange Class D XD series. These are 60 percent more efficient than a conventional Class AB amplifier and state of art in every respect. Also, the brand new JL JX amplifiers offer an incredible value at a lower price point.

David
Earmark Marine

 

[hack4alivin]

Gunn,
You mentioned that you were disappointed with the Polk subwoofer in the 175 but didn't mention the application in which it is used. For example, factory has used the Polk MOMO 10-inch in free-air applications. Howewer, since this is actually a small box woofer (designed for an acoustic suspension or bass-reflex enclosure) it stands no chance of living up to its potential in an infinite baffle arrangement. This kind of miscue is common in OEM applications and is often duplicated in the aftermarket. So in any case, whether it be the DB, MOMO or MM series, Polk does make a good sub. Its a matter of how its put to task.
For a free-air/infinite baffle sub, there are only a few true FR/IB units and JL Audio may make the best of the bunch.
As for amplifiers you might look into the JL Audio fullrange Class D XD series. These are 60 percent more efficient than a conventional Class AB amplifier and state of art in every respect. Also, the brand new JL JX amplifiers offer an incredible value at a lower price point.

David
Earmark Marine

This is a very good point! I choose the 10 inch infinite baffle JL subwoofer for my application.

 

[Kendall]

Gunn,
You mentioned that you were disappointed with the Polk subwoofer in the 175 but didn't mention the application in which it is used. For example, factory has used the Polk MOMO 10-inch in free-air applications. Howewer, since this is actually a small box woofer (designed for an acoustic suspension or bass-reflex enclosure) it stands no chance of living up to its potential in an infinite baffle arrangement. This kind of miscue is common in OEM applications and is often duplicated in the aftermarket. So in any case, whether it be the DB, MOMO or MM series, Polk does make a good sub. Its a matter of how its put to task.
For a free-air/infinite baffle sub, there are only a few true FR/IB units and JL Audio may make the best of the bunch.
As for amplifiers you might look into the JL Audio fullrange Class D XD series. These are 60 percent more efficient than a conventional Class AB amplifier and state of art in every respect. Also, the brand new JL JX amplifiers offer an incredible value at a lower price point.

David
Earmark Marine

Excellent point on the Polk's David.

I have never really heard a good sounding infinite baffle sub until I installed my JL 10 with the HD900 amp. The 500 watts to the sub is a little much for the infinite baffle but it still sounds really good on the low end. I had considered sealing my sub area in the 260 and using a W7 10" but this would have eliminated all of my storage area under that seat.

Kendall