Planning my last big upgrade, a new sound system

[Ronnie]

The h2o Maine head unit that came stock in my 2010 242 LS is on its last legs. It was never a great had unit to begin with (the zone control didn’t work well, Sirius radio controls were not intuitive and the smart phone compartment is now too small to hold my current phone) but at the end of last season I noticed that it only sent sound to half of the speakers on top of this the remote on the swim platform had a dead display and the buttons would sometimes stick causing nothing but problems. I also purchased an optional handheld wireless remote which was only able to turn the volume up, not down or tune the radio/choose the next or last song in a playlist as advertised. So it’s time for me to upgrade.

I’m thinking of replacing everything but the speakers with the pictured Fusion components including an RA 670 head unit, a 5 channel amp to power the speakers in the bow, on the swim platform and sub woofer in the cockpit. Another 2 channel amp would power the cockpit speakers. I’d run a wired remote to the swim deck and buy two wireless remotes (one for the copilot and another for the bow or to take with me when onshore). The grand total with accessories (i.e., antennae and 3.5 mm/usb input cable), at least on Crutchfield’s site is $1,600 before sales tax of 10%, so about $1,760 out the door.

My crew and I are getting older along with the rest of the world. As such we don’t usually turn the volume up much at anchor but want to hear the music clearly while underway. I could save a few hundred dollars if I used the head unit to power some of the speakers but thinking this is my last big upgrade don’t want to sacrifice sound quality for savings. What I don’t want is to have to buy and install another amp in the future. I’m getting too old to keep contorting myself into the helm compartment.

Before I squeeze the trigger and my wallet on this, I’d like your thoughts on whether I’m planning buying too much, too little and/or the right components given my use case? Sound quality is very subjective but I’ve read that Fusion’s is good. I like the components because they are marine rated and seem to cover all my needs but I’m open to buying a system other than Fusion as long as I can get all the components from the same manufacturer.

So, what say/type you?

 

[rkim808]

Aloha @Ronnie seems like a nice upgrade, but don’t see any speakers in ur list. I don’t have any experience with the Fusion components but have heard great things about them. I’m pretty sure someone will chime in that has. My only advice is go with some great quality speakers and feed them some power. As u know our Yammies r on the louder side underway. Good luck with ur upgrade.??

 

[Ronnie]

My plan is to use the speakers I already have (4 Polk speakers in the boat which I bought used from another member, they have a bronze colored surround and used to come stock in some Yamaha boats, he two tweeters in the tower, plus two kicker marine speakers with LEDs and a 10” alpine sub woofer. If the new stereo doesn’t sound / perform as it should I would replace the speakers accordingly, starting with the cabin speakers and tower tweeters.

I think I’m going to complete this upgrade in stages. First the head unit, three remotes and accessories (I.e., xm module and 3.5mm/usb input). I will add new amps later if needed since I already have an 8 channel amp and the fusion amps make up half the cost of the system I am considering.

 

[Compatico]

I already have an 8 channel amp and the fusion amps make up half the cost of the system I am considering.

Changing amps won't make any difference unless you go to massively more power output or your 8-ch amp is severely under powered. Amp ratings can be all over the place. Cheap amps can claim 50wx4 but that's with unusable distortion levels. In reality, a 50w cheap amp is really only pushing a few watts of clean power with noisy peaks and not able to hold a constant output. Generally while just floating and listening to tunes at moderate volumes, you're probably in the 1-5 watt output range and it'll work fine. But crank it up and it quickly runs out of juice, producing "thin" sound. Good amps will have a better power supply for the output stage and make the speakers thump more with full range output. That's why JL Audio and Wetsounds amps are expensive - they have large power reserves with a large transformer and big caps to sustain output.

So if you currently have a solid 25w per channel or more, you won't notice much difference going to something like an 75w/ch amp unless you're constantly at max output and you need a bit more headroom. I'd go with just a new head unit and see if you're still happy with the 8-ch amp. If the amp is decent, you probably won't need to change it.

