New RZR Stereo, Input Please

I posted this on the Tigeowners forum last week but there's obviously a much bigger audience here. I'd love as much constructive input as possible, specifically concerning the sub or subs and batteries. I ordered my new RZR with the EIDB (dual batteries) but since I plan on having at least 3 batteries for the stereo I'm wondering if I could do better for the money (around $600 if I remember) or if that is not the most optimal battery system.

I've already started planning the stereo in my new RZR that is scheduled to go into production Feb. 2nd. With the Boat Show pick 3 specials it made sense for me to get the Tower of Power upgrade since all I had to do was pay for the upgrade cost.

First of all I want to say that I think Wet Sounds makes a great product and probably has the most complete marine audio line up. That being said, most of the Wet Sounds equipment is coming out once I get the boat in and more importantly, once I get time to do it. I am a JL Audio home dealer so it makes sense for me to use JL in the boat.

I need some input on the batteries and the location of them. The boat is coming with the dual battery setup and perko switch. I believe they use Interstate batteries but I could be mistaken. What charger should I get to charge the boat and stereo batteries while stored? Is there an on board charger that will charge the stereo batteries while the engine is running? I'm guessing the factory alternator will not like trying to charge all of the batteries if the Perko switch is set to all?

Here is what I am planning:

Tower Speakers - 2) Wet Sounds Rev10
Tower Amps - 2) JL Audio MHD750/1, one wired for Left and the other for Right. I know this is a ton of power but I think the 750/1 is a better choice than a 600/4 and it gives me plenty of power should I decide to add a pair of Rev8's.

In Boat Speakers - 4) JL M880CCX in the main cabin (if I can make them fit), 2) M770CCX in the bow with a 4 or 8ohm resistor (I want more power sent to the 8.8" and really don't care much about the bow speakers). I may even either put the bow speakers on a separate amp or a switch so that I can turn them off if needed. We have 2 small boys and last year while hanging out on the beach on a buddy's boat one of my boys got tired and napped in the bow. We had the stereo on but had to actually go and disconnect the bow speakers so that he could nap and we could still keep the rest of the stereo on.
In Boat Amps - 2) JL Audio MHD750/1, one wired for the Left speakers and the other for the Right speakers.

Subwoofer - I can't decide what to do here! With space being so limited in the RZR, I really don't want to use the storage under the passenger helm so I plan on keeping the sub under the driver's helm. I really want good, smooth, low bass. I expect the 4) 8.8" and 2 Rev10's will have great mid bass and upper sub bass so I would really like the subwoofer to just play from 50hz or so and down, which is how I've always tuned my vehicles. After talking to a couple friends though the problem in a boat is that really low bass just doesn't transfer like it does in a car until you are quite a ways away and it just seems to rattle the boat to pieces. A good friend who I really trust said the best in boat sub systems he has done have been ported and tuned to a pretty high frequency around 40hz. Any thoughts or input on getting good bass in the RZR or similar Tige boats from under the driver's helm? I have a 12W7 but I don't think there is any good way of getting that in there in a ported enclosure. I was thinking about a new 12W6V3 ported or a pair of 10W6V3's ported (2 10W6's ported may also be too big.
Subwoofer Amp - JL HD1200/1

Head Unit - Factory Installed Clarion. How is the preamp output voltage of this head unit? Do you notice as much improvement in a boat vs a car with a line driver installed? I have a Tru Technologies SS6LDi that I pulled out of my truck recently before I bought a new truck. I don't see myself having the time until probably next Fall/Winter to work on reinstalling the stereo in my new truck. It is a pretty phenomenal line driver.

Processor - Wet Sounds WS-420

Power Control - Each 'zone' will have a switch wired to the turn on lead so that I can easily turn off the amps rather than just control the level from the WS-420. This should also save some current draw on the battery.

Batteries - I plan on adding 2 additional batteries for the stereo for a total of 3. I don't see us doing a ton of parking and jamming the stereo for hours on end but I'm sure it will happen a couple times a year. Can you easily install 2 more batteries near the factory batteries in the rear lockers and keep it symmetrical as far as weight balance? I need some suggestions on batteries. I always thought you should use all the same batteries, especially when wiring them in parallel.

