Stereo amps and speakers

Does anyone have any experience with speakers from a company called "Wet Sounds" I recently bought some tower enclosures with Kicker KS65s installed in them (four of them) but have to say I've been unimpressed with their capacity to deliver the sound to the rider. Also, it looks like I need another amp. I was thinking about the MTX 7804 for my tower setup. Anybody had experience with this amp or brand? Thanks, Les

Les,

I think there must be two different companies? The Wetsounds company that I know of does not sell tower enclosures for car speakers. Most car speakers cannot be heard from the rider's position very well.

I have the Wetsounds Pro-485s most people say they are the loudest/clearest speakers they have heard. I do have 800 watts going to the tower speakers alone.

Have not heard of anybody using MTX amps with much success. I might suggest HiFonics, Orion, Rockford Fosgate, or Phoenix Gold for a budget friendly amp.

automotive speakers are perfectly fine for the boat enviroment. The only benefit the wetsounds system has is that it utilizes 8" drivers. If you get an 8" component set from a car audio company you are in the same ball field. The 8" drivers allow more sound to be delivered with clearer output at high levels.

Les,

Sorry it took so long to see your post as I usually check out the other sections.

I see what your are asking in that you already purchased some Kicker speakers from someone and are unhappy with them and now are interested in our Wet Sounds speakers.

The MTX amp you are looking at is a great amp. It would work well to run a pair of PRO 485's like what Mikeski has. Or you could opt for the "Threesome" package which is a single PRO 485 in the center and a pair of PRO 80 on the outsides.

It seems that Matt has never heard our speakers or any other HLCD systems if he thinks the only benefit is cone area.

Comparing a "Pro" audio to a "car" audio speaker is apples and oranges. The only thing in common is they are speakers. Other than that it is night and day.

If sound to the rider and output is what you are after, then a "pro" audio type tower system is what you will need.

I suggest trying to do a demo and listen to some different speakers.

Not sure if you ride on the same lakes as Mikeski but if you get a chance, take a listen to his boat.

Thanks,

Tim White-President
Wet Sounds, Inc.

I have been around audio and electronics for as long as I could remember. Although I will give it to you that I have never heard that exact Pro 485 setup before, but it can't be any different than the thousands of speaker designs and setups that we have in our society today.

Tell me how a car audio speaker and pro audio speaker is like comparing apples and oranges. They both use similar components, house themself in sealed, ported, bass reflex enclosures, share similar power ratings and use similar ideas to project sound in a relatively accurate way.

For a wakeboarder, having top notch sound is not important, because you are on the water, and have to overcome such background noises from the water, engine and other obstacles around you. Sure you want it to sound good, but any speaker setup can project the sound accurately to the rider, its the volume that counts, because the louder it is projected the better chance the ride has of hearing the music over the background noise.

Pro audio setups usually only sound good when quality studio monitors are used for reference playback, but since its not in a low noise studio, using a so called "pro" audio setup outdoors is not going to help in this case at all.

The only advantage a pro audio driver might have, is if it has a high sensitivity level, so that with the same wattage applied to a car audio speaker vs a pro audio driver, the pro audio driver would be able to provide more output to the rider.

Either way, a properly built and amplieid car audio setup would be the same as the Pro 485.

Matt,

Sorry to disagree with you. You can be around car audio as long as your remember but this isn't car audio. You don't seem to get it and by the words in yours post. You never will. I am not sure why you are on this board as your views on having top notch sound for a wakeboarder is not important is completely opposite of what everyone on this board is after. Everyone here wants high quality sound for the rider. High Quality sound in the boat.

Do you even ride? Or are you just on here to give people bad information on something you claim to know about but obviously don't. Have you ever ridden behind a boat?

Have you ever heard one of our systems? Or one from some of the other companies out there. If you have, you would understand the apples and oranges. It is night and day.

