Stereo Wiring Wetsounds

[Chill0987]

Ok, so I have a very unique set-up and situation. I have toyed with several different ideas, but I thought I would get some opinions on which option seems the most feasable/reliable.

I have a 2003 Tige 24i riders edition (the one with the really small access port due to i drive). I have run this system several different ways before, but I continue to have overheating/space problems with each install.

My tower consists of 6 speaker cans. I am thinking about running wetsounds xs-650-b in the cans (I know pro 80 would be better, but they are not really an option here). I am also looking to run 4 wetsounds xs-650-b in boat. Finally, I have an audiobahn flame-q 12 inch woofer that is installed under the drivers side kick panel with a custom enclosure that I buld behind it.

I have 3 kicker 1000 watt 4 channel amps for the speakers and 1 1100 watt audiobahn amp for the woofer. I am trying to tone that down to 2 kicker amps and 1 audiobahn amp.

The wetsounds speakers are 4 ohms, so it makes it very difficult to figure out how to run the tower speakers without running such a low impedance that I overheat the amps. I have thought of running 2 in series and one in parallel with those 2 in series (2.66 ohms). I have also thought of three in seires and bridged down at the amp (2 ohms).

For the inboats, they would just run on thier own amp (4 ohms each). I have tried the 2.66 ohm setup in the past and dealt with overheating. I have built an amp rack for the 4 amp setup, but it just gets too tight and too hot in the hull. Any suggestions on how to handle this situation. I know I could take 2 speakers off the tower and make this so much easier, but who wants to do that

Sorry for the essay, I tried to include all of the information with as little rambling as possible. Thanks in advance for your help/ideas!

[chpthril]

Need more info, what kicker amps are they? model ???

My tower consists of 6 speaker cans. I am thinking about running wetsounds xs-650-b in the cans (I know pro 80 would be better, but they are not really an option here). I am also looking to run 4 wetsounds xs-650-b in boat. Finally, I have an audiobahn flame-q 12 inch woofer that is installed under the drivers side kick panel with a custom enclosure that I buld behind it.

First off, tower: Here is another option for you. I'm reading that you have a tower enclosure with six 6.5 openings, right? Have you looked at the new Kicker KM65000.2 HLCD system? With the added pair of KM65000 mids, you get a "6-Pack" that will be 2 ohm and can be run on a 2 chnl amp, or at 4 Ohm and run on a 4 chnl amp.

The wetsounds speakers are 4 ohms, so it makes it very difficult to figure out how to run the tower speakers without running such a low impedance that I overheat the amps. I have thought of running 2 in series and one in parallel with those 2 in series (2.66 ohms). I have also thought of three in seires and bridged down at the amp (2 ohms).

For the inboats, they would just run on thier own amp (4 ohms each). I have tried the 2.66 ohm setup in the past and dealt with overheating. I have built an amp rack for the 4 amp setup, but it just gets too tight and too hot in the hull. Any suggestions on how to handle this situation. I know I could take 2 speakers off the tower and make this so much easier, but who wants to do that

I need to look up the specs of the sub and sub amp, but it may be possible to get you down to 2 amps.....3 at the most. The proper 2 chnl will run 6 4 ohm speakers at 2.66 ohms all day long and there are some great hybrid amps out there that will power 4-6 in-boats and a sub.

[Chill0987]

Ok, the amps are the kicker zx850.4. I checked out that 6500.2...looks very nice. I have several concerns which I would like to address. First, if I added that package, how would that sounds in boat. I know they are meant for the rider, but, they will project in boat as well, so that is some concern. Second, can I run zx850.4 bridged down to 2 channels at 2 ohms? And how is the total impedance 2 ohms when running 3 speakers? It seems impossible by every calculation I come up with.

Secondly. My amps are having the most issue when I am parked and am jamming at close to max volume for 2 hours or so. I check my battery setup voltage and they never drop below 12v, so I know it's not a voltage cutout. I also know it is overheating because they heat up, cool back down turn on again...etc.

The amps are mounted in a very unique manner as there is only one mounting wall in that tiny hull. I have built an amp rack that gives each amp about 2 1/2 inches of breathing room between one another. In the peak of summer with three amps jamming out, the hull gets to about 120-125 degrees. While this sounds hot, I am not assuming the amps should cut out at that heat. Thank you in advance for your response!

