Need Help Selecting an Amp

[Evening Shade]

I need help selecting another amp. I have 2 Polk PA500.4 amps powering 4 6.5" Polk speakers in the boat, a Polk Sub and 2 Roswell Airborne 7.0 HLCD tower speakers. The 2 Polk 6.5" speakers in the bow of the boat are just run off of the head unit. I had a stereo installer install a Roswell Dual Zone volume control knob and he said that I would need another amp to power the bow speakers without over loading the current amps. I'm thinking that for my setup 2 amps should be plenty so I'm thinking about replacing one of my Polk amps with something else. Any recommendations?

[a0128]

You didn't mention budget so these might be beyond what you want to spend, however I'd recommend either the JL Audio M600/6 or the Wet Sounds HT6. Both are six channel amps that will power your in-boats. The JL is 6 @ 75 watts, the WS is 6 @ 110 watts.

For powering just the bow speakers the JL Audio M200/2 would be a good choice.

[David Analog]

You definitely need to get the bow speakers on external amplification even if that zone is of secondary importance. Having them powered by the HU forces you to either gain the external amplifiers down to keep them in balance, which is a terrible waste of external power, or, gain the amplifiers high to keep the HU from prematurely clipping, which raises the noise floor and gives you a non-linear and overly sensitive feel to the volume control.
Using six channels of the two Polk 4-channel amplifiers is all that's needed for the in-boat speakers. Hate to see the amplifiers go to waste.
Your charging system power consumption is based on amplifier efficiency and the collective output power. Just the number of amplifiers has very little impact on the consumption.
Certainly moving forward I would favor the more efficient Class D amplifiers.
A single good 5 or 6-channel amplifier driving the sub with the four highpass channels bridged to the two tower speakers would be effective if you keep your existing amplifiers. Either a 4 or 6-channel amplifier could drive the six in-boat speakers. I really like a discrete channel per each in-boat speaker.
A couple of considerations would be:
JL Audio XD700/5 (sub and in-boats) plus XD400/4 (bridged to towers). Or, the XD700/5 to sub and towers with the XD600/6 to the in-boats.
You can do the exact same with a mix of the Wetsounds HT series amplifiers.

[MLA]

One 4 chnl amp can drive the 3 pair of in-boats, leaving the 2nd 4 chnl to drive the sub and pair of tower speakers.

[Evening Shade]

The installer recommended some $100 amp to power the 2 bow speakers in addition to my 2 Polk amps. I didn't like this idea because how good can a $100 amp from a dealer be. That means I could probably buy the same amp online for $50. I don't think this installer really understand decent marine audio. I'm gonna take my boat to a different shop and see if I get a better vibe. Thanks for the recommendations. I wish I had a better understanding of audio equipment because I would like to be able to do the work myself.

[Paxdad]

I have an Arc Audio 805xdi powering my 6 in-boats and the sub. This is a very efficient amp. My inboat speakers are the Rockford Fosgate M2 M262 and the Arc Audio drives them well. The sub section of the 805xdi is pushing a 10" Wetsounds XS10-FA, which is now mounted in the passenger walk through space.

[Evening Shade]

David Analog,
I like your idea of a 6 ch amp powering each in boat speaker and a 5 ch amp powering the sub and tower speakers. That sounds clean and efficient. I do hate the thought of not using the 2 Polk amps, but adding a 3rd amp to the 2 existing amps sounds like a wiring and real estate nightmare under the rear facing seat compartment. I do have a friend that is good with stereo equipment so he is going to help me with it. I trust that with his knowledge and my OCD we will do a better job than any of the stereo shops in my town.

[David Analog]

Regardless of what you do, with less or more amplifier chassis, when you add power you will have to do a total upgrade on the primary supply cables and distribution.

[Evening Shade]

David Analog,
I've decided to keep the 2 Polk amps that I currently have and add a Polk PA D4000.4. You seem to know a lot about stereo installation so I just wanted to see if you could make recomendations on the best way to wire this amp with my other 2 amps.
My plan is to power my 2 tower speakers with the new amp bridged to 2 ch. I would then power my 6 in boat speakers with 6 discrete channels from the existing amps. This leaves me with 2 ch from one of the existing amps which I will bridge to power my sub.
Basically what I'm asking is how to keep the install clean and efficient without a birds nest of wires.

[chrisschweda]

I did rockford t1000-4ad birth sheet 358x4 I have 6 interior jl m650's on 2 channels because it is 1 ohm stable and 2 rev 10's on the other 2 channels it handles it great all day long in stock location and stock wiring with a rockford 500 1 to a cvx in a pro box with a clarion eq It sounds amazing