Upgrading to REV 8s on new boat (too much?)
 

I have never had speakers before and am putting rev 8s on my Supra. I dont really want to blow the lake out the water but want it to be loud and clear for the rider. How loud do they get in the boat? Does it make hearing eachother in the boat impossible? Just curious as to what im in for

Scaleable. Not "too much".. You'll enjoy.. As loud as you want them but not overly loud when you're tuning it down.

Would be nice to have a way to control them independently from your in-boats.

BTW - pics of the new Supra here and OG

This may sound strange, but if you go with a pair of Rev 10s you wont need to turn the boat speakers on. When we are surfing, I hardly have the in boats playing The Rev 10s have a great all around sound.

Jeff W I went big this year upgrading my equipment. New boat (new to me) new board etc. I cant wait to get nasty out there

Just get an eq so you can adjust the in boats and towers separately.

lottery!

Supra towers sit far enough back in the cabin that you shouldn't be blasting the people in the boat out too bad like you would with an illusion tower or something similar. As long as you have two sets of rca outputs on your head unit you can fade more sound to or away from the tower speakers. Just put the cabin amp on the front set of outputs and the tower amp on the rear set of outputs. WIth this configuration if the cabin speakers are too loud once the tower speakers are loud enough for the rider to hear you can just fade the head unit toward the rear (tower speakers).

Reez,
There are a number of reasons why you get too much radiation in the boat from tower speakers.
Volume. The louder you play to the rider at a distance the more radiation you will have near field in the boat. Its that simple and its unavoidable. Dispersion patterns increasingly narrow with distance but there is a lot of radiation surrounding any speaker when very close to it.
Lower towers, lower mounting positions on the tower and forward leaning towers create more off-axis radiation to the occupants in the rear of the cockpit. You are fortunate if you have a taller tower and a rear leaning tower.
If you have stacked and staggered speakers like on an Illusion then the upper forward speaker will reflect off the pod of the lower and rear most speaker and spray the cockpit with more energy.
But many overlook that tower speaker volume is not the only thing that alienates in boat occupants. Standard car stereo speakers can't make the distance without being driven into distortion. Smaller HLCDs are peaky and brutally bright. Larger speakers are generally warmer, smoother and better balanced. Over-driving the tower amplifier or tower speakers creates a lot of harsh distortion that many are more sensitive to than the high volume.
So having fewer, larger, better, smoother, warmer, more powerful speakers plus more amplifier power so that you are running everything conservatively and clean helps.
You are on the right path with the Wetsounds REV8s. Make sure you have enough power to keep it clean.

David
Earmark Marine