First off a Horn Loaded Compression Driver like what is used in the PRO 485 is quite a bit different than a car audio tweeter. Ours is a 36 oz magnet. It is a titanium diaphragm. So your argument is because a car audio tweeter that might be a 2 oz. magnet uses titanium too. They are the same huh? Not even close.

A Yugo is the same as a Ferrari because they both use some aluminum in their components. They both have wheels. They are both cars. They are all the same, right Matt. Don't think so.

If pro audio gear was the same as car audio gear. I guess you would go to a Metallica concert and they would just have a few car audio speakers up on stage. That is what you are saying.

There are specific products made for specific applications.

Car Audio speakers are made for cars. They are made to mount in the doors of a car and in a near field application. They are not designed to have the throw, the reach, the output or dispersion.

It is not what they are designed for. Pro Audio speakers are designed for large venue applications like concerts.

Do me a favor and actually go ride with someone who has a set of 485's on their boat. If you don't ride, maybe they can pull you on a tube. And then go behind someone who has a car audio based set up.

Once you have, then you can get on this board and post statements. But please do not come on here and give people wrong information about things you know nothing about.

Tim White-President
Wet Sounds, Inc.

The crowd applauses Tim
Im glad this argument went down...Im in the process of building my own tower speaker setup. Ive been thinking of cutting cost by using car audio but now I will shop for Pro Audio. Thanks Tim....wished I wasnt on such a tight budget, I would just order one of your setups.
thanks again.

JoJo,

Good idea, you will be much happier with a HLCD set up. Doing a DYI is always a good start. You can always upgrade later!

Talk to mikeski, he has built his own pro audio set up too, it is what he had on his boat before the 485's I am sure he can give you some good pointers to get you started.

Tim

Tim, thanks for the input. I hate to see people get personal on these posts, we all have our opinions, but I can also understand your getting riled when it is your business someone is capping on. I'm guessing Matt is just stating his experience. I wish I could just go down to a local shop and listen to your speakers, or most of the set-ups I've read about for that matter, but this is a highly specialized and very tiny field compared to car audio, but I don't know anywhere I can do that.

My audioformz housings are really nice on my illusion X tower, the the staff there was very helpful and responsive to me so I don't want to convey any complaint with them. Also, the kicker speakers are ear splitting in my driveway, but 75 feet behind the running boat is a different story. They might even still be okay because I can't tell if they are distorting from overdriving the amp or from overdriving the speakers. I'm not sure how I would be able to tell. I only have one speaker per channel at this point.

What I was thinking of doing was getting a new amp, like the MTX 7804 and using it for the tower speakers and hooking my stock sony Xplod stuff back up like it was.

It just seems like each time I think of taking one step to correct the problem (not enough great sound behind the boat) I come up against some other potential or real component issue. Too much drain on the battery, I got a second battery, distortion from the speakers, I rewired and ultimately disconnected the 6 speakers inside the boat, thinking of running a two amp system, maybe I need a bigger alternator, a better head unit, maybe I need a sub woofer to get the bass output, and on and on. When I went to the recommended local expert I came out with a $7,000 ballpark quote and they never even followed up with a real quote. Honestly, I haven't got that much invested in my home stereo which I listen to everyday, so I kind of choked on that amount for something I use only infrequently. I'd like to think I can get away with doing it myself bit by bit, which is how I got to this point.

Your suggestion of doing a three speaker set-up sounds good in theory, but it could be a problem in my boat because the illusion X tower isn't tall enough to accommodate a speaker in the middle. I thought just two of your pro audio speakers on the side would be enough. Thanks again to everyone for the input. Les

Looks like I missed a few things.

First off feel inclined to chime in on a few things that Matt mentioned. Other than using 12 volts for power a boat and a car sound environment have very little in common (unless you are talking about a convertible car). It is difficult to understand how much sound reinforcement is generated inside a car (or any other closed space) until you take the same speaker and put it on a wakeboard tower where the sound has one shot to get to your ears.

