The best boat HiFi

[GILow]

With the caveat that we are very careful about not sharing “our kind of music” with everyone who is just trying to have a nice day on the water….

Our current setup is a pair of Tannoy Reveal speakers and Polk subwoofer down below driven by two 500 Watt amplifiers all fed by an Arylic decoder (https://www.arylic.com/products/up2s...receiver-board).

Sounds like overkill but we don’t run it loud, the purpose of the amps is to get presence without distortion. The Arylic is perfect for a boat. Absolutely tiny footprint but excellent sound with the imbedded decoder (we mainly listen to Spotify) removing the limitations of Bluetooth.

[s/v Jedi]

Whatever you do, stay away from Sonos. They just killed my large music collection by pushing out a new app that doesn’t support a local music library. Thou shall pay for streaming! They will “work on reintroducing the local library in the coming months”.

Also, you hopefully don’t own shares in that company, their actions are not taken well.

[poiu]

For all those worried I will get some nice HiFi and spoil your tranquility at the expense of my fun, don't worry, you are invited to the party and I promise not to make you stay up beyond 1:00am.


And what's this with 500 W, or 1000W ++ of amplification from you quiet shrews out there hiding in your saloons? Don't you know the damage you are doing to marine life? I have 150W on my home HiFi and if I go beyond 5 on the volume knob my ears bleed. On the boat I only have 25W, which admittedly sometimes goes up to 11, but >1000W. Really!


I heard some resonance speakers a while back, as in decades and thought the sound awfully tinny. Maybe they have improved, but I'm not well predisposed to them.


I don't see the point of Sonos. The only marine thing I need are speakers, the rest can be domestic, where there will be a bigger bang for the buck. Bang being the operative word of course.


But please don't let this turn into a nag about noise pollution. That's the point of another thread you are free to start.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by poiu

For all those worried I will get some nice HiFi and spoil your tranquility at the expense of my fun, don't worry, you are invited to the party and I promise not to make you stay up beyond 1:00am.


And what's this with 500 W, or 1000W ++ of amplification from you quiet shrews out there hiding in your saloons? Don't you know the damage you are doing to marine life? I have 150W on my home HiFi and if I go beyond 5 on the volume knob my ears bleed. On the boat I only have 25W, which admittedly sometimes goes up to 11, but >1000W. Really!


I heard some resonance speakers a while back, as in decades and thought the sound awfully tinny. Maybe they have improved, but I'm not well predisposed to them.


I don't see the point of Sonos. The only marine thing I need are speakers, the rest can be domestic, where there will be a bigger bang for the buck. Bang being the operative word of course.


But please don't let this turn into a nag about noise pollution. That's the point of another thread you are free to start.

There’s Watts and there’s watts.

Most systems, like ours, use the VPP rating, which is nonsense really. I suspect our pair of 500s translates to a “real” 100.

But it’s not about playing it loud. Some speakers, like our old Reveals, take a lot of power to produce sound. The reward is very accurate sound, which is what we are chasing, loud isn’t our thing. (Except, maybe, for some Queen tracks.)

I think the most important thing is, just as CDs were a tragedy for true sound quality, a bigger and more terrible blow was struck by Bluetooth. In our rush to enjoy seamless connectivity we sacrificed he last shred of quality and settled for flat, lifeless and compressed rubbish. It is now very difficult to find audio solutions that don’t put Bluetooth somewhere in the sound path and in doing so sacrifice most of the listening pleasure.

[accomplice]

Originally Posted by poiu

For all those worried I will get some nice HiFi and spoil your tranquility at the expense of my fun, don't worry, you are invited to the party and I promise not to make you stay up beyond 1:00am.

1am? Except on passage I rarely see the other side of 9pm, aka cruiser's midnight.

And what's this with 500 W, or 1000W ++ of amplification from you quiet shrews out there hiding in your saloons? Don't you know the damage you are doing to marine life? I have 150W on my home HiFi and if I go beyond 5 on the volume knob my ears bleed. On the boat I only have 25W, which admittedly sometimes goes up to 11, but >1000W. Really!

Headroom. For cleaner sound, stay far away from amplifier or speaker distortion levels.

[catmer]

Wet Sounds?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Whatever you do, stay away from Sonos. They just killed my large music collection by pushing out a new app that doesn’t support a local music library. Thou shall pay for streaming! They will “work on reintroducing the local library in the coming months”.

