www.iFourWinns.com

Dave - get some pictures up man! You just sign up with a photo hosting site (like photobucket). Then, you can copy the link directly and paste it in your reply - or can use the IMG button and copy/paste the direct link in there. Super easy.

I'd love to hear about what you've done with your boat -- any issues you have run into -- or general good/bad/ugly advice.

Our boat has the cockpit tv already on it -- I'm not expecting a high quality unit, but hopefully it's at least HDTV ready come February.

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

Florida Dave,

Regarding your cockpit TV you installed, did you buy the one FW installs or an aftermarket.
Just curious as to the TV type and mount you got and where you got this stuff and what it cost

Thanks,

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Bridgewater, PA
2008 Vista 318

The 318 is a beautiful boat. I need to replace the LCD in our 288. What brand did you purchase?

Steve

The cockpit TV was ordered from Costco online, 19" HD 1080i,120 volt, paid $220.00, I went that way because if it gets salt spray it is disposable if it dies. It mounts above the entainment center, the bracket was purchased at Bestbuy. The wiring was a little tough to get 120 on the arch collum along with the cable connection and AV jacks from the DVD player in the cabin. We run the gen set so if we are on the hook all is well if we are at a marinia the shore power and cable hookups work great. The installation came out clean and neat. All said and done I have about $500 in the whole deal.

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2008 318 Vista "Ka-wai-ola"
350 MPI/BravoIII DTS Seacore
2006 1500 Key West -70 Yamaha
Previous Boats
Key West 2300CC
Pacemaker 270 Sport Fish
290 Sea Ray

Question for the 318 owners...

The 2008 and newer boats have 2 separate stereos - one inside and one outside. This is a great setup for me and give me some new toys to play with come spring.

Question though - Where are the speakers in the cabin of the 318? I believe there are a pair towards the bow/bed area. Is that it? Did Four Winns really put a totally different stereo in for just 2 speakers?

As for the cockpit area... That's where we'll have some fun. I'm thinking 3 pairs of JL's and at least 1, if not 2 10'' subs.

Anyone mess around with the stereos?

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

We have 4 speakers in the cabin. Two in the bedroom and two in the cabin. We have the separate stateroom in ours. We do not have the two separate stereos in ours. We only have the one. But in the cockpit. We have the stereo up grade. We have 4 speakers, 4 Tweeter's. And 1 sub under the back seat. And the stereo sounds great in the cockpit. It is one of the better sounding stereos on the lake.

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348 Vista ( Last Call )
Raystown PA

Cattailspa - where are the speakers located in the main cabin?

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

Cougar - In the V358 (or Cattailspa's 348) the speakers are located above the settee as you see here...


Looking at the shots of the V318 interior, they don't appear to be in the same space. For even more excitement about the two head unit configuration, read through some of our posts in the V358 thread. Unfortunately, you need two Sirius subscriptions to be able to listen down below and up top which is not a problem for the first six months with the complimentary subs, but beyond that, you have to decide if it's worth the added $7/month for an additional sub. One of my winter projects is taking a closer look at the feasibility of bridging the two units. The way I want to do it is complicated by the cockpit subwoofer which uses the switchable output on the head unit.

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Previously:
2008 V358/Volvo 5.7 GXi Inboards

maybe you guys already discussed this in the 358 thread but can't you piggyback one of the head-units using an aux out signal? I guess the factory head-units may not have available RCA inputs/outputs and in that case I'd swap them out for aftermarket head units. One of the first things I always do in the boats and vehicles. IIRC they are factory sony's - has anyone pulled them to see what ins/outs they have?

There are four speakers in the 348/358 cabin. On the 348 they're tied to the front channel of the single clarion head unit. The rear is fed to an amp and then up to the arch speakers in the cockpit.

Having two radios seems like a dumb idea, especially if it requires two sat radio subscriptions. I'd rather keep one unit and use some sort of switcher instead.

We loop our iPod input through the DVD player which is, in turn, connected to the AUX input of the head unit. When we play a movie it automatically cuts off the pass-through audio of the iPod. The rest of the time it passes it through to the head unit. It works nicely. But, truth be told, we really don't bother using the iPod at all. Sat radio has more than enough material. That and I like the added benefit of having someone else "surprise me" with their playlist assortment. I've got well over 4k tracks of music but still prefer someone else doing the job as DJ, go figure.

Oh, and the CD changer? NEVER USE IT. I should just yank it out to regain the shelf space.

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-Bill Kearney, 2005 348 Vista

This has essentially been my plan. In a perfect world I would want to take the line-out signal from the cockpit unit into the aux-in of the cabin unit. The reason for this approach is to maintain control of the Sirius tuner from the cockpit and transom remotes. There is a remote aux-in in the cockpit so I wouldn't be losing that. The problem with these head units is that you can have line-out OR variable out to the subwoofer, which the cockpit has. I don't want to get involved with swapping head units because of, among other reasons, the proprietary remotes. I would sooner suck it up and spend the $42 for the half-year extra subscription, certainly negligible in the grand scheme of things, but it just feels like a silly expense. I will say the sound in the cockpit is impressive, particularly if you take the time to calibrate the head units.

I've always appreciated what FW tried to do with the two head unit approach, but it misses the mark with practicality. I do like having "two zones" but anyone who has worked with dual Sirius tuners knows you also have to take a moment to match up the channels so there is no delay if you're trying to listen to the same channel on both as there is a bit of buffering when it locks in a signal. There is certainly no need for two CD players (there's one in each unit) and a ten disc changer.

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Previously:
2008 V358/Volvo 5.7 GXi Inboards

they still make cd changers? ha ha ha ha. I don't think our 318 has a changer on it (wasn't in the options list) - but we shall see.

I see the fundamental issues with needing to satellite subscriptions for one boat! it does seem a little crazy.

However - I am a fan of the 2 head unit design on the new Vista's. I REALLY wanted the ability to have totally different sources going inside than what was going on outside. More than 2 zones, it really is separate systems.

The sony units have 2 sets of pre-amp outputs on each unit. You could feed the pre-amps from one unit to the auxilary input of the other unit (although, you would use the mp3 input on whatever unit you feed the output to).

Of course, you could also get some sort of RCA switcher.

I'm not sure how the dvd player comes into play in this archiecture though - there may already be a switcher, or The DVD player just feeds the tv speakers.

I'm kind of liking the idea of a central media switcher... something that I could plug in the dvd player, mp3 inputs, rig up something for the satellite radio, etc.

I just wish someone could tell me if Four Winns stuck me with 2 speakers in the cabin of the 318 - or if there are 4 (and where the other 2 are).

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

Our 318 has two speakers above the port settee also, as well as the two in the Vbearth area. Two more up on the radar arch and the sub-woofer tucked into the starboard side seat in the rear cockpit...it is one total unit...controllers in the cabin, at the helm, and on the swim platform....I can turn off the amp to the cockpit, which leaves it on in the cabin.

We have plugged an FM transmitter into the audio out jack on the front of the TV and used the two mid cabin speakers as a makeshift surround sound...and yes, way back in 2006 they still included a CD Disk Changer....

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Joe B.
Ruff'N It 4
2011 Regal 42 SC

Previous
2008 FW V358
2006 FW V318
2004 FW V288

Hey Joe - you don't by chance have pictures of the speakers above the settee?

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

Here is the settee area on the 318. I didn't initially see any speakers tucked anywhere firing down.

Joe -- can you point out where they are? Is this the same settee layout as you have?

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