 

[Ronnie]

I just ordered 4 pairs of speakers an led controller with remote and Headunit adapter. All that’s left is the amps which I’ve already selected.

See the pics below. Summarily it’s a fusion head unit and 3 remotes, a combination of kicker led speakers (6 in all) and 2 amps as well as 4 alpine tweeters (2 for the tower and 1 behind each forward facing bow seat) a sub and amp. 11 speakers in all mated to amps with rms and ohm output equivalent to the speakers. I plan to run the tweeters off the head unit. This got expensive quick at around $2200 excluding wiring, fuses and the pair of kicker LEDs and alpine sub I already have. Well, at least the labor is cheap but slow and sometimes short of knowledge and/or experience.

 

[Ronnie]

My first attempt at a wiring diagram for the new sound system. I’m hoping the tweeters will sound alright even though power output from the head (26W RMS) unit does not match the speakers’ capabilities (100W RMS).

 

[Ronnie]

Got the last of the big components on Black Friday from my local Best Buy. Right on time for the rainy season to start.

 

[Ronnie]

I started developing my amp board with the intent of wiring everything up to verify it all works. I don’t want to find out something is broken after the return or exchange period expires.

 

[IvanRZB]

Very cool, looks like you'll have your hands full.

Where are you putting those tweeters? It doesn't look like they're marine-rated or weather resistant, I'd be nervous about weather damage if they're out in the open.

 

[Ronnie]

I will replace the tweeters in the tower with the 2 part tweeters (speaker and crossover) and the other tweeters with inline cross overs in the deck behind the bow seats/loungers. I am accepting the risk that they won’t be tough enough. My only concern with these speakers is that I’m only sending up to 27w to each from the head unit instead of the 100w they are capable of from an amp. Yeah I know, first world problems.

 

[jamesk]

Just FYI if you don't know that head unit has a non standard cut out size and also a smaller face plate. Don't know what you are replacing.
I think fusion has another unit that is $200 more but is larger if you need.

 

[Ronnie]

I bought the din adapter for the head unit. I was thinking about buying their top of the line head unit the 770 but the $200 extra only buys WiFi and a 4th zone. I’m trying to figure out if I will be replacing the 4 Guage + and - leads from the battery to the board with 0/1 guage cable, if so more cost and even worse more time will be involved in the install.

 

[Ronnie]

I set up a test system to test all of the components before the return or exchange policy applicable to each expires. Happily everything works as advertised. I’m going to stay with the 4 guage power and ground leads and have a bus bar to split the remote lead as needed. I do need to purchase led 4 lead lines and a few more connectors but that should be about it. Enlarging the holes on the swim deck for an 8” bow speakers and cutting holes for the bow tweeters will also need to occur but I’ve got time since i don’t expect to work on the boat until Winter is over.

As a reminder: I have a fusion head unit unit, one wired remote, two wireless remotes and an led controller with another remote.

Next are the 3 amps (one for the bow and cockpit, another for swim deck and and a third for the sub)

Finally are the speakers, 11 in all (6 kickers with leds) 5 alpine speakers (4 tweeters and a sub).

 

[Ronnie]

I just bought another kicker amp (my 4th) to power the tweeters instead of using the head units power.

 

[Ronnie]

I refined the shape of the amp/electronics board, test fitted the amps and painted the board. This thing is heavy.

Next task is to set up all the wiring/wiring routes. I will be careful to keep the rca and speaker lines away from the power leads. Speaker lines integrated with LED lines cost about $2.50 per foot so I’m now very interested in how many feet I will need to get to the swim deck, cockpit and bow speakers.

 

[redthumper9]

I refined the shape of the amp/electronics board, test fitted the amps and painted the board. This thing is heavy.

