Adding tower speakers to stock head unit

[OCPat]

I am going to add two tower speakers to our 2015 212x this winter. Have a budget so this is what I was planning on doing. Two Rockford Fosgate speakers, Rockford Fosgate 300w 2ch marine amp and the Yamaha wiring harness for the tower. Not much of a stereo person but please correct me if I am wrong on my plan. Mount speakers and run wiring through the tower and into the boat. Mount the amp, run the red/white RCA cables from the amp to the stock head unit, then run the power from the battery to the amp. I know the stock speakers will not be amped, that's ok. I realize this is simplified but it's the basic idea that I have. Any advise from the pros would be great! Thanks.....

 

[redthumper9]

That's the basic idea, but I would highly recommend you go a slightly different route. The Rockford towers speakers are nice and most that have them are really happy with their performance. If you just want some tunes while beached, swimming or possibly surfing, they may be an excellent choice. Don't expect too much in the way of hearing them while tubing, skiing or boarding. They are not designed for long range listening. I personally owned a few of the Rockford marine amps and they are also excellent for a budget amp. They are small and pretty powerful. I would suggest you start with one of the Rockford 4d-400 watt 4 channel amps bridged to two channels for the tower speakers and another matching 4 channel amp for the interior speakers. Without an amplifier on the in boats, you will be asking for trouble. You will certainly reach distortion on those speakers only being powered by the head unit very quickly trying to make them keep up with the amplified towers. Not only will you be completely unhappy, but you will risk damage to the speakers in the boat. You can pick those rockford amps up on ebay for around $200 new.

 

[txav8r]

Another issue you have is distribution. You have 4 channels out of the HU (head unit), front L/R and rear L/R. And the issue comes in how you distribute to your tower speakers. You can get away from the problems that @redthumper9 mentions about overloading the in-boat speakers by not running them when you run the tower speakers, but you going to lose a richness of sound if you are in the boat and playing just the tower speakers. Many of us have near distance out of boat speakers. But the issue is balance and distribution. I am not certain of the speakers that Yamaha put in the new X. But what came stock in previous boats were not speakers capable of much power at all. They have made a move to entry level polk speakers in some of the other boats, and those speakers are night and day from the Seaworthy speakers of the past, but the Polk DB651 can take being amplified and deliver some pretty good sound. You can set up your in-boat speakers with all 4 on two channels, either the front or the rear, and use the other two channels to run the tower speakers. Then you can use the fader to deliver signal to the speakers you want to run. But with just an HU, you have an issue with being able to set volume level to each group as @redthumper9 mentions. There are line level controllers and EQ's that can handle this too, but the easier and probably overall cheaper way to get sound outside the boat, is to just add an amp to power all six speakers in a more even manner. And then the damage to in boat speakers is minimized as well as sound being more balanced and distortion limited. There are single 5 channel amps available that can deliver your 4 in boats and the tower speakers, or you can set it up with two amps, but powering the towers and not the boats will create some issues that will likely end in you buying more gear anyway, and probably more than you would have if you had just set it up from the beginning. The planning stage is always fun and frustrating, but the end result you will enjoy! Good luck on the build and keep us posted!

 

[OCPat]

Thanks guys for the great advise. The new 212X's come with six speakers in the boat. So adding the two tower speakers looks like it will take two amps for sure if I do it right. And I thought it would be easy!

 

[txav8r]

What HU are they putting in the boat?

 

[craigm]

I also started out wanting to do it on a budget and install it myself however quickly realized that I didn't know what I didn't know.
I decided to live with the horrible stock system the first year and put off the upgrade till the following year.
My system is what I would call middle of the road in terms of price however I am not sure how it could sound much better. Incidentally I have one amp driving the six in boat and four tower speakers.
I have attached the invoice to show the hardware if you can do it yourself you can see the savings. I had already purchased the tower speakers at the boat show so all he did was install.

 

[OCPat]

txav8r, they are putting a Clarion in the newer boats. Not sure the exact model number. Don't have the paper work with me. Craigm, that's for the info. Very good information as I am trying to figure all this stuff out.