Good sound system on a boat

[lawrence_craig]

Hi all,

I am a bit of a music lover like most of us. I am missing the sound system from my car on board. I have fairly good sound quality up on deck as the two deck speakers are mounted on a good sound well to provide enough bass. However my speakers down below are missing depth and vibrance. Can anyone give me any practical experience of improving their sound system? I am also concerned with power usage etc so advice there would be appreciated. I'm on a Bavaria 46. Thanks.

[Tortuga's Lie]

My previous boat, I used Bose speakers directly wired to a car stereo: https://www.bose.com/en_us/products/...ml#v=161_black

My current boat came with Boston Acoustics speakers bulkhead mounted directly wired to a car stereo.

Both setups did not have any sort of amplifier other than what the stereo had built in and they are loud, crisp and clear. Of course, we don't typically play our music real loud as to disturb others.................unless it's Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" playing!

[mikedefieslife]

I don't think they make hi-quality audio components specifically for a marine environment. Most use a basic car stereo which is in no way a match for a quality home hi-fi setup.

I use a pair Yamaha NX500 powered speakers. These are basically the studio monitors HS5 but with different tuning for a more comforting, forgiving sound. The problem on a boat is that you can't get good stereo placement.

[nwdiver]

I just use a high end (expensive) JBL Bluetooth speaker and move it up or down, I run it off phone or tablet, it works fine but I’m a little hard of hearing.....

[svspirited]

Depends on where you want the sound. In the cabin you can use pretty much anything you would use for a car so you can get identical quality there. Up above your options become pretty limited but you can find some decent waterproof speakers. We had ours linked to an old school Radio Shack speaker switch so we could turn the cockpit sound off but that has since died a death. For now we use the main stereo in the cabin which consists of a Kenwood car stereo and some JBL speakers, not awesome but good enough for the music we typically play. For now we use a portable Bose system that has pretty decent battery life when we're at anchor, when we're sailing I don't want to hear anything but the sound of the wind, waves, and water rushing by so it suits us fine.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by lawrence_craig

Hi all,

I am a bit of a music lover like most of us. I am missing the sound system from my car on board. I have fairly good sound quality up on deck as the two deck speakers are mounted on a good sound well to provide enough bass. However my speakers down below are missing depth and vibrance. Can anyone give me any practical experience of improving their sound system? I am also concerned with power usage etc so advice there would be appreciated. I'm on a Bavaria 46. Thanks.

(shortcut - what system do you have in your car?)

In any good sound system, the two most important components are:

1. the room
2. the speakers

... and of course the position of the speakers in the room, and the listener position.

Assuming you have a good enough stereo amp on board, the first thing i would try is a pair of good compact 2-way box speakers (something with a 4 to 6" woofer) and try them in several locations in the saloon til you find the location that gives the best sound at the desired locations. You could also do this test with good Bluetooth speakers. Once you have found this location, now try different speakers if possible, to help you decide what to buy and install.

If the bass is a bit deficient, you could consider adding a small subwoofer if space permits. Subwoofer location is also fussy, if you want the bass to be consistent in the space.

Another idea - borrow a good soundbar and try it. Some of them are surprisingly good, if light on the bass.

[Cheechako]

I've had JBL and Bose in boats. Frankly, I think it's a waste of time. The problem on boats is directing stereo to where you are sitting. Great speakers on the main bulkhead give one settee only one side of the sound. Ditto for the other settee. Similar in the cockpit or berth. I had 6 Bose speakers on my 47 footer.
I'd invest is a high quality boom box. Put it where you are; Foredeck? No problem. Cockpit? No problem. One settee? No problem.
No removing headliners for wires, drilling holes in bulkheads etc etc. No getting up to change the volume etc, it's right near you.

[Max.Jester]

I use a nice bluetooth head unit with a 7" screen going to a kicker component setup with passive crossovers tweeters and an amplifier for the surround sound feel, as well as a kicker 10" solobaric subwoofer at 800w with another quality amplifier. I turn the sub way down most of the time for battery conservation. But it kicks ass. Loud, clear, and will ripple the water along the hull if you want. I do like my music. The acoustics are like a guitar already. The ease and ability to be paired with my device is so nice. Go with bluetooth.