Charging - I need some suggestions here.


Sorry for the novel! This will take a while to finish, especially since the boat is several weeks out still and the JL M880CCX and W6V3 aren't expected to ship until the 2nd quarter which for JL usually means late 3rd quarter.

Thanks in advance for the input.


FYI, once I get around to swapping everything out in the boat, I'll have a Wet Sounds Syn6, Syn2, XS10FA Sub and 6) XS-650 for sale. I haven't thought about the pricing yet but I'm sure I'll price them to sell quickly; I have way too much stereo equipment laying around as it is!

If anyone wants to claim any of this stuff now, I'll hold it for you until I can pull it out.

shark.
There is no charging that will operate without a shore AC connection or the alternator. A portable generator and a heavy duty convertor (not a battery charger. not an invertor) is required if you want an alternate charging scheme while on the water and while a large system is playing. A convertor has all the attributes of both a charger and a power supply.
The stereo battery bank capacity should be determined by the stereo current draw, your usage, your intended play time and enough capacity to not cycle the batteries too deeply.
I'm not sure why you want to mix sizes of tower speakers. Although, there are a few valid reasons. When you mix an 8 and a 10 you are leaving an extra 1 dB on the table as compared to all 10s. To put that into perspective, even though 1 dB is a barely audible difference it is also a difference that would take a one-third increase in power to compensate for. I wouldn't want to purposely inject too many inefficiencies into my system. An HD750/1 will drive a single REV10 into serious compression but is perfect for two REV10s.
I wouldn't put the cart before the horse on the new JL Audio M880 coaxial even if you determine that it will fit. I would want to hear it first and compare it to an M770. The M880 may be more of a fullrange product intended for the off-shore center console and performance (go-fast) class of boats and a speaker better suited to operate independent of a subwoofer. As you increase the midbass cone to a 8.8" diameter and extend its deep bass you are going to sacrifice some upper midrange. I believe that JL Audio will partly compensate for this with a larger, lower resonance 1.25" dome tweeter that will be introduced at a lower crossover point. How will the larger 1.25" compare on the percussion details to a smaller 1" tweeter? Obviously it will be a powerful midbass speaker but until you hear it you won't know how good the midrange truly is. As the size of this or any 2-way increases and you gain something toward the bottom registers there will be an upper end trade-off For those who listen to alot of hip hop they may not care about midrange. It may be a more crucial region for others. That will be a subjective issue for you to decide.
Certainly bass pitch accuracy and tonal construction is highly dependent on midbass/coaxial drivers that can keep pace and intergrate well with the subwoofer. For instance a 15-inch woofer really needs 7.7"s for a seamles integration. 6.5"s just cannot bridge the gap but are all that is required to integrate perfectly with a 10-inch sub. But there is usually a small trade-off at the upper midrange of a larger coaixal or component speaker. Again, this will be a subject perception based on your objectives. Great sounding systems are about balance and integration.
The best subwoofer option should be dictated by the available enclosure displacement. When it comes to deep bass extension, past a certain point it will be the enclosure that determines the ultimate performance. So displacement first which dictates the ideal sub driver/enclosure combination. The largest woofer with greater surface area typically wins out but its not always the rule.
Bass-reflex tuning will be based on whether your objectives are a well-damped and smooth response or the maximum gain of a more peaky response. The woofer parameters should determine the tuning frequency rather that the environment. For an open field environment I like woofers with a little lower mass, higher internal efficiency that are a bit more responsive. My priorities will differ slightly from the contained cabin of a vehicle.
The Clarion HU should be fine and the preamp HU voltage will not be a major deal when using the WS420 given its own voltage.
The independent remote switches are a nice idea. Check out the specs on the idle current of these amplifiers. You will find it to be just a couple of amps.
The size of the battery charger selection will be determined by the amp/hour capacity of your collective batteries. Undercharging (inadequate de-sulfation) and overcharging (over heating) are equally damaging.