-Jeremy Bates

[philwsailz]

Chill-

Your concern about near-field sound of a horn is understood, but probably not necessary with the KM6500.2's. We spent countless hours with the design of the horn flare of this set specifically to avoid the near-field problems that are typically associated with horns and horn drivers. The horn's tractrix geometry provides a very smooth response without resonant peaks, both up close and far away. This is not a subjective opinion either, the response is measurable.

Mikes recommendation is a good one; I am even going to be building home theater and studio monitors using the KM6500.2 as the drivers for them. If you have 6 cans, and the power to run them, you should figure out a way to get a chance to listen to a set. Where are you located?




Phil
Kicker

[Chill0987]

Thanks for the reply, I am located in Houston, Tx.

[philwsailz]

Hmmm... We have not shipped tons out yet. I do not know if we have anyoe near you where you could go listen.

I should add, regardless your choice, Kicker per Mike's suggestion or Wetsounds, you are going to be well taken care of. Tim at Wetsounds and I despite competing against each other in this market are pretty good friends, and I can tell you I know his stuff is solid and won't break. I feel kinda funny even with my reply above, as your original post was asking about Wetsounds. I don't reply to dissuade you from any decision, just to try to fogirue out a way to listen to anything you are considering so you can form an opinion based on what you hear, and how you think things sound.

Let me do some digging and see if I can locate a dealer where you can check a set out.

Phil
Kicker

[chpthril]

Ok, i'm not familiar at all with the Audiobahn stuff, so I had to look up the specs. You are definitely going to need to run the mono amp to keep the Sub hitting like it is. Now we just need to figure out how to whittle down the rest of the system without sacrificing power that results in an audible decrease in volume.

Are you running any cooling fans right now? If not, may be worth adding a couple regardless of what you end up doing. I guess it's hot in TX, so some added cooling wouldnt hurt

All right, lets chew on the rest of the system.

[Chill0987]

I wrote about a year ago about the time I tried adding cooling fans to the amp rack. I followed all of your reccomendations about proper grounding and using relays, etc to make them go on and off with the stereo. I was still having a killer hum from the speakers, so I decided to scrap the cooling fans.

How about the current amp set-up. Can I run 1 zx850.4 to the towers and 1 zx850.4 to the inboats? If so, how could I go about getting each 3 pack (assuming I went with that kicker 6500 set up) to 2 ohms? Finally, can my amps be bridged down to 2 ohms per 2 channels and run without overheating?

Thanks again for all of the help!

[philwsailz]

Lots of questions in here...

First, you cannot run an 850.4 bridged into a pair of 2-ohms loads. That shows a 1-ohm load per each amp channel; way too low.

With an 850.4 and the KM6500's and KM6500.2's on the tower, you would want to run 4 sets of wires up into the tower. You would take the KM6500.2's (one mid and one horn per side) and wire them to half of the amp, on AMP1 for example. Then take the extra KM6500 mids and run them on the other half of the amp. In that configuration, each channel of the amp is operating into a 4-ohm load and it will run much cooler than if it were trying to drive 2-ohm loads. You will deliver 175 watts out of each amp channel, giving you a 700-watt tower system.


As for heat and shutting down, 2-hours with two amps side by side in an enclosed space might be reasonable, especially if you are jamming really hard. If you wire at 4-ohms per channel, you are going to be better than if you are at 2-ohms per channel.

One thing to consider is that you MUST have the proper power wire going to these big amps. Trust me, I have seen it way too many times... When someone tries to cheat and use smaller wire than is spec'd in the owners manual the amps shut down much more regularly than if they were wired properly. I worked for a year with a boat builder who thought he had all his measurements and math and testing that told him he could use 6 ga wire on his amp install rather than the 4 ga I told him. H ekept complaining about amps shutting down, and kept telling me not to blame his wiring. Then one day he put in what I told him to, and the amps quit shtting down.... If you are not using 2 ga wire for each ZX850.4 but instead are using smaller wire you will overheat.


I know this is not answering evey question, but I do not want to write a book, so let us know what else you want to know about the application!


Take pics too; I LOVE seeing cool installs!

Phil
Kicker

[chpthril]

I wrote about a year ago about the time I tried adding cooling fans to the amp rack. I followed all of your reccomendations about proper grounding and using relays, etc to make them go on and off with the stereo. I was still having a killer hum from the speakers, so I decided to scrap the cooling fans.

How about the current amp set-up. Can I run 1 zx850.4 to the towers and 1 zx850.4 to the inboats? If so, how could I go about getting each 3 pack (assuming I went with that kicker 6500 set up) to 2 ohms? Finally, can my amps be bridged down to 2 ohms per 2 channels and run without overheating?