Next task is to set up all the wiring/wiring routes. I will be careful to keep the rca and speaker lines away from the power leads. Speaker lines integrated with LED lines cost about $2.50 per foot so I’m now very interested in how many feet I will need to get to the swim deck, cockpit and bow speakers.
View attachment 110241View attachment 110242

If you are mounting your amps behind the helm, plan on about 150' of speaker wire. I just did this and ran all new wire to each speaker (mid cabin and rear cabin were bridged so made that connection at the speaker not the amp). I initially bought 100' feet but turns out it wasn't enough. Bought another 50' and that ALMOST did it..... But I had 4 towers to run as well. Let me also suggest with running 3 amps, let your remote wire trigger a relay before using the bus bar. A lot of folks overlook this. Remote wires have only so much they can handle and the relay will take the stress off of the head units remote line. Some people do it and get away with it fine..... But I've seen a many remote lines fail because they were trying to turn on too many amps/eq's, etc.

 

[Ronnie]

@redthumper9 , thanks for the feedback.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I only have 6 of 11 speakers that have integrated LEDs. So I don’t need to run new speaker wires for the sub woofer or the tower tweeters and can run convention speaker wire to the new pair of tweeters I plan to install in the bow area. That stated, I estimate I will need about 100 feet of integrated wire for the bow, cockpit and swim deck speakers.

Could you post a pic of how your remote wire is setup to activate your amps? Until I read your post above I was going to do what you said I should not, that is, attach the HU remote line to a small bus bar which would split the signal to my 4 amps.

Also what gauge wire did you use for power? Currently I have 4 gauge coming off the battery and 8 guage from the distribution blocks (under the helm) to the amp. At least one you tube video states that I should be using 0 or 1 guage coming off the battery since my total rms power output is over 1k Watts and the power cable is between 10 and 15 feet long. Some of the other videos I’ve seen indicate that I’m ok with 4 guage if I don’t plan to utilize all of the available rms watts constantly (I.e., crank up the volume all the way all the time) which I have no intention of doing. I just wanted to have at least as many rms watts as the speakers could handle (I.e., have the power in case I want it not want it and not have it).

 

[redthumper9]

Unfortunately, I can't take a picture of it because it is in an inconspicuous area. I'll attach a diagram of how it should go. The 30-pin connector is the one that should go to your bus bar. I ran 0 gauge wire to my distribution blocks. Then 4-gauge to the amplifiers. However, I have considerably more power to deal with. Approximately 3600 Watts.

 

[rkim808]

Aloha @Ronnie @redthumper9 @Hoyt ur systems r awesome and I’m envious of u all. I have a medium size system no where near the size of ur guys ones. But I had a problem of the lows not keeping up with the highs, especially the WetSounds REV8s. I can only imagine 2 sets of REV10s? @redthumper9 I had a Bandpass Box with two 10’ subs in the Big head compartment and it still couldn’t keep up. I don’t use a the compartment for any thing else but that and toolbag etc. so I had a friend make me a custom ported box, now she SLAMS. Cheeee!??

Pair of Skar SDR-12

 

[redthumper9]

Aloha @Ronnie @redthumper9 @Hoyt ur systems r awesome and I’m envious of u all. I have a medium size system no where near the size of ur guys ones. But I had a problem of the lows not keeping up with the highs, especially the WetSounds REV8s. I can only imagine 2 sets of REV10s? @redthumper9 I had a Bandpass Box with two 10’ subs in the Big head compartment and it still couldn’t keep up. I don’t use a the compartment for any thing else but that and toolbag etc. so I had a friend make me a custom ported box, now she SLAMS. Cheeee!??
View attachment 110403View attachment 110404
Pair of Skar SDR-12

That looks like great work. Yeah..... My ported XXX 12 in the last boat hit harder than the two IB 10's I have now. I wish we didn't use that compartment as much as we do or I'd build something like yours. I still have my Wetsounds XXXV2 so I may find a way to incorporate it before too long.