08 speaker wiring and amp questions?

[kevfran99]

Thanks guys! I'm trying to get this done today! After I'm done I will post up pics! (I think it's going to be a long day!) And I shall use really short screws, maybe only ones that are 1/4 in long!

[AuMDLST]

BAD IDEA!!! - use some form of backing either glassed in under the carpet or epoxy - short screws will just come out after the first wake bump - think about it, you just spent over 50k and you are willing to put holes in the hull?

[Laptom]

A question,

If you want to run 4 tower speakers (4ohm each) from a 4 channel amp (Clarion 480 for example), do you need to change out the speaker wires in the tower? I believe it's a 2 conductor wire.

Or is it possible to connect the speakers in serie and bridge the amplifier into 2 channels?!

[AuMDLST]

Does the tower have 4 sets of wire? (One per speaker)? You need wire for each speaker.

[kevfran99]

ok, so the day didn't quite go as planned. Here's what I ended up doing. Wired the sub to the 2 channel amp bridged to one. Wired the tower speakers to the four channel amp(for some reason only one works and for the life of my I can't figure out why! All I did was disconnect them from the 2 channel amp and connect them to the four.) The four speakers in the cabin were somehow wire to only two channels with only a total of four wire????? two pos. and two neg. The bow speakers are run off the head unit. The JL 6 channel amp is wired from the port side battery with the ground and power(big fuse in the power wire). I decided to leave the power and ground alone with the two factory amps so I will be returning the two distribution blocks. The rca's are connected. I couldn't figure out how the bow speakers came off the head unit. So there is an appointment in the morning at Best Buy. The are going to find out what is wrong with the tower speaker thats not workiong and wire the 6 interior speakers to the 6 channel amp correctly. $120 later I should be good to go and have a big smile on my face! (it wasn't there today for sure!) I will update tomorrow with how things went!

[SuperSquirt]

Sorry to hear all the trouble, your two tower speaker wires should be the purple and green wires (each with a positive & negative). If your tower is wired for four you will need to find out which ones are hooked up to your speakers. If you crawl into the boat and look behind the receiver, you should be able to find the bow speaker wires that are connected.

Be cautious with Best Buy installers, I know it can be hit & miss with their training. They tend to hire young kids with tons of computer training and hardly any real experience. I have heard of some horror stories coming from my local Best Buy. One tech there drilled a hole through one of my friends' Nautique while trying to install an amp to the side. He battled Best Buy for months before they would fix it. Another tech crossed wires in my friends Mercedes' computer and fried it.

I understand that techs are a lot like surgeons, you get what you pay for. So be careful in who you let tune your toys. Find the old school guys with 20+ years under their belt.........that's who I learned from

[AirTool]

I wouldn't take nothin' to Best Buy.

The bow speakers are easy. There is a wiring schematic on the clarion site or I can post it.

[kevfran99]

it's already set up. I talked with the guy yesterday for about an hour with him looking at my boat. He knows what he's doing. I told him not to mount the amp what so ever. That I would take care of that! I don't want any holes either! As for everything else he has to do. Pretty straight forward for someone that knows even a little bit about it. I'm just not the car stereo guy, not mechanical on the engine......I've got that covered!

[Mikeski]

Kevfran,

If the best buy guy gets it right celebrate. I would put money he doesn't get it right. The boat stuff is different enough that most car guys make at least one mistake.

You can run the tower speakers off a bridged four channel amp if you rewire them in series versus parallel, this will drop the 2 ohm load to 8 ohms, design load for a bridged four channel amp. The best buy guy will certainly get this wrong and incorrectly tell you that you need to pull two more wires into the tower.

You may need to pull new wires to the boat speakers, some boats daisy chained the wires, paralleling the speakers. The best buy guy should get this right, selling you a bunch of new speaker wire in the process. I would guess this will be done if/when you read this post.

The series/parallel thing as well as amplifier brigding are topics well explained here:
www.bcae1.com
See chapters 38, 51,52.

Best of luck.

[Mikeski]

Just noticed AuMDLST posted the same thing a few posts back... I thought you already had four tower speakers. Two should run right off the 480 bridged.

Check out the BCAE site if you are interested. Try to focus on the three chapters, you can easily get lost/distracted on others resulting in information overload...

[kevfran99]

Kevfran,

If the best buy guy gets it right celebrate. I would put money he doesn't get it right. The boat stuff is different enough that most car guys make at least one mistake.

You can run the tower speakers off a bridged four channel amp if you rewire them in series versus parallel, this will drop the 2 ohm load to 8 ohms, design load for a bridged four channel amp. The best buy guy will certainly get this wrong and incorrectly tell you that you need to pull two more wires into the tower.

You may need to pull new wires to the boat speakers, some boats daisy chained the wires, paralleling the speakers. The best buy guy should get this right, selling you a bunch of new speaker wire in the process. I would guess this will be done if/when you read this post.

The series/parallel thing as well as amplifier brigding are topics well explained here:
www.bcae1.com
See chapters 38, 51,52.

Best of luck.

Tower speakers are fine other than one is not working for some reason. The other works perfect. My four rear cabin speakers must be "daisy chained" together. There was only four speaker wires connected to the amp(2 pos. 2 neg.) I left him with 200 ft. of speaker wire in case he needed some. Looks like he will. The guy was left with only three things to do. Wire the bow speakers from the head unit to the amp, wire the other four speakers to the amp, and figure out why one tower speaker isn't working(only bass is coming out) That's why I think he should get everying correct. I think everything I left him should be pretty cut and dry for a "car audio guy" My fingers are crossed! :mrgreen:

I'm picking up the boat tonight after I get off work. I will update with how they (Best Buy) did!

Mikeski, when I get some time I will read that article! Thanks!

[AuMDLST]

Check the external crossover

[TravisFling]

yeah, make sure that the amp is in hp mode, not lp.

[kevfran99]

Picked up the boat Sat. night and everything is GOOD to go! I forgot to take some pics, but it looks good and sounds even better! About the only thing I was dissappointed with was the fact that our head unit will not turn the volume up any louded! It screams, but could use some more!

[kevfran99]

Anyone have any ideas how to turn up the volume louder? I know the speakers are capable of it!