New owner looking to upgrade stereo

[bturner]

New member here after recently changing brands (was a MC owner for some 20 years). I'm picking up a 2012 Sport Nautique this week from the dealer this week but the boat doesn't have tower speakers or a sub. I'd like to get some input on what you guys are doing on upgrades. I have a $2K budget for the upgrade that needs to include the tower speakers, sub and amp to run it all. I've been looking at several directions to do the upgrade. We slalom, surf and sit at the island for a couple hours on a typical outing. No wakeboarding anymore nor do we complete in sound system competitions so I don't need a system that throws 75' or that is over the top. Just need to be able to kick it hard while surfing at 25' (hence the tower speakers) or within or close to the boat while hanging at the island.

I love the look of the new 8" tower speakers and JL in general. If I go this direction I'd do all JL, add a 400/4 amp (2 channels bridged for the sub, 1 channel for each of the tower speakers), a set of the new M880-EXTv3 tower speakers and a JL sub (I believe this boat has an option for a 10" s that's probably what I would go with).

I've also been looking at Exile which has a "surf" tower speaker but don't know anyone that has tried these. I'd be open to their sub as well but would probably stick with the rest of the JL as above.

My last boat had Wet Sounds Rev 8s and Rev 10s but this was too much for our use. It sounded better at 50" than it did 10 - 25 and really added a lot of weight to the tower. I'd be open to Wet Sounds again but they seem t have gone off the reservation on pricing. If I did go this direction I was looking at the Icon 8s and would be doing the rest of the system like the above.

So does anyone have any thoughts on this?

[MLA]

, add a 400/4 amp (2 channels bridged for the sub, 1 channel for each of the tower speakers)

I think this amp would leave underwhelmed with the tower speakers. In the JL line up, id go with one bridged 400/4 for a single pair of tower speakers. Then a 5 or 6 chnl for the in-boats and woofer

The exile "surf" speaker is just an 8" coaxial, same as The Icon-8 and JL 880. The swivel clamp is prone to a short life span. Their woofers are paper-based cones, so id steer clear of them.

[bturner]

I guess I need to find out what's in there now so I can figure out the amp situation. Would agree more cow bell is always better......

[blueroom]

We had an Exile system in a previous boat, and had issues related to what MLA references. The swivel clamp connections would get sketchy and need work from time to time. We blew multiple components in our tower speakers. Fortunately we could take them to Exile for repair as we are in Portland frequently. I was always a little disappointed that they would charge me a significant amount to replace speaker parts. Seems like they didn't really stand behind them for very long - especially with multiple failures of the same components. Our Exile amps had pretty bad thermal issues and would shut down from time to time. The Exile stuff was not bad sounding, it just wasn't super reliable.

In three years we have had no component or amp issues with our JL's.

[Shawn Henderson]

We had an Exile system in a previous boat, and had issues related to what MLA references. The swivel clamp connections would get sketchy and need work from time to time. We blew multiple components in our tower speakers. Fortunately we could take them to Exile for repair as we are in Portland frequently. I was always a little disappointed that they would charge me a significant amount to replace speaker parts. Seems like they didn't really stand behind them for very long - especially with multiple failures of the same components. Our Exile amps had pretty bad thermal issues and would shut down from time to time. The Exile stuff was not bad sounding, it just wasn't super reliable.

In three years we have had no component or amp issues with our JL's.

I have a friend that’s running all Exile and he recently started having issues with his amp getting hot and shutting off too

[bturner]

Yeah, that's why I decided to check here. I honestly like the stock OEM look as well. Never had an issue with any of my JL gear. That said the Wet Sounds speakers were tough too. Had them 10 years, zero issues other than the white turning yellow......

[Tybrick]

I installed one set of M880s and a single M10IB5, all powered by a M1000/5v2, as add on to the existing JL stock system. Would not recommend a M400/4 as it will be severely underpowered. The M880s need 200W a channel for you to not be disappointed. If you power them correctly, I can't see how anyone would be disappointed with their performance. The remaining sub channel would be actually too much for the 10" (or jump to a 12"), but if you dial it in correctly, you will be pleased.

[Stevemo14]

I just did Rev 10's with a rockford punch 600x4. i bridged the 4 channels to get 300x2 and have had 0 issues, and they sound great. As you said they may be too much for you but you could do some rev 8's. One thing i do know is going a little bit over what you think you need is well worth it VS saying " I wish I would have done more"!!

[bturner]

Thank you for all the responses. I just picked the boat up yesterday and will be looking over everything to see what my options are. It seems the general consensus would be go big on the amp and what makes sense on the speakers. That's hard to argue. I was able to take a quick look at the tower last night and saw the the tower is indeed pre-wired.

Does anyone happen to know where the wires run from the tower and also the wiring color scheme would be nice to have. I'm going to pull off the lower speaker mounting plates and the access cover under the gunnel to see if I can get a better idea of whats going on but I'd like to make this as easy as possible once I start installing gear.

