www.iFourWinns.com

This forum seems to be infatuated with stereo upgrades. There should probably be a section just dedicated to stereo upgrades and questions. I too have caught the bug. I haven’t even taken delivery of the boat yet, but have taken delivery of 4 JL 650 CCX speakers and a JL m4500 amp. And soon (after the factory restarts production) will get replacement transom storage door covers with integrated speaker mounts.

Since transom speakers were a priority for us I will not be adding a sub at this time. My current plan is to install the amp and replace the stock speakers with the JLs. That in itself should be a marked improvement. When the transom doors arrive, I will place two of the stock speakers in there for now. These will be powered by the stock Sony head unit. My thinking is that the JL speakers will be better to overcome the wind and motor noise while under way and the transom speakers will only be needed while at anchor.

So with this set up. How will I control the fader? I have never used a separate amp before. How do you control the front/ rear volume? With my planned set up(assuming correct installation) will I be able fade the transom speakers all the way off? Although, I can’t think of situation that I would do it, could I turn the volume all of the way off to the front four speakers after the installation of the amp?

If this was your boat, and without the purchase of any more equipment, how would you set up the speakers? In the future, I foresee the purchase of another 4 channel amp to power the 2 unamplified speakers and a sub.

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2008 Horizon 260 VP 8.1 Gi

You may run into some issues with fading in general with this approach.

Off your deck, you would want to run 2 sets of RCA's (one front, one rear) to the amp. Then you would have fade control between your bow and cockpit speakers.

If you run the transon speakers off deck power, your fade control is hooked to the fade of your bow/cockpit speakers.

I would suggest keeping the bow fade control - as the bow speakers can be very overpowering for anyone sitting up there (I know first hand from my H240.)

The hard part with running another 4 channel down the road to power the sub & transom speakers is then how do you manage the outputs and fading. Your Sony deck has a 2rd pre out - sub out - but I'm not sure if you can run 'full range' through it? (Anyone know?)

If it were me...

I'd try to run a 6channel amp (like a 6600). Wire that one up as you normally would.
Then, I would use a separate 2 channel that has a 'knob' control to run your transom speakers. Your RCA input for that would either be the sub out if you can run full range through it - or Y harness off the rear RCA.

That way, you have a 6 channel for your 'core' stereo experience. And a 2 channel for the transom experience.

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2008 318 Vista -SOLD, but I am still around!
All Night Long, Seattle WA

I have to admit, I'm kinda stumped on this one. Its been a long busy day.

I'm not sure you can use a fader control for the transom speakers with the setup you are proposing like Cougar said. Are you even sure you can use the line outs from the deck to the transom speakers if you use all four channels with RCA's to the amp? Don't you have to have a headunit that is more than 4 channels or am I mistaken?

I don't think you can use the sub preamp output like Cougar asked because I don't think they are full range. It is a dedicated sub pre amp and so the frequency won't be right for cockpit speakers.

If you decide to run in parallel or something like that you need to read up on Ohm's law!

Easiest thing to do would be to get the 6 channel amp for all of your speakers and deal with a sub and amp later . . .

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Former owner of:
1996 Four Winns Horizon 200 5.8L VP
2006 Four Winns Horizon 260 8.1L VP
2007 Sea Ray 290 Sundancer

Current boat
2004 Sea Ray 290 Sun Sport Twin 350 Mags

You can just run the front pre-outs (RCAs) from the deck to the amp. Split them so all 4 channels of the amp are fed by these. Then hook the transom speakers directly to the rear speaker outputs from the deck. This will allow you to fade the in-boat speakers vs. the transom speakers.

You will need to adjust the amp gains front and rear to get the comfortable mix when you have the sound faded to the "front".


Viola!

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H210SS 6.2
F150 Platinum

Brent's post is great also - but I don't think it gives you quick control of the bow speakers. That may or may not be a priority for you.

It was for me.

I found that when I had nobody up front and the windshield closed, I wanted that sound up front so I could hear better while driving the boat. But when people were up there, I needed an easy way to turn the bow speakers down or the passengers up there got blasted (again, may be a good thing or bad thing).

There's lots of ways to solve the problem.

I wonder who could create an 7 or 8 channel amp so I can run 6 speakers and a sub off one amp... invidual gain controls for front/mid/rear.. That would be SWEET!

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2008 318 Vista -SOLD, but I am still around!
All Night Long, Seattle WA

Ok first off I was afraid somebody would say I needed a 6 channel amp Because after I thought more about it I unfortunately came up with that thought too. That why I said with the equipment I have already

Any way this is the link to the stereo installation guide. http://www.xplodsony.com/files/manuals/CDX-H905IP_Install_Manual.pdf. Although it doesn't make it clear if the second output is full range or not.

I am not committed to amplifying the bow speakers either. One other option would be to amplify the cockpit and transom and install a switch to just shut off the transom when not needed. Any thoughts on that?

