2020 AR190 tower speakers

[Thaimonkee]

Just picked up a 2020 AR190. First thing i’ve ever owned that is brand new. A buddy gave me a set of tower speakers. My question is how do I wire it up to the factory radio? I dont mind buying an amp but im having trouble finding wiring schematics for this thing.

 

[Cstrimer]

Following... about to do the same. From what I'm reading, there are two pre amp RCA jacks behind the dash stereo and they get hooked into the amp. Then, speaker wires can be run through the tower for the speakers.

 

[mrtrav]

I just installed some speakers on my 195. I mounted the amp in the port side compartment. Power and ground went backwards to the battery. RCA and speaker wires ran forward around the bow. RCA plugged into the head unit and the speaker wires ran backwards past the helm and into the tower. The speaker wire is obviously easier to feed down the tower. I believe I did maybe 1/2” holes and then fed a flexible wire from the bottom of the tower up to the top, taped the speaker wire to that and pulled it back down.

 

[Thaimonkee]

Thanks. I think I may have to start pulling things apart and look around. Are you running an amo for just the tower speakers or the boat speakers and tower?

 

[mrtrav]

My amp is only powering my two 8" speakers on the tower. I only wanted enough power/sound to hear some music while surfing.

 

[Thaimonkee]

What amp are you using? That was my initial
Plan. Just hook up an amp for the tower speakers. Any installation tips?

 

[mrtrav]

I have a Rockville RXM-T1 amp and two 8" kicker speakers. The way I ran the wires I just mounted/glued some clamps throughout the boat and hid the wires that way. There's probably a better way, but I was lazy with it. The installation itself was pretty easy even though I haven't installed any car stereo equipment in over a decade. I can get some pictures of the installation later this afternoon if you'd like.

 

[Thaimonkee]

That would be awesome. Im just trying to figure out the wiring for the tower speakers to the factory head unit

 

[mrtrav]

Here’s my setup. In the amp pic you can see the ground/power going back to the batter and the speaker/rca going forward. Behind the helm you can see the RCA plugged in and the speaker wire in the background continues back. The tower pic you can see the speaker wire coming up through the hull and into the tower. The only holes I drilled were to mount the amp and then holes in the tower where the speakers are.

 

[Thaimonkee]

Thanks. The RCA’s from the amp plug into the back of the headunit labeled “Line out left/right”?

 

[mrtrav]

Mine is labeled Front Line Out.

 

[shanes17]

Mine is labeled Front Line Out.

Old thread but it looks like you picked up the same package I am looking at, 2/8" Kicker tower cans w/ the Rockville RXM-T1 1500 Watt Peak/750 Watt RMS Marine 2 Channel Amp.

Are you pretty happy with it? Noticed you used the amp only for your 2 cans, could you bridge both cans on one channel and then hook up the other 4 speakers to the second channel? Might not be your preference if you want max power to the cans, just curious if it would be doable.

Looking for a cost effective upgrade to the stock setup. This looks like a good alternative especially if I can use the same amp for the 4 stock speakers.

Edit, just watched the install vid for the LED part, seems way easier than I expected!

TIA

 

[JWilson]

I just bought this same setup from Rockville as well. It will be a few weeks before I get around to installing anything though. I am curious how it sounds.

 

[mrtrav]

I only hooked up the cans to the amp. I’m somewhat happy with it, there is some interference noise I need to troubleshoot, but overall they are very nice for the price.