Thank you once again for your responses.....

[bturner]

So I got under the passenger dash to see what I had to work with. Apparently not much. Was surprised to see that the cockpit speakers are running off the Clarion box which explains the lack of punch from the speakers. Also started looking into a possible dual battery set up and that's a negative in this boat as well without remotely mounting the battery and there's just not enough space in this boat to make that happen for our use. Looks like I'm going to have to dial back the power profile and sound expectations.

There's no way I can run a 1000 watts for any period time without expecting the battery to take a serious hit so I'm thinking my power profile is going to need to be closer to 600 watts and even at that I'm going to start carrying a micro jump box with me. I'm now thinking this is going to be closer to what the factory is doing. It would be nice to see how this boat is being set up with from the factory with the sub and tower speakers. If anyone knows please enlighten me.

[bturner]

Well I'm on my way with at lease the start of a good system. Man this stuff is expensive so I'm starting slow and willing to build up more next season if needed. Here's the initial order and BTW Sonic Electronic is having a 10% off sale which pushed me over the top to get this started.....

Went with the JL M600/6 for the amp. This will get me moving in the right direction and I can always add a 200/2 if I need more next year.
I did the JL 880s mostly because I liked the stock look ( I know that's not a good reason but.....) and the advise here against the 770s
JL 10" sub will round out the bass.

Accessories will include the JL tower speaker mounting brackets and I also ordered a JL remote dual channel gain control so I can adjust the tower speaker volume from the dash.

That's all the cash I can afford for this season. Any other upgrades are going to have to wait.

[bturner]

Anyone know where the factory mounts their amps in this boat? I'm starting to survey the installation while waiting for the gear to come in and wondered where others may have found the best place for the amp installation. On MasterCrafts the amps were typically mounted on the passenger vertical wall in the walk through to the bow. I also saw people creating amp racks that mounted against the outer hull on the passenger side. I'd like to do as close to a stock installation as possible with the exception of possibly making it a bit cleaner and more bullet proof.

Lastly the installation kit you can buy from JL for the M600/6 includes a 50 amp breaker and 8 ga. cable for both the ground and power. I'm thinking I'm going to do 6 for my installation as I may end up adding a 200/2 or 400/4 at a later date. Anyone running heavier ga, this this for a modest installation like this?

[bturner]

So after hitting the Sonic Electronix Christmas in July sale that included a 20% coupon I finally decided to go after the stereo upgrade using many of the recommendations here. Couldn't go "full on" due to budget but I did make a pretty good dent int he wallet and while I still have tuning to do and some minor adjustments with components I'm very happy with the results.
So with the installation I went with the following.....

Amp: JL Audio 600/6
Tower Speakers: JL Audio M6-880ETXv3-Sb-S-GmTi
Tower Speaker Mounts: JL Audio M-MCPv3-NA
Sub: JL Audio M6-10IB-S-GmTi-4
Line Driver for Tower Speakers: JL Audio CL-RLC Remote Level Control / Line Driver
20' black/red 4ga marine cable

As I only have a single amp with 6 channels, I decided to run the 4 cockpit speakers in parallel (2 left, 2 right in parallel) and place each on a single channel, each tower speaker is on it's own channel and the sub is bridged on 2 channels. the system is very loud and clear with a very solid bass.

Running power was very challenging . I initially was going to run the power directly to the battery but the on/off switch for this boat is under the dash and there were already 60 amp breakers for the amps in place. Not a fun job but I managed to get the under dash panel out, power wires and line driver control wires routed and everything put back together in about 3 hours. Real PITA though and not something I want to pull apart again.

The tower speakers mounted easily, the custom mounts and hardware were excellent and went together quickly. The tower, while pre-wired was straight forward but the pre-wire stopped at the base of the tower. I had hoped the speaker wires would be already routed to the radio area but no such luck. Had to fish wires from the tower to the amp.

The sub was a butt clenching installation as I had to cut a 10" hole in the passenger side walkway. After reviewing as many (poor) pictures I could find for the factory location of the sub and about 3 beers while positioning the template and scrutinizing the location for the sub, I used a razor knife with a new blade to cut the vinyl then a saber saw with a new metal/plastic blade to cut through the multiple layers of fiberglass, foam and HDPE material. The whole turned out good and the sub was aligned then screwed into place.

Since I couldn't get any feedback on the stock location of the amp I decided to mount it to the inside of the walkway the sub was on. I mounted the amp just to the slightly lower than center and right of the sub. The line driver was mounted just to the left of the amp.

Everything power up on the first shot and after about a half hour of adjusting the head unit and channels settings I feel I'm closing in on the final tuning. I didn't have time to take pictures but I'll try to get some and post them for others who may be looking to take on a project like this.