wet sounds

Hey everyone. I know there has been a lot of talk about wetsounds so I wanted to give a mini review. I had skylon rubicons on order for months and finally figured gave up and figured I would give wetsounds a try. I put one of their 485's and a pair of 80's on my series 3. All I can say is WOW. I have not done the final tuning, but they sound amazing. They are very accurate and are louder then I imagined. I am going to get the boat on the lake tomorrow and try to get some more feedback on them. Today was a rough test since my crossover was blown so I couldn't get them tuned as I would like. I also am going to try to get some pictures, but for anyone looking for some great speakers these are a great option.

Let us know how it goes. I am planning to buy some Pro 80s pretty soon.

Wetsounds are awesome....loud and very clear.

will do, so far I have been totally impressed. The only thing i didn't like was the mounts, because with the curve on the titan series 3 they wouldn't mount. I ended up using fusion clamps.

what amp are you running to them? How do you have them setup? did you wire the 80's in parallel and the 485 by itself? I've been waiting to see some pics of the 485, two pro 80 setup.

Here are the Pro 485's on my boat. They are truly impressive. I am running them crossed at 150hz off a 4 channel amp bridged L+R to front channels to left speaker, bridged L+R to rear to right speaker, if that makes sense. After playing around with a few different options I find that running everything in mono tends to sound just a bit stronger since everything is hitting in unison. The amp I am currently running is an older Avionixx Tripath amp that is pushing 500 watts to each speaker pod.

We pushed them very hard for a couple hours when we and a couple other friends were up river tied up together partying. Nobody found the sound objectionable anywhere in the boat. I was a bit alarmed when I woke up the next morning and my ears felt as if I had been partying at a loud bar or a concert the day before. They definately pack enough punch to do some hearing damage if you are not careful.

Here is a pix:

They hang a bit low but they have very well rounded corners in plastic so when you hit your head it doesn't really hurt (not my hard head at least, LOL).

I am running the amps I had for my rubicons so I am little over powered. I am running planet audio vortex 3002 and 4002. The 3002 is bridged and pushes 600x1 rms @ 4 ohm for the 485 (gains are turned down, but I am still over powered). The 4002 is pushing 200@2@ 4ohm. I will try to get some pictures tomorrow.

Mike,

What happened to the homemade HLCD setup?

They are in the attic in shrinkwrap... I thought about selling them but I have so much time and $$$ into them I think I will just keep them.

Mike, You are the man. I need to have three hot chicks that go riding with me....

Okay, took a while, but I finally got pictures. On the water the speakers sound even better than on land. They definitely impress me so far. The 80's do sound a tad bright to me, but the 485 seems to balance that out perfectly and I also adjusted the eq to tune them down a bit. My crossover went up in smoke so I could not get a good final tuning, but know I can get more sound out of them (i have not adjusted the gains) and also that they can cover a much broader spectrum of sound than any other boat I have heard and they especially impressed me with their midbass performance and overall accuracy. The only true downside is this set-up is so loud it could easily damage your ears.

Wow, that is an awesome looking set up.

i just set up my wet sounds pro 80's
and i agree, they are a tad bright, but its not annoying by any means

and i agree with wkerat.....
they are wicked loud.

Here's another (4) Pro 80's setup. I like the look of the pro 80/485 combination.





(Message edited by acurtis_ttu on May 08, 2006)

I just installed my New Skylon Rubicon 350's
I know I am the first around this area to have them. I have waited since February for these speakers. If you are waiting, do not give up. They are load and clear. You will not be disapointed.

Mikeski,

Have you done a head to head comparisonto NVS? I remember a thread where you did...or is that someone else?

FWIW, I was at Lake Mead on Saturday, and an orange Malibu XTI was just resting in the middle of the lake with some Defcon V's on his tower. I pulled up and asked him for a demo. He was very eager to show me what they sounded like. I thought they were pretty good, but everyone in my boat thought my addictions were better.

I have no idea what amp he was using, or even if he turned them up all of the way. They were 1-2 years old.

captainmoomba, how do they compare to the wetsounds and the Addictions if you've heard them all. Also, how much power are you pushing to the Rubi's?

Does anybody have a pic of the Pro80's on the Illusion tower ? Also 2 posts refer to the 80's as bright-Is this just at high volume or are they bright at all levels ? Since you have 2 sets Adam, what do you think ? Im just about to pull the trigger on a pair and was just curious

(Message edited by iagainsti on May 08, 2006)

Talk to Dale or Tim at wetsounds. They will help you adjust your amp to fix the problem.

If any one want to check the wet sounds out we have them here at the shop.

Tall guy,

I ran my DIY cans next to Deafcon 5s in the past and was pretty darn proud. My crew's opinion was my DIY cans sounded louder and better than the D5s. We did do some testing with NVS Tyrants, my DIYs, and both varieties of WetSounds. The somewhat subjective results were posted in a thread elsewhere here by my friends at Sound Illusions, search and you will find.

The setup that Adam has is probably the strongest thing going at the moment. Those Pro80's are quite loud with adequate power. Since the Pro485s are a little more full with a bit more bass while still providing adequate sound to the rider I chose them.

KG, your best bet might be to just turn down you deck's treble. I had the opposite problem with my diy speakers at first, they sounded flat on the high end. When I cranked up the hi's the internal boat speakers became very annoying. Since I built the crossovers I just changed to attenuation circuit, problem solved. I believe the Pro80's were really designed to be run in pairs, in quads they get quite bright. It seems that the quad Pro80 setup is gaining momentum. It might be of interest for WetSounds to add an attenuation control or factory option for a 3db cut above 3k, I don't believe most amps have this kind of control. A parametric EQ to the tower amp would also do the trick.

Like everyone else mentioned the (4) Pro 80 was bright at high volumes to me, but use my HU to control the treble and mid. I actually like the sound a little better running w/o my eq...so I run my pro 80's directly off the amp from the HU and everything else off the eq (clarion 5150) and can tune everything else using that. Right now as far as I knwo the pro 80's HLCD are run w/o any attenuation. Like Mike said for those running 4 Pro 80's a 3db cut would help at high volumes. I also run a little more power than recomended to mine...approx 200 RMS per. When volumes are low and will be low for a while (boat parked) I'll switch my amp crossover to full from HP. At full range they sound amazing at most reasonable volume levels.

Hey guys,

Mikeski is correct in that we designed the PRO 80's to run in a pair so the crossover is designed with that in mine. Providing more output at lower volumes with less power. This is also why the PRO 80 sounds so good as a beach system also. It has a nice open sound at low and medium volumes as well as wide open. It does not sound like any horn system you have ever heard. But when you run 4 of them on your tower like Adam and put a lot of power into them, doing like what Adam did or adding an EQ for the tower works great. As sound is very subjective. Some may love the brightness while some may like a more flatter sound. That is where an EQ comes in and let's you set it up to your personal preference

We are also looking into adding an attenuation adjustment.

We have had a lot of guys doing our "Threesome" like wkerat's set up. The "threesome" is a single PRO 485 in the center and pair of PRO 80's on the sides. This set up works great for towers that can't fit a pair of PRO 485's and also sounds amazing and is the best of both output and SQ. Adding in the mid bass from the 485 and the nice open sound from the 80.

HOLY SHIZZ THESE THINGS ARE LOUD!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mike- When did you change tower speakers? I remember riding with you and was definitely impressed with your DIY speakers. Anyway, sounds like you are way happy with the new setup too