Thanks again for all of the help!

Ok, here are a couple of viable 2 and 3 amp setups;

2 amp setup:

Existing Audiobahn mono powering the amp......check!

Wet Sounds Syn6 power cabin and tower. Wire the 4 in-boats on chnls 1-4 at 4 Ohm and then wire the 6 towers on chnls 5 and 6. If you go with the 6 xs-650's, then wire them series/parallel, so that would be 2.66 Ohms on each chnl. This should net you close to 100 watts to each driver. Or roll with the Kicker KM6500.2 6-pack. They would 2 Ohm per chnl for 300 watts per side.

3 amp setup

One zx850.4 power the 4 in-boats = 175 watts to each @ 4 ohm

one zx850.4 for tower = running the KM6500.2's as Phil described above or the XS650's with one pair on chnls 1 and 2, next pair in parallel on chnl 3, last pair wired parallel on chnl 4.

Audiobahn on the sub.

[Chill0987]

Lots of questions in here...

With an 850.4 and the KM6500's and KM6500.2's on the tower, you would want to run 4 sets of wires up into the tower. You would take the KM6500.2's (one mid and one horn per side) and wire them to half of the amp, on AMP1 for example. Then take the extra KM6500 mids and run them on the other half of the amp. In that configuration, each channel of the amp is operating into a 4-ohm load and it will run much cooler than if it were trying to drive 2-ohm loads. You will deliver 175 watts out of each amp channel, giving you a 700-watt tower system.

How is it possible that the one mid/horn per side is running at 4 ohms on one half of the amp? Are you saying run the mid/horn in series and them bridge them down at the amp? That would make sense as that would be an 8 ohm load coming into the amp, then bridged to a 4 ohm load. I am assuming the other 2 wires up the tower would then be for the extra mids.

Wouldn't that give the extra mid's more effective power than each of the other 4 speakers? Would that mean I would just have to turn the gain down on that side?

As for the power cable, that is very interesting to hear, I have never heard this before. I am running a 0 ga wire from my batteries to a circut breaker, then running 4ga wires to the amps. I will try upgrading this to 2 ga wires to the amps. Thanks!

I will post pictures when I get out to the lakehouse, just trying to get everything together before I get out there, as it is very hard to handle all of this once I am already out there. Thanks again!

-Jeremy Bates

[chpthril]

How is it possible that the one mid/horn per side is running at 4 ohms on one half of the amp?

You would have 2 mids and 2 horns on half the amp. 1 mid and 1 horn wired parallel on chnl-1, the other mid and horn wired parallel on chnl-2, then the extra set of mids will be on chnls 3 and 4.

[philwsailz]

How is it possible that the one mid/horn per side is running at 4 ohms on one half of the amp? Are you saying run the mid/horn in series and them bridge them down at the amp? That would make sense as that would be an 8 ohm load coming into the amp, then bridged to a 4 ohm load. I am assuming the other 2 wires up the tower would then be for the extra mids.

Wouldn't that give the extra mid's more effective power than each of the other 4 speakers? Would that mean I would just have to turn the gain down on that side?

As for the power cable, that is very interesting to hear, I have never heard this before. I am running a 0 ga wire from my batteries to a circut breaker, then running 4ga wires to the amps. I will try upgrading this to 2 ga wires to the amps. Thanks!

I will post pictures when I get out to the lakehouse, just trying to get everything together before I get out there, as it is very hard to handle all of this once I am already out there. Thanks again!

-Jeremy Bates

Jeremy-

The Km65000.2 mid and horn combo is 4-ohms per side when wired up properly. You have a 4 channel amp, so the KM6500.2 left side goes to a channel, and the KM6500.2 right side goes to another channel, both on AMP1 for example. Then when you add the extra KM6500 mids, you will put them on 1 channel each on AMP2.

Wired this way, you are not bridging anything, and you are showing 4-ohms to each of the 4 amplifier channnels. This will deliver solid power, but will the amp will be a lot more comfortable than it would if you were running 2-ohms all around or bridging.


The crossover section on the KM6500.2 allows the horn and mid to be wired to the amp in parallel while maintaining a 4-ohm load, FYI.

Good luck, and let us know

Phil
Kicker

[Chill0987]

Phil-

Ah ok...the genius of the crossover is where I was lacking knowledge! Ok, sounds good, where can I find the k6500.2 + KM6500x2 setup at the cheapest price? Once again thanks again in advance for all of your help!

-Jeremy

[philwsailz]

Mike is an authorized retailer... PM him