Upgrading the sound system on my Grady White

I am in the process of upgrading my sound system in my Grady White. Currently have the JL audio component speakers on a Poly-Planer 400E amp. I am adding the Wetsounds Rev 8 with the Syn2 amp and EQ 420. Does anyone know what class the Poly-Planer amp is? I checked their web site and it doesn't say. My second question is, what does the difference class of amps really mean? I spend a lot of time anchored on the beach just listening to tunes and concerned about battery drainage. Thanks.......

Correction. The amp is a Poly-Planar ME-400.

The ME-400 is a class AB amp

Here is a great site that explains the different classes.

http://www.bcae1.com/ampclass.htm


Hope this helps

Yes, except the bcae1 summary about Class D applications is VERY dated. Fullrange Class D high fidelity operation has been in production for years now. Even Mark Levinson and Krell (esoteric home audio) have switch mode amplifiers now.
The bottom line is Class D is 60 percent more efiicient and reserves are precious in a boat. That means significantly more play time or significantly less load.
If you have a center console boat with outboard motors I would check the stats on whether they feature alternators or stators and what the output current is.
In any case I would run pure Class D. But I would also build my batteries and charging scheme around the available supply.

David
Earmark Marine

Thanks for the post. It explained it perfectly. The new amp I am gettng is a class H (Syn2). I assume that is even more power efficient. Looking foward to getting the new system installed and hearing it. From the posts I have read, the Rev 8's are suppose to be pretty good sounding speakers. Since I will be spending a lot of time anchored on the beach with the stern towards the beach, I will be using the Rev speakers/Syn2 amp and not the in boat speakers/Poly-Planar amp. I think I will have the installer just install a switch on the Poly-Planar amp to turn it off when not in use to save battery. That should fix the power consumption issue with AB amp. Again, thanks for your help....

Doug,
Yes, I missed the point about the Syn2 Class H amplifier as I was occupied with the bcae1 read. You are correct in that the Syn2 Class H is also a more efficient toplogy and will be perfect for your application.

David
Earmark Marine

Thanks. So using in my application, when running in the boat, the Rev8's/sysn2 will be turned off and the in boat JL's and Poly Planar amp will be on. When the boat is at anchor, the JL's and poly-planar will be off and the Rev8's and syn2 will on. So I think on/off switches for the Poly-Planar and Syn2 will be the way to go. Opinion???? Can the EQ 420 be used to turn off the Poly-Planar amp? My engine is the Yamaha 250 4 stroke. It has a big alternator....

Thanks again....

The 420 won't turn your amps off, but you can turn the volume all the way down separately. 2 amps won't kill your battery, assuming you have enough res. capacity and maintained batteries. Get an isolator. Call earmark. They will hook you up correctly with helpful attitudes.

Doug,
You can use independent switches to control the turn on/off leads of the individual amplifiers. However, the WS420 EQ has full zone controls for isolation but this only affects gain and not total turn on/off. That should be adequate. Since amplifiers usually only draw a couple of amps at idle I wonder if the extra step is really necessary. But it can't hurt if you want to take the extra step.

David
Earmark Marine

Really appreciate all the help and input here. What type of isolator are you suggesting? I have two 1000 CCA batterties in the boat on a battery switch and the existing Poly-Planar amp is wired directly to one batery I think. I also have a lot of other electronics being powerd in the boat while under way; 4 KW radar, 2KW sonar, and auto pilot.
One last question concerning the new Wet Sounds harware. For just beaching the boat with stern to the beach, will this set up produce good quality sound from about 100 feet to 150 feet away? Sometimes on the weekends at Shackleford Banks, NC, it gets crowded with boats beaching. I haven't really seen any boats with a high quality sound system that can project sound to the beach as yet. Most of the time, people are just turning thier sound systems up way beyond their capacity and they sound like crap. I hope this system will do the trick and shut down the crappy sounding music.

Again, thanks for everyones help.....

Doug,
I can't recall the brand name, but I thought you might like to see how this guy hung his speakers.

Marc
Liquid Acoustics

Well..... The new system is installed and I can say just one word; WOW....... The REV 8s on the Syn2 and EQ 420 completely exceeded my expectations. When I cranked up the sound with a Stevie Ray Vaughn song on the mp3 and my neighbors came outside to see and hear what was going on. The quality of the sound is absolutely amazing. I still have some minor tweeking to do on the system. I will take some pics and post them for info. I thought I read somewhere that it takes about 15 hours to break in the speakers. I really don't understand why that is......