David
Earmark Marine

Thanks David! I appreciate your reply and value your opinion.

Batteries and Charging
I guess my main question about the charging had to do with the factory Tige EIDB system and whether or not it would work well to charge the stereo battery bank if I add 2 additional batteries (for a total of 3 for the stereo). I'm not completely sure how the EIDB works. It is about a $600 option and comes with an Interstate SRM-24 which I think I would want to replace with a SRM-29 and add 2 more SRM-29 for the stereo bank.

I don't see us spending a ton of time pounding on the stereo with the boat off but on the occasions that we do and the stereo bank runs down low, when we start the engine, from what I understand, the isolator system will switch the charging to all the batteries. I'm guessing that might hurt the alternator over time.

I found a good deal on the 40A Xantrex Trucharge 2 and plan on using that to recharge and maintain the batteries when docked or in storage.


Tower Speakers and Amps
The reason for doing an additional pair of Rev8's in the future really just has to do with clearance. The Alpha Z tower is not the tallest tower and I'm worried another pair of Rev10's might make for even more head bruises. The RZR we were on most of last year had a pair of Pro80's on the outside and pair of Pro60's on the inside and the Pro60's were not totally in the way but I did hit my head on them more than once.

I know the HD750/1 per Rev10 is way too much power but I would rather have the amplifier headroom now and plenty of power for additional speakers in the future. I'd also like to just wire everything up once and be done with it, except for adding speakers in the future if needed.


In Boat Speakers
I agree here. It is probably just best to stick with the 770's. The 880's may not be worth the extra effort and knowing how long it takes JL to release new products because of how much quality control and testing they do, we may not see them until the 3rd quarter, even though they said Q2.


Subwoofer
I definitely agree that the best subwoofer option will be based on the available space for the enclosure and the placement of it. There's lots of great subs on the market but unless they are able to placed in the appropriate enclosure, they won't perform like they are intended. I guess I was looking for insight as to what has worked best in the RZR. I'm pretty sure, due to wanting to retain storage space everywhere else, I want to put a subwoofer under the driver's helm.

I think the 12W7 I have will be a bit of a waste in the boat and I'm pretty sure it would be incredibly tough to impossible to get the appropriate amount of airspace for it in a vented enclosure.

We listen to a lot of different types of music: Lots of Country, Hip Hop and some Dance and even some well recorded Dub Step (I know, I know but if it sounds good and the people around you like it, a lot of you would rock it in your boat too). I like sub bass to be tight and clean but also be able to play low.

I've been spoiled with having some great home and car systems for a long time. I competed for a couple years in the late 90's at a pretty high level in USAC and some IASCA. Most of the high end subwoofer systems I've installed or owned in home have done a great job playing from 80hz and down and integrating into the rest of the system. In cars, I've never been happy with letting the subwoofer play much over 50-60hz, unless I just wanted the system to play loud.

I know boats are a completely different animal and from what I have heard, it's pretty difficult to get much low bass extension that you can actually appreciate either inside the boat or while swimming or hanging out around the boat. You end up just fighting a bunch of rattles in the boat and not really hearing the low bass until you are at least 15-20' away.

A good friend and pretty well respected installer (who is in your neck of the woods) said the best sounding boat he's done, although he admitted he hasn't done a ton of boats, he used a 12W3 in a vented enclosure that was tuned pretty high, around 40hz. He said it integrated well and had a ton of output because he wasn't focusing on getting it to play really low.

Thoughts?