My first experience with tower speakers was with my buddies high dollar car audio seperates mounted in some nice high dollar polished aluminum cans behind his Mastercraft Xstar. The tunes were cranking when he idled out then the sound just disappeared once I was up on the wakeboard. After I fell I asked him why he turned the music off when I was boarding, he replied that it was still on... That's my personal experience with car speaker cans on towers.

The following summer I put a tower on my Ski Nautique and I decided that Evid stadium speakers were a better tower solution than car speakers designed to be used in a car door/rear decklid. Those sounded pretty good but still left me wanting more. In the mean time I had also went behind another buddies boat with four 6x9's. They were about the same as my Evids, not a noticable difference. At the end of that summer I sold that boat.

The next year I bought my Nautique 211 and wanted a lightweight, easily removable, acoustically strong sound audo system. Unfortunately at that time there were none so I built my own based on using Eminence guitar speakers as NVS had done in the earlier days. Since my Nautique tower was not that high off the boat's floor I didn't want to go larger than an 8" driver, I also found that Eminence made a coaxial unit with a nested horn loaded compression driver. I thought they were pretty "hot stuff" until I played them side by side with some NVS and Wetsounds tower speakers.

As mentioned in my earlier post I am running a pair of Wetsounds Pro-485's on my tower. I would completely agree with Matt saying that sound quality is not that important when you are on the wakeboard at 75' out at 24mph (where I ride). However it sure is nice having a very strong great sounding pair of speakers to listen to for a few hours when you are hanging out tied up to a few friends in a cove after the water gets blown out and your crew is exhausted.

The Audioform 6x9s are a good solution if that's all that fits in your budget. A friend of mine runs them on his boat, he bought them before the Pro-80's were available this year. He has young children and just wanted something to put on his tower, hearing them while boarding was optional.

I think the Pro-80's are currently the best value for speakers that can truly be heard from the riders position while riding behind a typical inboard boat. I/O's tend to be quieter, car speakers sometimes work on these boats.

Les,

Just checked your profile, nice boat, was actually my first choice last year but the wife wanted the 211, so... Still happy in any case.

I would guess the most economical thing to do would be to add a pair of Pro-80's to your existing system with a new amp. Add a switch to the turn on wire so you can turn the tower off when you don't want to overpower the boat speakers (which all good pro-audio based speakers will do if not heavily attenuated).

JoJo,
What's ya building... I have some leftover parts you might be interested in.

Mike

Woops I must have struck a note with Tim White. Gee now hes trying to make me look like a goof because I come onto the forum giving some advice and trying to let the original poster see that he can spend his money wisely. You must have got a little defensive because I praise your product like I assume you expected me to. Nope sorry not going to do that.

Lets go down the list shall we:

I am not sure why you are on this board as your views on having top notch sound for a wakeboarder is not important is completely opposite of what everyone on this board is after.

I am perfectly aware any rider would love to have a good sounding stereo projected in their direction for when they are riding, but this isn't an coustically isolated enviroment they are in. The focus then turns to projecting audio loud enough for the rider to hear, which is fine. But the SQ factor falls flat on its face when you add in all the background noise from the engine, water, people etc etc. Its almost worthless to focus on a SQ oriented setup when all you would want is a decent sounding setup to project the sound loud enough to the rider so they have an enjoyable experience.

Do you even ride? Or are you just on here to give people bad information on something you claim to know about but obviously don't. Have you ever ridden behind a boat?

No I just talk out of my buttocks.

First off a Horn Loaded Compression Driver like what is used in the PRO 485 is quite a bit different than a car audio tweeter. Ours is a 36 oz magnet. It is a titanium diaphragm. So your argument is because a car audio tweeter that might be a 2 oz. magnet uses titanium too. They are the same huh? Not even close.

You do know that horn loaded compression drivers are nothing new. They have been in use in car audio and home audio for a long time. I admit horns do sound good when in a properly design application, but read above as to facotrs limiting the sound reporduction.

