Need help with speaker choice

[Wakeman22]

My sound system sounds great in the boat but the tower soeakers sound like dog##$$. What are people using and how can I get the to sound great while the are on? I have the kicker stock speskers. Any suggestions?

[jbort]

I have same speakers .....my personal view is these are mid grade speakers at best of kinda average quality but less than superior capability. I've blown mine out from excessive volume and planning to replace next yr w Wetsounds. Not sure there's much to do beside tweaking via head unit. Others will chime in with deeper experience.

[jbort]

BTW: welcome to the board. look for response by Chpthril-he's one of several pros on sound and ballast although its busy time of yr.

[chpthril]

I have same speakers .....my personal view is these are mid grade speakers at best of kinda average quality but less than superior capability. I've blown mine out from excessive volume and planning to replace next yr w Wetsounds. Not sure there's much to do beside tweaking via head unit. Others will chime in with deeper experience.

Yours are blown because the amp was set on full-pass, which means the speakers were receiving the full rang of notes. Those low bass notes really do not do well on a 6" speaker.

to the OP: From a quality of construction and sound quality (which is so personal and subjective) the Kicker KS series is a great speaker, but in the end, its a car based coax speaker. If tuned right, they sound great and can be loud. I had 4 on my tower and was driving them with 120W RMS from a Kicker ZX650.4 and sounded great surfing and could be heard surfing.

Now, the biggest thing is to decide what you want out of a tower speaker. Asking a speaker to perform out of its design characteristics is like asking Tiger Woods to be an NFL quarterback. He is a great athlete, but not a football player.

Wakeman, I would suggest maybe taking a look at how your system is tuned before condemning the the products as junk. The most expensive speaker will sound like dogchit if the amp is not set up correctly. Now, if they are blown like Jbots, then it is what it is and if they are blown due to an improperly tuned amp, then swapping the speakers will put you down the same path toward another set of blown speakers.

There are tons of options out there for you to choose from, depending on your budget and goals. If you wanted to keep the current cans, your choices are limited, but I think you could find something.

[Nobody]

Yours are blown because the amp was set on full-pass, which means the speakers were receiving the full rang of notes. Those low bass notes really do not do well on a 6" speaker.

to the OP: From a quality of construction and sound quality (which is so personal and subjective) the Kicker KS series is a great speaker, but in the end, its a car based coax speaker. If tuned right, they sound great and can be loud. I had 4 on my tower and was driving them with 120W RMS from a Kicker ZX650.4 and sounded great surfing and could be heard surfing.

Now, the biggest thing is to decide what you want out of a tower speaker. Asking a speaker to perform out of its design characteristics is like asking Tiger Woods to be an NFL quarterback. He is a great athlete, but not a football player.

Wakeman, I would suggest maybe taking a look at how your system is tuned before condemning the the products as junk. The most expensive speaker will sound like dogchit if the amp is not set up correctly. Now, if they are blown like Jbots, then it is what it is and if they are blown due to an improperly tuned amp, then swapping the speakers will put you down the same path toward another set of blown speakers.

There are tons of options out there for you to choose from, depending on your budget and goals. If you wanted to keep the current cans, your choices are limited, but I think you could find something.

Chap, lets make you Phil Mickelson and Tim - Tiger Woods in this equation. What should the amps be set at? On a Wetsounds amp you have Low and Full pass dip setting switch, then a adjustable pot 55 to 550hz setting, then freq range X1 or X10 dip setting switch. Whats the X1 and X10 all about? Where would you drive your in-boat speakers at? and where would you drive your tower speakers at (assuming Wetsounds Pro80 tower speakers and Wetsounds XS-650 in-boat speakers)?

[wetsounds1]

LOL.

Our amps will vary depending on model. But a SYN-2 and SYN-4 both have low-high-full.

so when used to power in boats or towers. You will want them on high pass. The base line is about 80Hz. Meaning that everything above 80 hz will go to the speakers. Everything below 80hz gets blocked off. When running a sub, you would use 80hz low pass meaning everything 80hz and below goes to the sub with all the highs being blocked. This is done so you do not have a small speaker trying to play sub bass and a subwoofer trying to play high freq.

But can go up from there depending on the install. (boat, speaker location, sub or subs, personal listening preference, ability of the speaker etc)

There are too many variables to have a single setting that works for all. But 80 HZ high pass is usually the start with most staying around the 100 to 125 hz. If you run the XS-650. They can take some serious power and play some low mid bass. So 80 hz works great for them. But if running a low grade car audio speaker, many times you will need to be at or above the 120 hz mark.

Same goes for tower speakers. The 80's can play full range but at the sacrifice of volume. Since you would be asking them to play sub bass. So 80hz is a good location for them as well.

Wakeman- Best advice is to figure out what you sound goals are and budget. we can help build something around that. If you goal is use current amps and add speakers to interior and current cans on the tower. Then that would be one way to go. Or if you want sound for the rider then you are looking at stepping up to dedicated towers like the PRO 60 or PRO 80. But the amps you have might not have enough power.

So let us know what amps you have now and what your goals are. Surfing music, sound for the rider, just some tunes for hanging out etc...

Then let me know where you are located at and I can see if we have a dealer near you. Or if you work with a local Tige dealer, you can go check out what they have in the 2011 Tige's. The will have 3 pairs of XS-650 in boats with a XS-10FA sub powered by a SYN-6 1000 watt amp. And on the tower could be one to two pairs of PRO 60's or PRO 80's or a combo etc..powered by a SYN-2 700 watt amp.