[Arthur Garfield]

JBL Flip 3 bluetooth units abound over here

[s/v Jedi]

In the end, I settled on Sonos gear. The Play:1’s are great for cabin, pilothouse and cockpit but for the salon I’m eying a pair of play:5’s

[kenbo]

Wired speakers - Dayton Audio's IO655. They are indoor/outdoor speakers and are exceptional.

Wireless speakers - Sonos

[flyingfin]

Go to a junk yard, find a wrecked late model Toyota, Lexus or Mitsubishi and strip out their great sound system, harnesses and wiring. Make sure you get a wiring diagram or test for power on all wires before removal. So many inputs to stereos nowadays it is difficult to figure out how to just get it power in a speakers out.

Plus, if not installed on deck, it does not need to be a marine system

[Tillsbury]

I installed a Fusion stereo on my Bavaria. Like yours, the cockpit speakers were already waterproof and pretty ok for the job. I replaced the saloon speakers with the best quality car audio speakers I could find that fit the space, and then fit a 10" JBL car subwoofer into the central settee base in the middle of the saloon. The Fusion drives two speaker pairs and a subwoofer as standard, and also has an amplifier line-out. The subwoofer is switched from the stereo so doesn't take power if it isn't in use.

In the future I might use this output for the forward cabin and insert a standalone amplifier to drive the saloon (the Fusion can manage three zones), but for the moment it works great. Mostly my source is bluetooth from the phone which means I can make volume adjustments and track selections from my watch, but obviously it also provides sound from the TV system.

Nice side benefit of the Fusion system is that you can control it from the MFD at the helm too, over NMEA2000.

[barnakiel]

I like streaming to BT speakers. This way I can take the speaker to the cockpit or on foredeck when I work there.



Too bad such speakers are still expensive these days.


b.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by lawrence_craig

Hi all,

I am a bit of a music lover like most of us. I am missing the sound system from my car on board. I have fairly good sound quality up on deck as the two deck speakers are mounted on a good sound well to provide enough bass. However my speakers down below are missing depth and vibrance. Can anyone give me any practical experience of improving their sound system? I am also concerned with power usage etc so advice there would be appreciated. I'm on a Bavaria 46. Thanks.

We also like our music. We have long been known as repeated offenders for playing LOUD fight songs when we go out to race (current obnoxious fight song is: Blah Blah Blah by Arin van Buuren but in Seattle we were known for "Psycho Killer" blasting through the whole marina every time we went out to race which was about 400 times. Still like that song best.) Now my evening ritual is to put on some guitar blues, or some good alternative rock modern music (not pop) and then I take my glass of scotch outside to BBQ our dinner. I love that time each day, about sunset, in fact I'm about to go out there right now to do some pork loin. Tonight however I'll be playing "She" Alice Phoebe Lou.

Our latest system (not too different for our first system years ago)

• High end Pioneer car stereo head unit with separate mosfet amplifier attached to the unit.
• Four good quality BOSS 2-way box w 6" woofers in the main cabin, port and starboard (on the rear channels)
• 2 2-way Boss box units with 6" woofers in the forward cabin, port and starboard (on the front channels)
• Two 8" free air woofers in the engine box directed to the main salon through a passive crossover
• Two Yamaha large outdoor boxes mounted on the stern railing running through a 300watt Boss 2 channel amplifier with a On/off switch (and a large LED so I don't forget they are on)
• AND we have a aux-in jack on the Pioneer so we can feed this system from the MediaMonkey player on the windows PC, which is most common, and makes Netflix sound very nice too or from any device over blue tooth.
• AND I can turn off the main cabin speakers if I want it loud outside but not wanting to subject the people inside to that noise level
• AND it all works via remote control unit so when my music is loud and I'm on deck and some guy walks up to talk, I just click the remote.

Power usage: Mostly we are just running on the Pioneer head unit and with no other amp or much volume the power usage is negligible but if I turn it all up the DC ampere meter jumps. The key is, keep the extra watts offline when you are cruising along across an ocean and trying to save power.