Blown cabin speaker and 2 towers not working

[darkness05 8]

Hey guys ... does the HT6 amp come pre tuned from the factory or is that something that is usually done by the dealer? We have the standard 4 x Icon 8s installed with the 6 x WS cabins and the HT6 amp. I am coming from my Moomba that had 4 x Exile SXT9Q's powered by the Exile 30.2 amp and 6 x cabins/sub powered by the Exile Javelin amp.

 

The sound difference is quite substantial. My Exile setup was MUCH better.

 

I have heard that the WS gear is just as good if not better than the Exile yet thats not the case for me. Unfortunately already one cabin has blown and we really are not turning it up that loud. Both of the outside tower speakers are not working as well.

 

My audio tech experience is pretty minimal ... but do you guys usually have to tune this system to really get the best out of it? I am quite disappointed in the sound system so far.

[Wylie_Tunes 146]

Sadly, boat manufacturers nor boat dealer techs, know how to properly tune a system. The audio equipment manufacturers provide detailed installation instructions to the boat builders, but its rarely adhered to.

 

First off, its hard to compare a factory installed setup where the factory or dealer took the cheap route and powered 6 in-boats and 4 tower pods with a single 6 chnl amp, to your aftermarket custom setup that consisted of 6 in-boats and sub driven by a 5 chnl amp and 4 tower pods driven by a 2 chnl amp. Regardless of brand, id be disappointed to.

 

Step 1, you need to confirm that you have failed components and get replaced.

 

step 2 , you need to address any factory wiring deficiencies

 

Step 3 you need to add a Wet Sound Syn-DX2 for the 4 pair of Icon-8 tower speaker. This is comparable in wattage to the 30.2

 

Step 4 by doing step 3, you leave the HT-6 to drive the 6 in-boats. This as actually a net increase over the javelin.

 

Step 5 install a Wet sounds XS-12 in a proper enclosure driven by an HTX-2.

[darkness05 8]

Ok thanks for the info. I figured that I would have to an another amp ... just surprised that they sound as poor as they do as is.

 

As for the towers ... do you think they are blown? I would think they would just sound distorted if so? I know with absolute certainty the one cabin is ... but it would be quite painful to have to replace 2 x Icon 8s after a week with the boat. There was sound at one point in time coming from both.

[h20king 794]

If you have not adjusted the amp it should be covered under warranty. Do like Mike recommends. Get a amp for the towers and put each inboat on it's own channel on the ht6 I think you will be more than pleased. As for the sub turn it up some once you get it set up and decide form there if you need more.

[truekaotik 458]

Most builders have the first 4 channels full range, this will make the speakers easier to destroy with less power.. They do not come tuned unless the dealer decides to try.. I would take it to a reputable shop, have them diagnose, require that the damaged stuff be replaced under warranty from dealer. THEN have the professional marine audio shop properly tune your system.

[Wylie_Tunes 146]

darkness,

 

there are a few degrees of blown. You can blow a tweeter, blow a mid-bass driver, burn the cross-over. You can have a damaged voice coil all the way to a completely open voice coil. I do not know if those two tower speakers are blown or if there is some wiring or amp issue. Not enough info to even determine if that suspect in-boat is blown or if its a wire, RCA or amp issue.

 

So first address any failed components and get the system back to proper working order. Then, you can redesign the system so can perform to its full potential.

[darkness05 8]

If you have not adjusted the amp it should be covered under warranty. Do like Mike recommends. Get a amp for the towers and put each inboat on it's own channel on the ht6 I think you will be more than pleased. As for the sub turn it up some once you get it set up and decide form there if you need more.

Definitely didn't adjust the amp. I noticed right from the get go that it didn't like too much volume so I turned off the LOUD on the deck.

 

Already talking to my guy about the proper setup going forward ... pretty crazy they are running 10 speakers off that one amp.

 

@wylie - gonna have him look it over and see what we come up with then go from there. I already contacted the dealer so just waiting for a response as well.

[h20king 794]

Sadly, boat manufacturers nor boat dealer techs, know how to properly tune a system. The audio equipment manufacturers provide detailed installation instructions to the boat builders, but its rarely adhered to.

 

First off, its hard to compare a factory installed setup where the factory or dealer took the cheap route and powered 6 in-boats and 4 tower pods with a single 6 chnl amp, to your aftermarket custom setup that consisted of 6 in-boats and sub driven by a 5 chnl amp and 4 tower pods driven by a 2 chnl amp. Regardless of brand, id be disappointed to.

 

Step 1, you need to confirm that you have failed components and get replaced.

 

step 2 , you need to address any factory wiring deficiencies

 

Step 3 you need to add a Wet Sound Syn-DX2 for the 4 pair of Icon-8 tower speaker. This is comparable in wattage to the 30.2

 

Step 4 by doing step 3, you leave the HT-6 to drive the 6 in-boats. This as actually a net increase over the javelin.

 

Step 5 install a Wet sounds XS-12 in a proper enclosure driven by an HTX-2.

 

with the icons rated at 300 peak I would think an arc ks 600.2 or sd 2 would be a better choice for the towers. Speaker's are wired in parallel so a 2 ohm load the arc would be spot on at 600 x 2 at 2 ohms.