Tim
Wet Sounds

[SummerObsession]

Chap, lets make you Phil Mickelson and Tim - Tiger Woods in this equation.

Wow Tim with all your chasing of strippers and hookers I can't believe you actually had time to asnwer this post!!!

[wetsounds1]

Wow Tim with all your chasing of strippers and hookers I can't believe you actually had time to asnwer this post!!!

I'm a pretty good multi tasker! J/K

[Nobody]

LOL.

Our amps will vary depending on model. But a SYN-2 and SYN-4 both have low-high-full.

so when used to power in boats or towers. You will want them on high pass. The base line is about 80Hz. Meaning that everything above 80 hz will go to the speakers. Everything below 80hz gets blocked off. When running a sub, you would use 80hz low pass meaning everything 80hz and below goes to the sub with all the highs being blocked. This is done so you do not have a small speaker trying to play sub bass and a subwoofer trying to play high freq.

But can go up from there depending on the install. (boat, speaker location, sub or subs, personal listening preference, ability of the speaker etc)

There are too many variables to have a single setting that works for all. But 80 HZ high pass is usually the start with most staying around the 100 to 125 hz. If you run the XS-650. They can take some serious power and play some low mid bass. So 80 hz works great for them. But if running a low grade car audio speaker, many times you will need to be at or above the 120 hz mark.

Same goes for tower speakers. The 80's can play full range but at the sacrifice of volume. Since you would be asking them to play sub bass. So 80hz is a good location for them as well.

Wakeman- Best advice is to figure out what you sound goals are and budget. we can help build something around that. If you goal is use current amps and add speakers to interior and current cans on the tower. Then that would be one way to go. Or if you want sound for the rider then you are looking at stepping up to dedicated towers like the PRO 60 or PRO 80. But the amps you have might not have enough power.

So let us know what amps you have now and what your goals are. Surfing music, sound for the rider, just some tunes for hanging out etc...

Then let me know where you are located at and I can see if we have a dealer near you. Or if you work with a local Tige dealer, you can go check out what they have in the 2011 Tige's. The will have 3 pairs of XS-650 in boats with a XS-10FA sub powered by a SYN-6 1000 watt amp. And on the tower could be one to two pairs of PRO 60's or PRO 80's or a combo etc..powered by a SYN-2 700 watt amp.

Tim
Wet Sounds

Whats the X1 and X10 all about?

Would you push 175 watts each to XS-650??

[Wakeman22]

Thanks I knew I would get some helpful feedback. By what has been discussed I think I will first check out the amps and how they are set up. I guess I will tweek on them some more and see where I am at then. I am sure I will have more questions at that time. I am new too this type of set up and need to learn what it is all about. I will check to see where the cut offs are set and play with some of those settings. They did sound like they were being over driven. Kind of distorted and too much sound fffor them to handle it. Thanks Tim and ChpThril for the advise.

[wetsounds1]

X1 and X10 is "times 1" or "times 10" multipliers. It changes the Freq on the crossover.

So if you have it set at 80 Hz and the button on X1. It is 80 times 1 which is 80. So 80hz.

If the button is on x10 and 80hz is is 80 times 10 so 800 hz.

Very rarely would it be on x10. So x1 is what you will leave it on. (you would only use x10 if bi amping speakers to cross tweeters over much higher etc)

Tim
Wet Sounds

[Nobody]

X1 and X10 is "times 1" or "times 10" multipliers. It changes the Freq on the crossover.

So if you have it set at 80 Hz and the button on X1. It is 80 times 1 which is 80. So 80hz.

If the button is on x10 and 80hz is is 80 times 10 so 800 hz.

Very rarely would it be on x10. So x1 is what you will leave it on. (you would only use x10 if bi amping speakers to cross tweeters over much higher etc)

Tim
Wet Sounds

Tim, Thank you. And for the absolute BEST output quality of an in-boat XS-650 wetsounds speaker, what is your suggestion? I'm talking absolute BEST....100 watts, 125 watts, 150 watts, 175 watts, 200 watts???

[wetsounds1]

SYN-4 for 125 watts each

Tim
Wet Sounds

[chpthril]

Thanks I knew I would get some helpful feedback. By what has been discussed I think I will first check out the amps and how they are set up. I guess I will tweek on them some more and see where I am at then. I am sure I will have more questions at that time. I am new too this type of set up and need to learn what it is all about. I will check to see where the cut offs are set and play with some of those settings. They did sound like they were being over driven. Kind of distorted and too much sound fffor them to handle it. Thanks Tim and ChpThril for the advise.

Anytime, we're always here to help.

More then likely, if its the factory system, you will have a Kicker ZX350.4 4 channel amp. If you have a single pair of speakers, then they will be bridged (each speaker drawing power from 2 chnls). This will be delivering 175 watts of continuous power to each speaker. If tuned right, they will be loud and should sound good. If they have been tuned wrong, they could be damaged.

If you look in the passenger side mid-ship storage, you should see the amps you have. If you can post back the details of what your system consists of as far as amp model and number of tower speakers, we can get you the ballpark settings. Once things are set where they need to be, you can then properly evaluate the condition of the tower speakers.

[Wakeman22]

Thanks for the info and an offer to help tune the system. Right now the boat is in heated storage and not here at the house or lake place. I think I will get it out this weekend and will see what I have and will post again. I do believe what you are saying is probably correct as the previous owner told me he never messed with the amps or sound system much. Thanks for the help...