Best speakers to get for $1,500
 

I have 1500 to spend on some speakers. we have an 03 Super Air Nautique with twocheap ebay speakers that are about 5 years old, an amp and a 10in sub. Im looking to keep the amp and sub and put 4 speakers across the top. any advice?

http://www.roswellwakeair.com/

I was looking on here but looks like i would only be able to get a pair of them.

What's the goal? Sound at the end of the rope? Surfing? Sq in the boat?

loudness, sound in the boat and at the end of the rope, i dont know if it is better to get two really good speakers or 4 average speakers.

It all depends what amp you have you can put as many speakers on the tower as you want but without enough power to run them you will notice little gain.What amp do you have to run the tower???

I'd look at something like an arc audio ks300.4 (mad power for two speakers) or ks300.2 (acceptable power for two speakers, capable of powering four) and a pair of the new wetsounds Rev8s.

X 2 for the arc ks 300.4 I have two of them and they make lots of power.Would be a good fit with a set of REV 10's or REV 8's 350 watts RMS x 2 when bridged.

You might be able to do a pair of exile xm9's and a harpoon for that price. Harpoon is designed for tower speakers, will provide you 300 watts rms at 4 ohms, and gives you room to add another pair of speakers down the road if you wanted to. Give Paul at bakesmarine a call and see if he'd do a package deal for you if its something that interests you.

Four Wet Sounds Pro 696RS's in a fiberglass enclosure.

CJ,

Where are you located at? Shoot me a PM or email to twhite@wetsounds.com I will find you a local dealer that you can go take a look and listen and see what fits your goals.

My suggestion is always go look at the build quality of each speaker and listen to them. This will let you decide what is right for you.

My suggestion is go for two larger driver high performance speakers over 4 smaller less performance speakers. For instance, our REV 8 speakers have 8 inch mid bass drivers and our REV 10 have 10 inch mid bass drivers.

Also, when looking at amplifiers. Look for something that is efficient. Our SYN amps and the Arc amps use Class H and there are other good full range class D amps out there. So stick with those classes of amps over old technology class AB. You will get less battery drain, less strain on the electrical system and less heat using a class h or full range class d amp.

Tim
Wet Sounds

CJ,
$1500 is a pretty sizable investment. You are definitely way past the point of having to settle for automotive speakers in a tower pod. Those are not going to serve you well on any level.
I don't know that quantity is any substitute for quality. For example, you could consider two pair of 6.5-inch HLCD speakers in your budget but that will give you very limited midbass extension and a speaker that is predominantly bright in balance. Two pair of car audio coaxials are not going to project with any degree of clarity at wake range. So I would concentrate on getting the very best speaker available and your budget dictates that you can have the very best if you don't have to have the very loudest.
Here is a possibility. A pair of the new Wetsounds Rev10s driven by a bridged Wetsounds Syn4 amplifier. That's 400 watts per each speaker. Plus, a 10-inch midbass driver in a large enough pod displacement to really offer true midbass extension with enough output to balance with a powerful horn loaded compression tweeter. One pair of 10s is just about the equivalent surface area of six 6.5s. For some it may not have the asthetic appeal of a fully loaded tower but it would be very hard for a larger quantity of lesser speakers to compete. It easily fits in within your budget with one of those "package deals".

David
Earmark Marine

Haha you guys crack me up, I was timing the two of you to see how long it took to come to the defense. Needless to say you didn't disappoint.

First you need to start with this.....

ok just got off the phone with the dealership who's workin on it right now and there is a Sony Xplode 4 Channel 600 Watt amp in it with a 10in sub. will that be a big enough amp to push 4 speakers across the rack?

xxxplllooooddeeee son!!!!

No.

so add another one?

solution for $1500

buy one wetsounds syn 4, and one pair of Rev 8's or rev 10's. Done.

so is this Sony Xplode amp worthless?

agreed. use that sony amp to power just your sub and the syn4 to power just the tower speakers.

Ken,
What's the relevance and that photo with the little speaker next to the fooseball?

That's MTX's new 6.5" in boat mid bass driver...

So what about buying the Syn4 and running 4 speakers off the rack?

also anyone like Polk or any other brands?

Most common boat speaker brands.

-Exile (I have Exile speakers and amps and love them, I also like that the guys at Exile are the original pioneers of Phoenix Gold...definitely know their stuff, great customer service. Thier amps are solid and have a lot of years of experience behind the engineering)

-Wetsounds (Definitely most popular. A lot of boaters have them and love them. WS has great customer service..and powerhouse marketing. Their amps are made by ARC audio..good stuff)

-Bullet (Haven't heard their speakers. I know the people who own them like them.)

