Stereo Upgrade Advise

[2004SANTE210]

Hello,

I am looking to upgrade my stereo in my 2004 SANTE 210. The stereo is completely stock except the factory sub has been relocated under the drivers helm and 4 Alpine tower speakers have been added with a small Kicker Imulse Amp. I am looking to upgrade all the factory speakers in the boat to a top mount speaker and the factory sub. I will leave the tower speakers for now and do that next. I am looking a replacing the factory 6 6.5'd with some Polk 651db's, Wet Sounds SS-65's or someones take-off factory Polks. I would also like to replace the factory Kicker sub with a better one. I really haven't picked out any subs yet, just looking for something comparable to the factory Kicker one. I really would just like to remove the factory sub and replace it with something better. So will the factory Kicker 300.4 run these speakers I've suggested with a better sub? I am looking to replace the system in stages starting with the speakers and sub. Then maybe a better amp to run them later. Then last, some tower speakers and bigger amp for them. When it's all done, I'd like to have one amp running the 6 speakers in the boat and sub and another for the tower speakers. I'm open to all suggestions or ideas.

Thanks

[slidin_out]

have an 03 SANTE and in the same position, six interior speakers are going to run off the head unit right now thought, not trying to hijack just saying someone out there could help a couple of people at the same time, how do you get the factory speakers out? looks like you have to take the panel off the boat and unscrew them from the back. is this correct? also is it necessary to run the 6 internal speakers off of an amp or will the head unit make them sound good enough? again not trying to hijack just think this could be a great useful thread

[ZANDERSANTE]

Sante210- Your prolly gonna want to run 3 amps for your setup. The 300.4 wouldn't give you the power you need to do all those speakers any justice. I'd bridge the 300.4 and run the new sub off of that, then get another amp that is abit bigger to power all 6 6.5's. Then another amp when you redo your tower speakers.

ie. my setup is the factory Clarion 280 bridged to run my sub, the Clarion 480 powers all six 6.5's, and a Kicker 850 runs both my Wetsounds Pro485's. Just depends on how much money your wanting to spend, but I didn't go crazy with buying all new amps and stuff, just spent the money that gave me the most bang for the dollar.. err BOOM for the dollar :-)

slidin_out- You definitely want to get all the interior speakers OFF of the headunit.. They NEED more power. My two bow speakers came wired to the headunit from the factory (still not sure why they do that) and as soon as you turn it up, those two are the first to start distorting.. hook them to an amp and crank it up!!

[intrlaz]

In the interest of saving some $, I decided to keep my bow speakers on the deck and run a 5 channel amp to the rest of the interior speakers and sub.

I actually like the setup I have because I added a WS-420 to control sub, 4 in boats, and tower, and I used the fixed output from the deck as the WS-420 source. This way I never have to use the head unit to control volume. The head unit volume is only controlling the bow speaker volume. Honestly I never really care about the bows while riding because the rest are so loud.

By going this route, I don't have to worry about the distortion Zander talked about.

Don't get me wrong, I would have installed the bows on an amp, but my alpine amps have the same output whether they are running at 2 or 4 ohms. If I included the bows on the amp, the two channels powering the speakers in parallel would have been outputting the same amount of power, but to 2 speakers per channel instead of 1, halving the power to each. Hard to explain but I hope this makes sense.

[EarmarkMarine]

2004SANTE210,

The Kicker 300.4 could be a long term fixture for the six in-boat coaxials but its not a solution for the sub. Once you balance the gains you would have 35 to 40 watts going to each of the six coaxials. And that can do well if you select efficient speakers. The Polk dBs would do fine but the Polk MOMOs (take-outs) need a little more. The WetSounds SS-65 would be a great choice as they're easy to drive with a solid midbass cone (no tweeter post, solid dust cap and more cone surface area).

The box type and displacement will determine the best woofer which in turn should dictate the right amplifier. And, choosing an efficient sub with moderate mass will make your power go farther. JL Audio W0s and W1s sound excellent with as little as 150 to 200 watts, provided you've got a match with your enclosure.

There is alot of choices in a Class D monoblock amplifier, for example, Alpine, JL Audio J2 and more. Great quality and power (not overstated) at a reasonable cost. That's a start on the in-boat portion. More specifics on your existing enclosure might help.


slidin_out,

Despite the 4x50 watt source unit ratings, in reality this is about 4 x 15 watts without reserves and over a limited bandwidth. The better source units might squeak by in a small car but there is no way its enough in a boat in an open environment especially when underway. Also, its unsafe to parallel 4-ohm speakers on the output chips used in source units which is what would be required with six speakers on a 4-channel source unit. So you should look at a small but quality 4-channel outboard amplifier from Alpine, JL Audio J2 or G series (ratings ranging from 300 to 500 watt total power). Its something to build on that will never be obsolete in future upgrades.

David
Earmaark Marine

[Cam003]

If you are just trying to get a good sounding stereo and not blow people away, try starting with an alpine pdx amp. The five channels should do the job. It will run the six cabin speakers and the sub. The system will sound good and your sub will be on its own channel. Like I said this won’t be earthshaking but it would be a huge upgrade from what you are doing now. And you could then use the kicker amp to power the tower. Speakers will need to be upgraded and the Polks sound like a fine choice. Listen to the guys at earmark they know there stuff. oh and go with a jl or wetsounds sub. A jl W3 would be like night and day compared to the factory sub in its half shell box. Good luck. Oh and check out my install it is also a 04 SANTE just click the link at the bottom of my post.