shark,
I don't know the Tige' EIDB system. Hopefully someone who is very familiar with it can explain it. But if its a conventional voltage sensing solenoid then it should at minimum protect the alternator from an inordinate load. However, if the batteries represent alot of reserves and are well depleted and the stereo is in play at a good clip the measured voltage can stay pinned down so that the solenoid cannot re-combine until you give the stereo some down time combined with some decent RPM.
The 40amp charger is more than plenty for the collective capacity of the three 29s which should approach 300 total amp/hours. The only issue is if you play the system at dock for a long period with depleted batteries. The depleted batteries could combine with the stereo as a substantial load and the charger is not intended as a continuous power supply. So as long as the batteries have a good charge this should be safe to run at a reasonable level for an extended period.
If you mix tower speakers then put the 10s on one amp and the 8s on another amp and gain them accordingly. In order to protect the smaller speaker you will always have some degree of unrealized capacity with a dissimilar mix.
In-boat speakers: I just wouldn't commit until I auditioned any newly released speaker.
A massive W7 does require more enclosure and alot more power. I like the additional responsiveness of a W6 in an open boat better. The W7 would certainly be my reference woofer in a car for a number of reasons. In a car I am combining with the cabin gain. I've got all the leverage I can stand. So my priorities are different.
Using the W3 12" you mentioned as an example. It has a resonance below 30 hz. You would normally tune it barely above resonance or about 30 Hz. That means the woofer is well protected in a bass-reflex enclosure. However its poorly protected below the tuning region but fortunately there isn't much program material down there. A subsonic filter would help with any ported system. If you tune it much higher you are exposing the woofer to alot more material below tuning in an essentially unloaded enclosure.
What if you tune it at 40 Hz (or even 55 Hz as some people do for a giant amount of gain) and its highpass half power point is just below the tuning frequency. Then you cross it over at 60 or 70 Hz with the lowpass which is half power at that point. You don't even have a single octave of linear response....just one big peak. That wouldn't sound good to my ear. So in car, home, boat or other I would tune the bass-reflex subwoofer enclosure for the most well-damped and most linear response according to its own parameters. Its just going to sound better to my ear in a boat running with a little more bandwidth. And if I have a linear subwoofer it won't make as much difference what type music I am listening to as it will sound more neutral on everything. Opinions vary all over the map on this. I am very critical about tonal construction and bass pitch accuracy. Many don't hear it. They just want the max bump.

David
Earmark Marine

TJ,

The Tige EIDB system uses a diode type isolator. No switch in, its a passive system. When the engine is running, voltage is passing through the diodes to each battery bank. When the engine is off, the loads are isolated due to the nature of diodes. Diodes are basically one-way electrical check-valves. This system works fine for the typical house bank system, but for you have planed, i.e. two additional house batteries. I would suggest putting a ON/OFF switch between the factory house battery and your 2 additional hose batteries. This will allow you to isolate them from the alternator. This takes some stress off the alternator upon initial start up when the house bank has been depleted. If you leave off the EIDB option, I would still consider isolating a 3 battery bank from the alt. 2-3 dead batteries is a huge shock for the alt to see all at once.

Why not go ahead and mount and wire in both of the JL MHD750/1's, but leave one with the remote turn-on left out. Wire both REV-10's to it, thus leaving the other in stand-by waiting for the Rev-8's at a later date. At the end of the day, I would like to see the 10's and 8's not wired in parallel any way. Power wise, you end up at the same point as you will be when the 2nd towers are added.

shark,
I didn't think that diode-based isolators were in use much anymore. If I could delete it as an option I would and go with a HD dual battery switch as chpthrill suggested. Diodes have insertion losses and voltage is just too precious in a boat.

David
Earmark Marine

Originally Posted by david_e_m

shark,
I didn't think that diode-based isolators were in use much anymore. If I could delete it as an option I would and go with a HD dual battery switch as chpthrill suggested. Diodes have insertion losses and voltage is just too precious in a boat.

David
Earmark Marine

Leaving it off could be easier said then done. In years past, the EIDB was listed as an option, BUT became standard when other options, such as tower of power stereo, ballast, shower/heater, docking and tower lights where added on. At that point, the EIDB was installed.

It may just be easier to pull the diode iso and relocate the alternator wire to the new multi-battery switch.

Thanks. I'm checking with Tige now. Is there a switch that would allow me to keep the factory setup while driving and parking for short periods and when I'm going to park for a long period I could switch the stereo to another bank with 2 additional SRM29's?

It seems like that might be a nice option in case we run the stereo batteries down while parked, I could switch it back to the factory set up to use for a bit or while driving. Or is that just too inefficient?