Is 2 Tower Speakers Loud Enough For WakeBoarding??????
The way I have it set up right now is that i have 8 in-boat speakers that run on their own amp and then i have 4 kicker tower speakers that run on JL 360 watt amp. Although they are tower speakers they are not HLCD's and you just can't get very much distance out of them without cranking the stereo up to full, at which point it becomes almost unbearable for anybody sitting behind the tower speakers. Due to this I have been looking at getting some Krypt Audio 6.5 HlCD speakers. My plan is to buy a pair of them and replace 2 of the kicker towers with the Krypt ones and leave the other 2 kicker ones in so it would have 2 kickers and 2 Krypt HLCD's. My only question is whether 2 6.5 HLCD's will be loud enough to hear at about 70 feet, or should i just bite the cost and go with 4 HLCD's?
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I switched from 6 Arc Audio tower speakers to 4 Wetsounds REV 10's. It was a night and day difference. IMHO the non-HLCD spakkers just can't reach that far without major distortion. I was a slow learner and didn't make the switch until I heard the difference in person. After that, I couldn't buy the REV 10's soon enough. To answer your question, I'd go with at least 4 HLCD speakers and wouldn't get smaller than 8". My 2 cents.
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I would think 4 ICON 8's would be fairly audible back there. Heck, my 4 7" Alpines sound very good at 75 feet, granted you have to be directly behind the boat though. I would go bigger than 6.5 on the tower though, or else you'll be hearing all highs. In my opinion, wetsounds HLCD's are so overkill for the normal boater, unless you want to stand out and provide music for everybody at the sand bar.
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You can hear a single pair of properly powered Wetsounds Rev10s at wake range. Two 10s have much more surface area than four 6.5s and output is ultimately about surface area, plus the balance is much, much warmer on the 10s. 6.5-inch HLCDs have NO midbass extension, and are brutally bright and harsh. A 6.5-inch HLCD is not the answer. The 6.5-inch HLCD will be much louder than conventional coaxials but only in the treble. And that makes it that much worse for the occupants in the boat. Sure, in the short run, you can save by loading existing pods with cheap HLCD raw drivers. But in the long run you won't be satisfied and you will end up spending more overall. A very low percentage of people who invest in 6.5-inch HLCDs keep them.
David Earmark Marine |
If reaching a wake-boarder in tow is the priority, then going with HLCD's is the best route. But, if your rear seated passengers are getting too much volume now, I feel this will still be a problem. Zone control will allow you to dial down the in-boat speakers while cranking the towers. This helps reduce the overall volume level in the boat. Tower speaker positioning and aim are other factors, but not always correctable due to the tower design.
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The only problem i have with buying 8 or 10 inch speakers is that i already have a really nice set of 6.5" cans and i don't really want them to go to waste. And i usually use zone control but i mean the tower speakers are too loud for the people in the boat.
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Here is another and more important issue with the in-boat radiation from the tower speakers. The in-boat occupants will be far more irritated with the punishing, shrill, harsh sound of a small HLCD than from the greater but balanced & warmer output of a larger tower speaker. |
Sell all the tower speakers you have and the amp and get a pair of REV10's and one of the following amps: SD2, Syn4 or HT4. In my opinion there is no point in doing what you are talking about. It isn't a very good upgrade and you will wish you would have spent the money on the right thing in the first place.
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^ agreed. I have the same story as the OP. Went with 4 non-HLCD speakers at first and even when turning my in-boats off, it was just still too loud for the people in the boat..... fast forward after finally learning my lesson and sold the 4 tower speakers and upgraded to a pair or REV 10's and a SYN4 and it is crazy night and day. loud and crystal clear while riding and it's not blaring out the people in the boat. If you choose to change anything don't go with anything less than a pair of REV 10's. I guarantee you will not regret it....
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Oops. Didn't realize Brett and Ryan said basically the same thing.
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In my experience thus far there is no way to get enough sound to a rider at end of line without totally blasting the inboat passengers.
I've never ridden an axis with the speakers in the rear transom - always thought that looked like a good way to fix the problem. |
MArk mentioned it above but I like the idea of angling the speakers up slightly. I am no expert but it would seem by angling them up few degrees might lessen the projection to the people in the boat. Also, sine the boat is at a pretty decent angle when pulling a rider it might actually point the speakers more directly at the rider than if they were in a normal 90 degree hang like most people have. David also brought up the point that a fuller/warmer sounding speaker will be much more enjoyable to the people in the boat than a super bright high pitched speaker.
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Epic has the speakers in the transom not Axis.
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Yes, chpthril brought up the point about aiming the speakers. When the boat is squatted and pulling the tower speakers are pointing downward. If you correct that angle of projection to be parallel with the water then the rear occupants will hear the tower speakers more off axis which definitely helps. This is easy to adjust for when the speakers have swivel collars and are mounted on a vertical tower. On a horizontal tower, you have to balance this adjustment with the appearance while resting in the water or trailer. You can fan the speakers outward a bit too so they don't beam down the middle.
The main issue for me is having a larger, warmer speaker that isn't so strident to begin with and having enough reserve amplifier power that you are not driving it into hard clipping trying to reach the rider. A smaller and particularly harsh speaker combined with amplifier distortion is far worse than more clean amplitude. Clean amplitude is much easier to tolerate. David |
Not all 6.5" HLCD speakers are created equal.
A 6.5" driver has a lot more cone area when a horn is not stuck through it. Take a look at the Kicker KM6500.2 and consider placing a set of those in your 4 existing cans. It is a pretty common conception that 6.5" is dead these days, and the science behind using larger drivers is factual. However the reasons 6.5" are perceived as dead can be largely attributed to early and copycat designs. They bad perception can be overcome by acoustical engineering effort that addresses the typical weakness of a 6.5" HLCD coaxial... Put a good horn on a good driver and design a good midrange without a big hole in the middle that works with the horn and you can have a pretty decent 6.5" system. Phil Kicker |
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