JakeC

On 7/15/2020 at 7:23 AM, Troy said:

Back in the day I installed an amp temporarily and had my wires coiled because the permanent install was farther away,  and I had noise. I uncoiled the wire and the noise went away.

Would it be an issue if my + and - wire as well as the speaker wires coming out of the amp are all zipped tied together? Should I try separating them so they don't run along each other?

22 hours ago, Wylie_Tunes said:

Have you checked voltage at all the audio components, and compared them?

I will do this today, also would it still be an amp issue if the audio only has this whine when the engine is on but sounds clean when its off?

1 hour ago, Troy said:

sounds like an amp issue.  If the amp + and - are ran directly to the battery (straight, no coils) and you unplugged the RCA's and the noise is still there, I would point at a bad amp.  

 

I was suspecting this might be the case but was really hoping it was some sort of ground loop or the fact that each amp is using different gauge wire that could cause something like this. Thanks for the response as always.

As the title states after recently installing a new amp and set of Wetsound tower speakers on my boat I have an engine whine while the engine on. I installed the speakers in my garage and couldn't of been happier with performance, however after getting onto the lake it quickly became apparent that there was a very noticeable engine noise in the new set of speakers. Some info about the setup and what I have tried so far. There are now two amps in the boat each of which are a different brand and draw different amounts of power, both amps + and - wires are attached to the same terminals on the second battery. The amp driving the onboard speakers does not have any engine noise. The new amp has a different gauge wire powering it since it required more power than the already wire amp. I tried disconnecting the RCA cables (which run from the head unit and then split right before the two amps) from the new amp but the noise still persists, only disconnecting the speaker wires running to the tower speakers makes the noise go away. This noise also shows up even with a minimal amount of gain set on the new amp. I am out of ideas on what could be causing this since the other amp does not have this problem.

39 minutes ago, Wylie_Tunes said:

At the least, I would separate the two batteries into a main cranking and house bank, with a dual bank battery switch. I would want a cranking on one side and deep-cycle on the other side. Then, depending on how much anchor play time you wanted, then you can calculate the need for additional battery amp hours.

Thanks for all the advice! I currently have a deep cycle and a cranking battery with a dual battery switch so I think I will start with my current battery setup and add another battery if needed down the road.

On 4/30/2020 at 7:52 AM, Wylie_Tunes said:

It definitely sounds like the amp is driving the tower pods on chnls 1 & 2 i.e. AMP-1. It then sounds like chnls 3 & 4 i.e. AMP-2 is power some in-boats but maybe not all. This leaves 1 or 2 pair still on the head unit. 

The best improvement you can do is to install a new (2nd) and dedicated to the tower speakers. Then, rewire the existing amp and in-boats so ALL in-boats are driven by the existing amp. 

based on the online specs, those speakers have a 3 ohm nominal impedance, you would be best to go with a 2 chnl amp. id want to be in the 150W to 200W rms @ 4 ohm range, which will = a little more to a 3 ohm speaker.  

This exactly what I was thinking of doing, thanks for the suggestions. I have two 12V batteries in my boat wired in parallel, with a second amp is there a need two expand the battery bank with an additional deep cycle battery?

On 4/5/2020 at 6:57 PM, Wylie_Tunes said:

Have you verified this, as it would be quite a feat for a single 4 channel amp to power a pair of tower speakers bridged, and then 3 pair of in-boats. id be willing to be the in-boats are wired to the head unit and the single 4 chnl is running the tower speakers. Easy to verify by disabling the amp, then any speakers left playing, are NOT powered by said amp. 

Id also suspect the amp is not setup and tuned correctly for bridge mode. An HLCD with 175 RMS should be more then audible at surf distance. 

Thanks for the advice! I finally had a chance to get back out to the boat today and did some experiments. Here is what I have found. The 2 tower speakers play off of AMP 1 and are wired two the two channels of amp 1. The interior speakers are wired to AMP 2 in bridged mode AND the head unit. I verified this by disconnecting amp 1 and both tower speakers stopped playing, however playing with the gain on AMP 2 I was definitely controlling the interior speaker. Next I disconnected AMP 2 and both the tower speaker and the interior speakers played however the interior speakers were much more quite. Is this a normal configuration to have for a sound system? I also spent a bunch of time playing with the gain and bass boost settings on the amp but was unable to really make it much loader when all the speakers were on and connected. Thoughts? 

I purchased a used Enzo SV240 at the beginning of last summer and couldn't be more happy with the wake I was able to achieve after upgrading many of the ballasts. The sound system on the boat is next up to be upgraded, currently the tower speakers can barely be heard when wakesurfing. After some inspection to the system I believe the issue is due to under sized amplifier for the number of speakers on board. Currently the boat has a Kicker MX350.4 channel amplifier which can put out 60 watts RMS x 4 or 175 watts RMS x 2. This amplifier is rigged such that the tower speakers (Skylon 8" pair https://www.the-house.com/wbskrub325utsp8zz-skylon-tower-sepakers.html) are operating in bridged mode while the in boat speakers (6 Skylon 6" in boat speaker)  are powered together in the four channel mode. I would like to get a better sound experience in my boat and I am thinking upgrading the amp is the perfect place to start. My question is should I simply try to find an amp big enough to power all these speakers or should I add an additional amp to power the tower speakers and then use this one to only power the onboard speakers. Thanks for the help!

Thanks for the help guys, I ended up purchasing the 2010 240 and couldn't be more happy. Already had it out for the Fourth of July and love everything about it.

As the title says I have the option to purchase one of the two boats, both have similar hours but the 2010 is 8k cheaper. My priorities are 1) wakesurfing 2) wakeboarding. Is there anything in the 2012 model that the 2010 wouldn't have? From my research it seems like they would have very similar wake.