[Wylie_Tunes 146]

h20, with a proper tune and in the right hands, 300W RMS to a speaker with a 300W PEAK recommendation, is manageable. A paring like that has the amp with a continuous wattage rating matched to a speaker's PEAK thermal handling. All it take sis the wrong person to jam the volume dial while hollering "this was my song back in the day" and youve got blown speakers. For the dollar to wattage, the Syn-dx2 (or Arc KS300.2) is a perfect match. For about $600, you could go with dual Arc XDi450 and drive them @ 250W rms. Thats going to get you about all an 8" coax has to offer. They dont have the power handling as an 8" rev-8.

[h20king 794]

Was sort of what I thought for the I con specs .I thought they might be optimistic.I think you guys are spot on as far as putting the tower on its own amp. Dont have experience with the factory sub but it's the 500 watt 10''powered wetsounds unit. Do you think the icons will keep up with ws65i all on there own channel using the ht 6 ?? I was surprised just how much sound they put out and how good they sound on that amp.

[Wylie_Tunes 146]

 

 

Do you think the icons will keep up with ws65i all on there own channel using the ht 6 ??

Although I like to treat in-boat and tower as two distinct audio zones, and not worry about the peak volume of each compared to the other, we can break it down like this.

 

A larger speaker will naturally play louder than a smaller speaker, even when fed the same wattage. it will also play deeper. The Icon-8 has an effective cone area of about 133 in2. The 65i is about 86 in2 effective cone area. So the cumulative ECA of the two pair of icone-8 is 532 in2. The three pair of 65i is 516 in 2. So right there, we see that the 4 larger speakers will have an advantage over the 6 smaller speakers. We apply this same principal to sub woofers as well as when comparing 2 pair 8" tower speaker to a single pair of 10" tower speakers.

 

That was only calculating the mid-bass drivers. We can do the same comparison to the Icon's 1" tweeter to the 65i's .75. ECA x 4 would be 12 in2 for the icon and x 6 for the 65i would 10 in2. So again, the advantage goes to the larger driver, even though they are the few in numbers.

 

After all that, now theres that bathtub effect. The in-boats pick up an advantage being down in the boat compared to a tower pod that mounted high in the open environment. But, this advantage is only when the listening is being done in the seating area of the boat. Once you get up on the swim platform and out of the main cabin, that bathtub effect is not longer an advantage. This is where transom speakers come in to play for boats that do not have towers or radar arches for projecting sound to swimmers. Much more efficient to install rear firing speaker, than make the in-boats play louder and project out of the boat.

 

What this means is. When sitting in the boat, the 6 in-boats might seem louder and that the tower pods arent keeping up with them, even though on paper, the larger speaker clearly has the advantage. In reality, the high mounted tower pod's energy is focused back behind the boat while you as the occupant, is surrounded by 6 speakers. If you were to fire the 4 Icons directly down in to the boat, they would dominate.

[h20king 794]

Yeah I get all that and was talking about in the boat. My inboats almost dominate my revs when in the boat so was just wondering how the icons would do.

[Wylie_Tunes 146]

Last two paragraphs. Everything I talked about, was in the boat. You have 6 speakers surrounding you all bouncing off the inside of the boat. They will certainly sound louder as compared to speaker high on a tower, over head, firing horizontally. Now, crank the towers all the way up and stand up on the sun pad and face the speakers and see if you can still hear the in-boats. Its more of a mater of perspective. In the boat, you get the in-boats, out of the boat, you get the towers.

[h20king 794]

I get all that I just prefer a blend where you can still hear the towers some when in the boat. So back to the question do you think the icons will blend when in the boat or be over run buy the inboats?? The 65I speakers have tons of output on the ht6 with 100 watts rms to each.

[h20king 794]

When I tune I overlap some so all components and zones blend and work together

[Wylie_Tunes 146]

The only blending that need to be done, is with the woofer and the in-boats. Beyond that, tune the tower setup to its full potential as an independent zone. Dialing the larger tower speaker back so they blend or balance with the in-boats, leave output on the table. Or, you could be over driving the towers, trying to get them to balance with in-boats when they are directionally and positionally challenged being on the tower. Just my opinion.

 

If you tuned each zone to its potential and sat in the main cabin, i think you will find that the in-boats are dominate. if you stand on the sun deck, the tower are dominate. So it depends on where your point of reference is. Either way, you are either dialing back one zone or over driving the other. Somewhere there is a compromise, where there shouldnt be.

[h20king 794]

Should have been more specific tower's are not tuned down frequency overlaps some.

[h20king 794]

Revs are 70 htz inboats are at 85 and sub is at 100

[h20king 794]

Just asking because I have never heard properly powered and tuned icons and will be buying a new boat in 18

[Wylie_Tunes 146]

Nothing wrong with the frequency of the tower zone and the in-boat zone full range over lapping. However, I would not tune them with that objective in mind. Tower speakers we typically want and need to project more. So a higher cross-over will be desired compared to an in-boat of the same size and type. In other case, we may have tower pods much larger than our in-boats, In this case, we may be able to get deeper mid-bass out of them with a lower cross-over, without compromising power handling. With in-boats paired with a woofer, we dont need the small in-boats to dig deep at all. Let the woofer that work. A higher cross-over can lighten the load on the amp and gain some peak output from those in-boat coaxials.