Also, you hopefully don’t own shares in that company, their actions are not taken well.

Sonos no longer supports local music library? Are you sure? That's crazy!

[kenbo]

There are so many details missing from your original request that it's difficult to answer helpfully. Things like the source material, compressed or non-compressed, wired or Bluetooth connectivity, size requirements, budget, and others.

But in general, wired speakers are better, enclosed speakers are better, and cutting large holes in the cockpit for speakers is not generally considered seaworthy.

Admittedly my hearing today is not what it once was but I and others have been very surprised and satisfied with Dayton outdoor speakers sold by Parts Express. They are designed for outdoor use so the response curve is shaped for that purpose.

There are comparative reviews of Dayton speakers on the web if you look for them and they are consistently rated above the usual suspects like Polk, Yamaha, OSD, and Bose.

Outdoor emitters need more power than indoor emitters primarily for sound quality and volume. The radiant field is essentially infinity outdoors.

Good luck, good-sounding speakers is a very subjective subject and I'm afraid I don't know of any outdoor demo rooms.

[Paramotorgreg]

Speakers will always be a problem, but as a Source I suggest you investigate the Astell & Kern players. They are basically a very high quality I-pod and you can either download CD’s onto it or stream music if you have sufficient bandwidth.

https://www.astellnkern.com/

[poiu]

Originally Posted by Paramotorgreg

Speakers will always be a problem, but as a Source I suggest you investigate the Astell & Kern players. They are basically a very high quality I-pod and you can either download CD’s onto it or stream music if you have sufficient bandwidth.

https://www.astellnkern.com/

Yes, I think the speakers are the trickiest thing. I’ve been using a Bluesound Node streamer. It gets FLAC ripped CDs from my NAS drive over the network and can stream from the web also using CD or better sources using the Tidal streaming service. I’ve tested that source on my high end house system and it’s quite good. My amp is an old Linn. A fair sound, but underpowered and the speakers are rubbish.

Others raised the Bluetooth question. I doubt it’s the way to go for me. The compression losses spoils the quality noticeably.

That Astell & Kern device looks good. Thanks.

[Bowdrie]

One of the drawbacks of boats is you just can't have everything you want on board.
There just isn't room on my boat for a pair of A7s.

[s/v Jedi]

But there is room for a pair of Klipsch The Nines. And if that’s a bit too much, there’s The Sevens that fit for sure
These are active speakers so you don’t need an amplifier.

For streamer I recommend looking at Wiim. They also have an amplifier in case you have passive speakers.

I tested head to head and decided to go for the AppleTV instead. Music library on MacMini. The AppleTV connects directly to the Klipsch speakers I mentioned.

Here is a link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BBWJLYR7

[poiu]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

But there is room for a pair of Klipsch The Nines. And if that’s a bit too much, there’s The Sevens that fit for sure
These are active speakers so you don’t need an amplifier.

For streamer I recommend looking at Wiim. They also have an amplifier in case you have passive speakers.

I tested head to head and decided to go for the AppleTV instead. Music library on MacMini. The AppleTV connects directly to the Klipsch speakers I mentioned.

Here is a link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BBWJLYR7

Thanks. The Wiim looks good. Inexpensive too. I don’t think those speakers are optimal. Not good outside and a bit big. Maybe for the next boat. I had an Apple AirPort Express as a streaming interface before and I didn’t like the sound, plus it was glitchy with too many drop outs, so I’m off Apple streaming a bit, though I understand the TV is a new device.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by poiu

Thanks. The Wiim looks good. Inexpensive too. I don’t think those speakers are optimal. Not good outside and a bit big. Maybe for the next boat. I had an Apple AirPort Express as a streaming interface before and I didn’t like the sound, plus it was glitchy with too many drop outs, so I’m off Apple streaming a bit, though I understand the TV is a new device.

There is a new Wiim model coming, check YouTube.

The Nines are bug for a boat but you can simply scale down to The Sevens or even The Fives. For the pilothouse I got an even smaller version but it lacks the hdmi input, the Klipsch R-41PM

[lhuff35204]

I have a Fusion marine sterio, with a remote in the cockpit.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=fusion+ma...s_ts-doa-p_3_6