Speaker Wiring, Fiberglass, New Monster Tower

I am running wires for speakers and I don't know what to do with the wires once I get them to the bottom of the tower. What do most of you guys use? Are there any good quick disconnectors out there? Do most people run the wires through the fiberglass or do they just run it around. Any help or Pictures would be very greatly appreciated. Also, I just bought a Monster tower and was wondering how you guys like them? Are they as easy to install as everyone says? I have herd a lot of good things and the customer service cant be beat. Sorry this post is so long but one more thing, did any of you guys reinforce your fiberglass before you installed your towers? If so, do you have any tips or hints?
Thanks,
Jimmy

I use a very stiff 1/4" thick neoprene pad to contour the inside of the boat and back it up with an aluminum or SS plate. I have never had a spider crack with this system. Alternatively, I have also used fiberglass bondo under the backer plate when going through thin fiberglass or the most extreme bends. Same result, just takes longer.

I also recommed 5 guys for the install. One for each mount point and one to mark and drill. Chamfer all your holes.

Good Luck.

I have wire loom going first through the Gator Grip then through the hull with silicon sealant making it all water tight. You can use rubber Gromets as well. If you want a trick connection search for neutrik and amp connectors.

Karl,

Where do you find the 1/4" neo pad? I just ordered my Monster Tower this morning. I will be installing it next weekend. I have a spot that will be tricky as it is not flat on the underside of the fibergless. Your suggestion sounds interesting.

Karl,
You said that you used fiberglass bondo on very curved surfaces to mount the tower. That is exactly what I was planning on doing and I was wondering how it worked. I tried to fiberglass a 1/2" piece of fiberglass under the area where I wanted to mount the legs but I soon found out that working with fiberglass is not fun, especially if you have never done it before and you are tring to do it upside down in a tight space. So my question is, when you used the bondo, did you bondo a board to the fiberglass and let it dry and then drill? I was thinking of pre drilling the holes in the fiberglass and the plywood, putting bindo filler on the wood and then tightening down the bolts to hold it secure and fit the conture of the boat. Please share your experiences with this and let me know if this sounds like a good idea. Anyone can feel free to answer this question.
Thanks

I second Jimmy's request. I have the exact same dilima.

Thanks!

Here's a solution using a Brad Harrison Cable and receptical which are available through McMaster-Carr. I have Deafcon III speakers which have Speakon connectors/recepticals on the cans. The Brad Harrison connecters are definitely a nicer solution for mounting on you hull. Here's a pic:

Drill out your backer plate first. I suggest aluminum or SS. Use some double-sided carpet tape and shims to hold it in place over where you need to drill you mounts. Make sure your backer plate exactly matches your tower mount. Carefully drill through and chamfer the holes on both sides. Drill a piece of plywood the same bolt pattern for tower and backer plate. Put some extra-long bolts coated with vasilene through it the plywood so that it will allow you to put the backer plate on the bolts with wing nuts. Gob on some fiberglass bondo onto the backer plate and compress it into place and wing nut it to hold it in position. You want the bondo to squish out a bit and the backer plate should NOT touch the fiberglass. Let dry according to the directions. The vasilene will keep the bondo from sticking to the bolts. Remove the bolts - back them out carefully so you don't catch the gel coat.

The neoprene can be purcahsed at any industrial rubber supply house. It us used for machine vibration pads and comes in sheets or strips. I bought 4" wide strips for about $1.25 a foot. It takes some time with a belt sander to get it right. You still need the backer plate.

Most dealers don't do this. Some will say it is unnecessary. However, repairing a boat from a quickie install is real expensive. It cannot hurt, only help, it is up to you to decide if this level of detail is worth your time.

Thanks for the tips. I really like the bondo procedure. Sounds like it will do the trick.

Thanks!

Hey cabalisticfire,
How many wires do you have running into that cable? That is exactly what I am looking for but I don't know if it will work. I have four tower speakers that I have mounted and so I need to run wires for all of them. By the looks of that, it looks like you only have two speakers and are using a four prong connector but I could be wrong. If you have any ideas on how to run wires for four speakers, please let me know. Also, I have had a few people tell me to share grounding wires for the speakers and run them on a parell circuit to reduce the number of wires? Any one have any ideas on this. I have a four channel amp so I could run all the speakers to individual channels. Suggestions? I would be grateful.
Thanks

Jimmy- You are correct in that there are 4 wires inside that housing. 4 wires are all you really need to wire up 4 tower speakers as long as you run them in parallel which is what I would recommend. When you wire in parallel you put more than 1 speaker in a loop on a channel. The way that works is, for instance, you would connect the positive lead of a pair of wires to the positive side of the first speaker, then connect the negative side of the first speaker to the positive side of the 2nd speaker and finally the negative side of the 2nd speaker to the negative side of the channel comming out of the amp. By doing this you lower the impedance/resistance to half of what one of the speakers is rated at (assuming both speakers have the same impedance) which increases the power on the channel to almost double. A common example would be to wire two 4ohm speakers in parallel. This would yeild a total impedance of 2 ohms. This would also increase the power output of a 75 watt channel (at 4 ohms) to around 125-150 watts (at 2 ohms) depending on the amp. Most mid to high end amps are 2 ohm stable, some are 1 ohm stable, very few are .5 ohm stable. If the impedance drops too low the amplifier will typicall overheat and can fry if it doesn't shut down.

HTH

I purchased cable or wire that has 8 individual wires and purchased a 8pin speakon connector. I am running 4 6x 9's. The only drawback is the wire is fairly thick. The diamater of the wire is 5/8 of an inch in total. I have a proflight tower so I plan on running the wire through the tower and into the boat through the base that attaches to the boat. I am using the speakon connector on the tower speaker box. this way along with quick disconnect brackets I will be able to remove the entire unit with ease. If anyone is trying to find a place to buy the connectors and wire www.audiogear.com is where I purchaed it. My total was under 70 bucks and included shipping. I was shocked when I saw that there are companies selling something of lesser quality for close to or over 300.

As long as you drill at least the width of the tower mount away from the base you are generally safe from any stress induced cracking. Here's a pic of my boat

Steve
Nice clean setup, is that shrink tube? and where did you get that black cap?.....Sweeet!

cabalisticfire - I was under the impression that you needed 8 ohm speakers to wire them in parallel to drop the impedence to 2 ohms? I'm curious because I want to run two pair of rear speakers in parallel (one pair per channel).Also, can you run two channels with two speakers each and two channels to single speakers?}}

Brian- You do not need to run 8 ohm speakers to drop the impedance to 2 ohms. However, it would be possible to reach 2 ohms by running four 8 ohm speakers in parallel. Typically, 8 ohm speakers are used in home audio environments and 4 ohm speakers are used for car and marine audio. As for your second question. You should be able to run 2 channels of an amp at 2 ohms and the other two at 4 ohms as long as your amp is 2 ohm stable.

Shawn,

Yep that's just a length of heat shrink. The cover is something I picked up at my dealer, 2 for $5. The link to the manfacturer is below
www.thmarine.com

Here's link to answer all series vs. parallel wiring questions- www.termpro.com/articles/spkrz.htm

cabalisticfire - That is a nice looking setup on the cable. What model of connector/cable did you use? I am going to be wiring some Deafcon III's and want to duplicate that

Here is mine....