-NVS (Same with bullet, haven't heard them. NVS has been around for awhile.)

-Kicker (Good speakers at an affordable price. They have a new series of amps I've heard great things about.)

-Liquid Accoustics (New to the boat audio scene. Haven't heard them, but want to...especially the interior HLCD, which will be a first. They use amps made by ZED audio (Steve Mantz). There's a couple of full range class D amps that are monsters, like the Dreadnaught.

yeah man you can do any speaker set up you want, but what David from Earmark is trying to say is, if you settle for a "normal speaker" set up on the tower (your basic polk, kicker, or most 6.5 or 7in speakers) the sound is not going to compete with that of a pair of wetsounds. if you did 4 polks on the tower, a pair wetsounds rev8 would be louder and clearer easily. if you did 6 polks, a pair of rev10s would be louder.. the question is, are you just wanting a loaded tower? and if so you can always add another pair... check out UNvisable's profile. that's whats up! lol

so what amp would I need to get to push 4 Rev 8's? are the Rev 8's called something else on the WS website?

Two sets of hlcd tower speakers alone will bust your $1500 budget not to mention the amp to go with them.

The Rev 8s are not on the website yet. They run $999 a pair. There are at least 3 threads on here about them. Another option if you want to go wetsounds is to get a pro 485 and a syn2 to push it. It will be getting 700watts of clean hard power and will sound amazing.

$1449 gets you 4) Exile SXT65's and the 1000w Harpoon amp. Looks good, sounds great. Keep your Sony for the sub.

http://www.earmarkcaraudio.com/Xcart...9&cat=0&page=1

I have the set up that Razzman just posted above and could not be happier. Great deal for a full set up and it is from a high end brand.

If I had $1,500 here is what I would do.

I would find a used set of Wet Sounds pro 80's, there is no reason that you could not get a great pair for $600 to $650. I would then get a new Arc Audio KS 300.2 for around $350. This setup would allow you to get into a class g/h amp that can run 1 pair or 2 pairs of Pro 80's.

So you have $1,000 into a great set of HLCD's and a great amp. You can use the extra money to get an extra battery and wiring you will need and still have cash left over.

I think that factorykitted has a nearly brand new set of 80's for sale.

http://vimeo.com/19816809

I have two bullet hollowpoints powered by a JL Audio G4500 250 watts per speaker. It will be tough for you to get four new HLCD speakers and an amp for 1500 but you can easily hear two well powered HLCD's from well beyond wakeboarding distance.

Murphy made a good point. Battery or batteries and install accessories will run up the cost real quick. Don't skimp on the the power/ground wire size either. You can have a the best speakers/amps, but without the proper installation it will be a waste. Some people say good sound is 90% install.

I forgot to mention, I have a dual battery setup with a control switch mounted.

also whichever speakers I go with I want them to be able to detach pretty easily with a hand screw like the exhiles

Razzman that link says there are only 2 speakers but the picture shows 4? I would buy that today if it is four of them.

IMO if you have any kind of aftermarket lighting (LEDs, etc) and especially since you will be pushing way upgraded speakers, adding an amp, and giving your sub more a lot more power.. i would add another battery just for "backup cranking" in case you run the dual setup dead.

You get 4 speakers for that deal. I think the link is trying to say 2 pairs.

The speakers in the emark add are not the quick detach model that costs extra.I just installed a set of the Samson S7HD speakers on a friends boat and am giving them each 350 watts RMS at 4 ohms they sound good but wont handle much bass and are a little bright for my taste.The speakers and clamps are well made but the speaker covers that come with them is another story.We have had the cheep Chinese zipper break on two covers in two weeks although they have been warranted its getting old having to send them in.Not sure why such a division between the exile camp and the wetsounds camp both make a great speaker with different options but in my personal opinion the wetsounds have more amplitude and will handle more bass sound is subjective so everyone will have a different opinion on what sounds good but I don't think you could go wrong with either brand..............................H

Harold not sure if you knew the exiles were adjustable or not, able to tone down the horn. Hope you aren't trying to.compare the midbass output of a pro 80 to an xm7. That's a 8" speaker vs a 6.5" speaker.

No not making comparisons I think both are great products with different offerings and a different sound I think it all just comes down to needs ,budget and what tower you have when making a speaker decision.Nu is there an adjustable crossover inside the speaker can??

