www.iFourWinns.com

Guys, I have 4 speakers in my Hardtop/arch, and found that I have faulty wiring somewhere in the system to the R and L lower speakers. I picked up some speaker wiring diagrams, and was going to extend the wiring from the other 2 functioning speakers so all 4 work. The speakers (sony stock speakers) have 4 ohms impedence, so just wondering if I go up to 8 ohms (series) or down to 2 ohms (parallel) will make any difference. BTW...I have the stock kicker amp, and sony head units. All speaker appear to originate out of the kicker amp. Thanks for the input.
Bob

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2008 378 Vista
"Not 2 SHABI"
IPS 500 Volvo-Penta D6

Previously
'06 318 Vista
'97 258 Vista
'98 195 Sundowner
'87 180 Horizon

That question cant be safely answered with the information you provided. It depends on what impedence your amp can handle, how many channel amp you have, and how it is wired now.

IF, you have a 4 channel amp and you are using 1 channel per speaker and assuming your amp can handle 2 ohm impedence then yes you could wire the 2 left speakers in parallel (2 ohm) and the 2 right speakers in parallel with no loss of power. If you wire them in series you are not going to get the same power going to them.

Anyway, give some more details on your set up and we can provide a better answer

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Bridgewater, PA
2008 Vista 318

Party,
I would love...LOVE....to be able to answer that question. When we purchased the boat, I got no info on the KICKER amp that was installed. I do know that it is a different amp then what was installed into my 06 318V. I believe that I have a four channel amp, but no idea what the load per channel is. I guess I will have to try and remove it, which is going to be a PIA. I do know that I have 4 cabin speakers (2 in V Berth, 2 in main salon), I have 4 arch speakers, and one Sub woofer in the cockpit. So I can only assume it is a 4 channel or 8 channel amp. I guess I will have to search Kicker website for more info. Sorry about the lack of info...pretty frustrating for me too! LOL

_________________
2008 378 Vista
"Not 2 SHABI"
IPS 500 Volvo-Penta D6

Previously
'06 318 Vista
'97 258 Vista
'98 195 Sundowner
'87 180 Horizon

Bob,

I am just guessing but I'll bet your amp is only controlling the sub and 4 arch speakers, the 4 cabin are wired directly off the head unit.
If so, then it is probably already wired the way you are wanting to, meaning it is a 4 channel amp and they have Ch1 and CH2 bridged for the sub and Ch3 and Ch4 running the 4 component speakers in parallel.

My 318 came wired that way, but it is no longer

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Bridgewater, PA
2008 Vista 318

Bob,

Like this!

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Bridgewater, PA
2008 Vista 318

One thing to keep in mind is that your amp will draw more current if wired for lower impedance. Probably won't be as much of an issue since you are talking full range speakers but it can make quite the difference when talking about subs.

Thanks for the updates and advice, I will be headed down tomorrow and try to get a better look and try the re-wire. I think I am going to a series wiring, that will increase ohms, and decrease the power draw for the amp. I will let you know what I find out and what works!

_________________
2008 378 Vista
"Not 2 SHABI"
IPS 500 Volvo-Penta D6

Previously
'06 318 Vista
'97 258 Vista
'98 195 Sundowner
'87 180 Horizon

That's how they wire it in the 348 too. The 'front' speakers are down in the cabin, wired directly from the head unit. The arch and cockpit speakers are fed from an amp that's connected to the 'rear' pre-amp outputs from the head unit. This way you can use the front/rear fader to control to choose how much audio is going above/below. Like at night to keep from blaring music out the arch, or during nap time to let the kids sleep quietly down below.

One simple hack you can make is to run the audio out from the DVD player to the AUX input on the head unit. This lets us hear movies using the cabin speakers instead of just out the TV. One additional discovery was finding that the DVD player itself has an INPUT. This allows passing another signal into the circuit when the DVD player is turned off. I connected an iPod to this. So now I can play movies or the iPod using the boat's speakers. Worth looking into if you don't already have either the DVD or iPod connected to the speaker system.

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-Bill Kearney, 2005 348 Vista

I'm not familiar with the setup on your particular boat, but I'd wire them in parallel not series. Most of the newer amps are 2 ohm stable (all the aftermarket Kickers are) and with the amp (probably) filtering out the low bass, bringing them down to 2 ohms shouldn't be an issue. If you go the other way going to 8 ohms, the speakers aren't as efficient and you cut your amp output by half which you may not like the result of.

Just my 2 cents as always.

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2003 Funship 264
Volvo 8.1Gi DP
2007 Lincoln Navigator tow vehicle
Weekends on Lake Norman

Great suggestions gents...I will let you know how things turn out after next weekend. BTW, I already have the iPod hookups, but like the DVD connection into the head unit, but how did you access the rear of both units, for the life of me I can not figure out how to gain access to the backs of those!

_________________
2008 378 Vista
"Not 2 SHABI"
IPS 500 Volvo-Penta D6

Previously
'06 318 Vista
'97 258 Vista
'98 195 Sundowner
'87 180 Horizon

If you do wire them in parallel. You could add a 2 ohm resister in the 20 watt range or more(or 2 one ohm 10 watt resistors). This will bring the impedance back up.