And if I understand what Brent is saying... I could split the outs from the deck to get the desired combination of fading down the road. Right?

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2008 Horizon 260 VP 8.1 Gi

If you put a switch on the remote amp power wire (blue/white), you could easily power down the amp, leaving the speakers powered by the head unit on.


Your head unit appears to only offer front & rear pre-outs, that is there are no 'non-fade' pre-outs. So Brent suggests using the REAR/SUB pre-out to the amp to control sub and speakers in the cockpit, allowing fading to bow or cockpit. You'd use gain controls on respective channels going to speakers and sub, to provide sound level adjustments between amplified and non amplified speakers.

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2007 Horizon 200
4.3L GXi/ SX 225 HP

This is something that is commonly done on wakeboard boats, only tower cans are the location for those extra speakers rather than the transom. Same concept, though. In those setups, I've most commonly seen people use a separate amp for the tower speakers and sub, wiring the tower speakers and the sub on a 2, 3 or 4 channel amp (with two channels bridged together if it is 3 or 4 channel). So, I think that the best way to do what you're trying to do would be to attack it in 2 stages:

Stage 1
Wire up your your current 4 channel amp using only 1 pair of the RCA inputs and then wire the rear speakers and the transom speakers into the amp's 4 speaker outputs. Leave the bow speakers unamplified for the time being. As stated above, the bow speakers are a bit much for people riding up there anyway so there is no need to amp them right now. Under this setup, you should be able to fade all of the sound from bow to cockpit when desired using the head unit fader controls so that you can put all sound in the cockpit and transom speakers when anchored. Of course, this will require the cockpit speakers to be run at the same volume as the transom speakers so get a volume control knob and hook it into the cockpit speakers (if you want to get really crazy, put a control knob on each set so you can control them independently). You're going to need the volume control knob for Stage 2 anyway, so it won't be a useless part.

Stage 2*
Re-configure the current 4-channel amp so both pairs of RCA's are used. Amplify the bow speakers with 2 channles, and the cockpit speakers with the other 2, running each from the amp's speaker leads. Connect a second 2, 3, or 4 channel amp with RCA's from the current 4-channel amp's RCA pre-outs. Connect your transom speakers and subwoofer to this amp's speaker leads-as determined by the type of amp you install (2/3/4 ch). Use the volume control knob for control of the transom speaker volume and use the second amp's bass remote control knob to control the subwoofer as desired. This will allow you fader control over the amplified bow and cockpit speakers, as well as independent control of the transom speakers and subwoofer amplified by the second amp.

*Alternate setup if you determine that you don't want to ever amplify the bow speakers: Leave things as they are in Step 1. Get a mono amp with a bass remote control knob and send it straight to the subwoofer.

If someone disagrees with me as to whether this would work, please feel free to correct me.

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Paul
2007 Four Winns Horizon 220
Mercruiser 350 Mag MPI w/ Bravo III Drive
2004 Ford Explorer Limited (V8-AWD)
Pomme de Terre Lake (Southwest Missouri)

I read Jim's post after posting mine, and obviously Step 2 would have to be a little different if you do not have a 3rd set of pre-outs for non-fade/sub. You would need to run a set of pre-outs from the current 4-channel amp to the second amp in order to get that setup correct and utilize both amps' built-in crossovers. You would want to set the current amp's channels for full range and then control the second amp's channels so that one channel/set of channels is full range (for the transom speakers) and the other channel/bridged channels are set for low range (for the sub).

Clear as mud?

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Paul
2007 Four Winns Horizon 220
Mercruiser 350 Mag MPI w/ Bravo III Drive
2004 Ford Explorer Limited (V8-AWD)
Pomme de Terre Lake (Southwest Missouri)

Pet I like that plan. Thanks. Do you know where or how in the system the volume control would go? I haven't looked into this yet. I just brought her home for the season yesterday so doing some other things. I think that I would only put the extra volume control on the transom speakers that way I can turn those "off" if so desired. But so far I like your plan the best. And yeah it is clear as mud , but I am sure once I get into the install it will all make sense.

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2008 Horizon 260 VP 8.1 Gi

You should be able to put the volume control knob on the speaker wire running to the appropriate speakers. Again, though, I'll take correction from someone else if I'm wrong on that.

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Paul
2007 Four Winns Horizon 220
Mercruiser 350 Mag MPI w/ Bravo III Drive
2004 Ford Explorer Limited (V8-AWD)
Pomme de Terre Lake (Southwest Missouri)

There are days I believe I am reasonably intelligent and then there are days I read threads like this one and realize I am not.



I am so smrt, s-m-r-t.

Doh!

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2008 H210SS Yellow VP 5.7 GXi 320 HP (sold May 2010)
2008 Mercedes ML 320 CDI Diesel