Stereo Input

Hey Everyone,

I am going to pick up my (soon to be) boat on Saturday morning. This thing has 0 stereo on it and I am planning a stereo system. I am not made of money so I am looking to build a bang for the buck stereo. Any input would be appreciated. My goal is to be able to hear the stereo while I wakeboard. I know this will not happen without tower speakers and I am planning on buy them in the future.
Currently, I can afford to buy a head unit and 4 “door” speakers.
Here is what I got:
(4) Polk Audio db651
Speakers

Does anyone else have any recommendations on “door” speakers?
I have a 4 channel amp for the “door” speakers, it is not a marine amp but I feel it will be fine in the closed bow until I can afford a marine amp.
I have done a little reading on head units but I have not decided. I would appreciate any input.
For the future, I plan on 2 tower speakers with amp, and a 12” sub with amp.
Thoughts?

Thanks,
Dakota

Would you mind snapping a few pics of where you mounted them?

Do you have those speakers amp'd?

00cls1camaross wrote: Would you mind snapping a few pics of where you mounted them? Do you have those speakers amp'd?

.

No they are not amped, I have a clarion head unit. I did not install the stereo the PO did. I just upgraded the speakers because his were ghetto and not marine.

Mine are mounted in the combing pad in the rear and he had the fronts mounted up under the gunnels but this was dumb because they are pointed at your ankles. I plan to reposition them with some custom fiberglass boxes and focus them more up towards the face.

The PO cut a janky hole in dash on mine to mount the head unit and I wish he wouldnt have. As all I use is my ipod I dont really need the head. So I say, save your money on buying an ipod compatible head and go straight from your ipod into the amp. You could get a little mini headphone eq if you want eq controls, this would be the only thing you are missing by not having a head. (that and radio and cd etc.)

What year is the boat you are getting? Some of them have a place for the head unit already.

The PO of my boat put the head unit to the left of the drivers foot well, so it was kind of semi-under the bow. Seems like a decent place for it, as it didn't require cutting. Although, if you were using the radio part, it would be hard to adjust from there.

All that is left is the metal "cage" from it and some wiring, the boat didn't come with the actual radio. Honestly, I'm planning to take everything related out, and restore it to it's original state. I'm guessing you'd need some pretty serious stereo power to hear it over the motor while underway anyway.

I agree with J's idea above on just going with the iPod hookup though. That makes a lot of sense.

^^I agree with Tim. Not to mention, the factory wiring on some years of these boats can leave a lot to be desired. There can be little gremlins with gauge readouts etc. It's a good idea to get a baseline, to see how everything behaves before adding electrical accessories (like a stereo).

to expound further on what tim said, I honestly dont use my stereo a ton. I mean it is nice but not a necessity. At first if all your friends are newbs you are gonna be doing alot of instruction yelling etc and really the radio just adds to the noise, we fire it up when we are chilling grabbin lunch or something but while we are going its usually pretty low and you cant even hear it. Now I have seen those things that turn the sound up as you accelarate. That would be cool, but I could live without my radio, at least for a while.

My experiance has been that the "headphone" jack from Ipod to the head unit is piss poor sound quality. Insteed I purchsed the cord that plugs directly from the Ipod(forgot what the cord is called) directly to the head unit. A tremndous improvemnet!. I am opting now for a marine head unit with bluetooth connectivity so that I amy use my Itouch / Iphone wirelessly anywhere in the boat or around it. I'm told alot of new boat makers are going that route regardless. I would think to start with a good head unit with up to date technology and build from there.

boombox and some fresh batteries will get you through

If you have a Perfect ass then the old tacho is obsolite and just filling a hole. I am planning on putting one of these in a 2 1/2" radio / MP3 head. OK, only 40watt as fitted, but than can be amped up. They also do a waterproof 3.5mm / USB socket that you can mount anywhere.
I have seen these on US websites when I was searching and the price was resonable.

Tom

JoeinNY wrote: You can certainly experience sound quality issues when using the headphone input to a head unit/radio/deck. But in my experience these are related to the deck not the ipod headphone output. If you go straight to an amp or a quality EQ and not to a deck you should not have an issue using the headphone jack. I have been doing this for years into a zapco preamp and if you have decent quality mp3s there are zero issues.     If you are going to spend the money on a deck then certainly you should spend the money to get one that can as Chris suggested controls your ipod - and that will necessitate connecting through the bottom port.

My thoughts exactly, if you have a quality amp/preamp and maybe the ability to eq you should be able to dial that baby in.

Gonna sound like an old guy here but the stereo in the boat thing is kind of annoying to me. I'm on the boat to chat/hang with friends and enjoy our convos and stories of the old days...hard to do that when you got t-pain auto tuning in your ear. Guess I'm with Tim and a couple others on the save your money thing.

It would be enjoyable however to crank a beat while shreddin on the wakeboard.

Camaro SS dude (sorry, don't know your name). I can't answer your question via the PM you sent. If you keep your name and email private, I can't send a reply. Try again and include your email addy, phone # or something.

Thanks
Dave (Moj)...

azeus17 wrote: Hollywood wrote: boombox and some fresh batteries will get you through Ha! Did that for about a year in my old boat. Had I know all the trouble I was going to have installing the stereo/sound quality, I would just have bought another pack of C cells!

the velocity 2 go from blaupunkt is a good boom box, 2" speakers, built in amp, full range or sub mode, 12v or 120-220...
I use it in my vette as stereo pluging the ipod to it. Or at home to put some music when its party time!!!

Go headless, I find there is even less need for a headunit the more I use my boat.   Out the bottom of an iPhone or iPod is best because it allows you to charge as well. There isn't much voltage in the head phone setup and the sound suffered when I tried it that way. I have a cable that can do both, the bottom port is all we use given the choice. A cheap JL line driver gave me volume control and a much better sound. The volume raising / lowering can be done with an iPhone app these days and if you add a EQ with some sort of aux port Bluetooth is an easy add as well. Auto volume control is so nice though, I would go back to a headunit before I gave that up, it might be better than a PP at least equal. V

I will definately agree with sorting out the little things first, then plan on running as much new wire as you can. The factory stuff is stressed and old and you'll have less headaches if you just bypass most of it.

hd radio is free other than that I don't know how they compare