Wiring Questions

[paratrooper39]

Hey all,

I have several questions and I should admit up front that I'm not much of a audio installer kinda guy.

I bought a Clarion M505 to upgrade my AR192 and I was reading it has a dual zone feature built in, but I have no idea how to utilize this function.

Additionally, when I purchased the boat it had the tower JL slampak installed with a 200w amp. I have also purchased a 400w amp for the interior speakers and a self powered bazooka tube.

I have dual batteries with a switch. I'm trying to figure out of I need an eq or if I can run the tower speakers off of one zone and the interior speakers on a second, utilizing just the feature of the HU.

Thanks!

 

[Julian]

Based on the wiring diagram, yes you should be able to run the tower of zone 2 if you want. Not sure how the head unit controls the output to Zone 2, you might want to look into that before hooking it up that way (although it is just a pair of RCAs, so not hard to change). Looks like you can hook up the tower in 3 different ways:
1-Front
2-Rear
3-2 zone (gotta love English as a 2nd language manuals)

You will connect the bazooka to the subwoofer output.

With your added amp, you can run either one or two sets of RCAs to it so you can control Front/Rear if you want (assuming your 400W amp has both front and rear inputs)

 

[paratrooper39]

I also couldn't find anything in the manual about how to control zone two. I feel like since its a selling feature it would have been noted.

 

[paratrooper39]

Follow up... after speaking with Clarion its not really a two zone control, it is a fixed audio output that must have a level control somewhere else. I didn't really understand the purpose of this extra output, but it sounds like everything just has to go to an eq in order to control tower, front and rear individually.... very disappointed.

 

[txav8r]

It isn't always easy when manufacturers deliberately mislead you with their advertising. Sorry about that. That is why I chose JL Audio, because it delivers not only advertised but well beyond. So your HU won't control the zones in a simplified manner, but you can still do what you want without a bunch of additional equipment. But a word of caution. What slam pack speaker setup did you get with the boat on the tower? And what interior (and how many) speakers do you have? 400W to stock speakers is probably more than they can handle and your going to have to tune the amp down a good bit. You might consider running the tower speakers with the 400W, if it is a good amp, and then run the interior speakers with the 200W JL amp. That is 50W clean to each of 4 speakers inside the boat and that is about all they can handle, depending on the speaker. Again, a bunch of unknowns here, but your on the right track. If you do an EQ, you can sort it out without having to use a line level control which is cheap, but the other option is using the fade control on the HU, and fading from interior boat speakers all on either the front or rear channel and the towers on the other.

 

[paratrooper39]

@txav8r Thank you for your in-depth response. I'll do my best to answer as well as possible so hopefully you can walk me through the process.

Interior speakers - 4 total, polk factory
Tower speakers- 2 x 7.7" JL coaxial powered by a 200w 2 channel also JL brand
amp purchased for interior speakers - cheap pyle marine 4x400w, however I would guess its not actually pushing 400w.

My goal was just to push a little more power to the interior speakers because I was guessing that the HU isn't giving enough power to them for their potential.

The pyle amp has plug in for rca's for L and R, which I assume I will use for front and back. The sub I'll plug directly into the HU since it is self powered.

Let me know what you think.

 

[Julian]

the other option is using the fade control on the HU, and fading from interior boat speakers all on either the front or rear channel and the towers on the other.

I'd go this route if you are looking for simplicity, and I'll bet it is how it is currently set up (IE your in boat speakers are currently wired directly to the HU with front and rear fader control and your tower is probably connected to the rear fader.

So the simplest conversion would be to connect the tower to your rear RCA outputs, and to connect your Pyle amp to the front RCA outs. That way you could simply use the HU's front/rear fader to fade between in boat(front) and tower (rear) speakers.

 

[paratrooper39]

@Julian that actually sounds really easy. rear output to 200w amp for tower and front output to 400w for interiors. Is it really that simple?

 

[robert843]

@Julian that actually sounds really easy. rear output to 200w amp for tower and front output to 400w for interiors. Is it really that simple?

Yes if you just want to be able to fade the interior or the tower its that simple.

 

[paratrooper39]

I think I'll take the simple approach. Thank you all so much!

 

[DBamaC]

I'm about to do pretty much this same install. I've got a Clarion M505, a couple of Clarion XC2410's and (6) Polk DB651's (2 in cans on the tower. I have an exitisting line level control that I use with a little cheapo amp that is currenlty powering my tower speakers (a 2-channel Pyle - don't judge me, I was out of boat money at the time ;-) ). I'm going to use one of the XC2410's bridged to power the tower speakers. Should I use the line level controller or just wire it to use the head unit fader?

 

[Hector]

Yes if you just want to be able to fade the interior or the tower its that simple.

As they mentioned and buy a bass knob (volume control) for the bazooka