You kinda did make a comparison, just wondering what you were comparing each of them to? Yeah there is one inside the can, IIRC there is a switch on the crossover to change it to more of an SQ setting. Requires total dissasembly of the speaker though. They also have the throttle box engineered into the harpoon amp wich does a pretty good job of shaping the sound without having to flip that switch. On the XM9 there is a cover that you can remove on the back of the speaker to access the switch without taking the speaker apart, pretty cool gives the user the ability to shape the sound themselves.Some people really like the aggressive horn sound, some people are only concerned with how loud it is, personally I don't.

I realize now I probably should have started this thread originally like this but here is the main goal.

$1,500 (maybe 2,000) to spend: currently we have a 10” sub with a sony Xplode 4 channel 600watt amp and some liquid audio (sh#t Speakers) with a dual battery setup and manual switch. Boat: 2003 Super Air Nautique with stock head unit and stock boat speakers.

Goal: we are trying to put 4 speakers across the rack wired to a new amp. Looking for speakers that can detach easily and have an adjustment knob to set so you can have them play out to the end of the rope or play within the boat.

I was also thinking, how much are speakers for inside the boat, I think we have 4-6 of them and was thinking about replacing those also. Thoughts?

I really appreciate all the help on this forum.

Quality should trump quantity...
 

I love these threads... What should I buy?

You have been given a ton of potentially good ideas but I think the BEST one was to go and listen to the products that are being recommended. Brand names aside, each option will have its own sonic character and buying ANY speaker without listening to it is kinda like buying a used car on Ebay... In the end you get what you get because one persons definition of "Runs great" or "Sounds Great" rarely will be exactly the same as yours. The second issue you are going to run into is the install. The best sounding speakers in the world may not impress you if they are not installed and tuned properly. Many of these recommendations are based on the sound of a boat system that was installed properly and tuned by someone like David at Earmark or Ryan at Chucktronics or Ben at ACME. These guys know what they are doing and can get remarkable results with just about any gear. But remember, these results may not be typical of your or your installers capabilities. There are lots of good sounding products on bad sounding boats...... Please don't become one of them.

Cheers
Scott

CJ,

where are you located at? Shoot me an email to twhite@wetsounds.com or PM me and let me know. I can see if we have a dealer near you so you can go look and listen at some options and see what fits your goals.

Tim
Wet Sounds

I realize now I probably should have started this thread originally like this but here is the main goal.

$1,500 (maybe 2,000) to spend: currently we have a 10” sub with a sony Xplode 4 channel 600watt amp and some liquid audio (sh#t Speakers) with a dual battery setup and manual switch. Boat: 2003 Super Air Nautique with stock head unit and stock boat speakers.

Goal: we are trying to put 4 speakers across the rack wired to a new amp. Looking for speakers that can detach easily and have an adjustment knob to set so you can have them play out to the end of the rope or play within the boat.

I was also thinking, how much are speakers for inside the boat, I think we have 4-6 of them and was thinking about replacing those also. Thoughts?

I really appreciate all the help on this forum.

Are you a robot?? I say this bc you posted the exact same reply over an hour later. Everyone has answered your question, so I am not sure why you are still confused. Especially since Tim and David have said to contact them for help.

CALL ONE OF THEM AND THEY CAN TALK YOU THROUGH YOUR OPTIONS.

Sorry if I sound harsh, but I am not convinced you have read the replies you have gotten. If you have and already contacted Tim or David, then I'm sorry. If you haven't done either....well, I'm also sorry bc we have a whole other issue we should probably work on.

:)

Sorry, no clue how that posted twice? i was not even at the computer when the second one posted. I have talked with a few people and am leaning towards the exhile XM7's. Does anyone know where I can listen to these / buy them? Also I think we are going to get a bigger amp than we thought and get someone to install it that has some credibility.

CJ,
If you were in Dallas, Texas you could stop by our marine showroom and hear every model of Exile and Wetsounds side by side with great source material and electronics driving them. There is nothing like an audition and AB comparison in person.
Contact both Exile and Wetsounds to locate a dealer in your area where you can personally hear the speakers for yourself. Perhaps you will be fortunate to find a dealer that carries both brands.
Forums are great and there is a ton of biased information for a variety of reasons. But a demonstration is the great equalizer and the most objective way to form your own opinion and to get the best value.

David
Earmark Marine

what area are you located?

The 4 piece kicker horn system from Star One. 2 horns and and 2 6.5" mid speakers.... it screams!!!