Now if you were using horns in a speaker setup that you were using an a special listening room, or a theatre, then yeh it would matter alot more. because it would be quiet, and you would be able to pick up suttle characteristics about the reproduction that you otherwise would not while behind a boat.

I only tried to help and now look what happened lol. Not everyone has $1000 to spend on speakers, but still wants the best bang for the buck.

Oh well.

You know what. That was uncalled for. Were all adults so we should act like them.

My post was probably a little upfront and biased, so I dont want to leave any bad taste in anyones mouth.

Im sure the wetsounds system sounds good, I just like making sure people get the best bang for the buck because I know how much this hobby costs.

So I will leave it at that.

Regards.
Matt

Matt,

I have been on this board for a couple years now, none of us are immune to posting biased opinions as facts (I do it all the time). I don't think any of us are scientists here so we should just take every post as the poster's personal opinion. So no worries.

Tim took objection because so many companies make great claims when their offers are virtually the same as what the boat manufacturers install. The three exceptions to the rule that I know of are Wetsounds, NVS, and maybe the Rubicons. In my opinion your comments are dead on when it comes to the everybody else.

Moving on... You are either new or have recently changed your sign in, but my point is that Loudsubz idicates you have knowledge about subs? So, let's talk subs. Grant and I were having a discussion the other day about subs. His approach and mine are quite different. He loves to spend money buying top rated gear that looks beautiful and expects it to perform well, like the JL W7 subs and Orion 2400 amps he has been using. I on the other hand like to come up with inexpensive sleeper systems that don't look like much, but perform surprisingly well like my little TB 6.5" woofers and Avionixx tripath amps.

Lately we have been debating subs since we are both not completely satisfied with the subs in our systems. I have seen quite a few failures when it comes to subwoofers in boats and I am beginning to think that competition subs are not designed to sustain high output levels for hours instead of minutes. The challenge is finding a high output sub designed for an outdoor setting that is not too big and heavy yet still resilient to the occasional splash it may get. One that will live when it is subjected to 500-1000rms for an hour or so.

Maybe something like:
12"+ cone
Fiber or other water resistant cone (maybe even coated paper)
Lightweight, less than 15lbs
works in 1.0 cu.ft. box or 1.4 ported
500w+ continuous power handling
Neodymium magnet?
attractive cast aluminum basket?

Any ideas?

Les,

The PRO 80X are the PRO 80 version that will fit on the Illusion factory mounts. You can utilize the top or bottom mounting position. We have had numerous people replace a 4 can car audio system with 1 pair of PRO 80X and are very happy. Check over on themalibucrew.com web site as there are a lot of guys running that system and a lot of pictures posted so you can see. And also read unbiased feedback. You can also take a look at our site for pics.

Matt,

I too will leave it at that. Don't take it personal and sorry if I went that way but I have a right to defend our products when someone was asking legitimate questions about them and someone else comes in and gives them bad information.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions true. You can have yours and I can have mine. Didn't mean it to sound so harsh. I apologize.

Thanks,

Tim

Tim Im glad we could end it like that, it was getting out of hand and mostly due to my original post, so I am to blame.

I think I need to find someone with the wetsounds setup to truly have a listen to change my views on these types of setups, for all I know I could be completely wrong in my views on this.

I look forward to adding to this forum what I can and I hope you do as well.

Mikeski:

I am exactly like yourself. Dont get me wrong, I would love to buy expensive gear like the W7 subs, and ARC amps etc, but I too like to see what potential cheaper gear has that nobody knows about, and then show it to them after they are amazed at how well it sounds. I actually run dual 8" tangband subs in my car in a cannon style configuration (sonotube) and the low end output from them is unreal. They are no spl monster but they really shake the car and add a real umphh to the low end that I havn't had before in most car audio subs (the lower FS rating on them helps allot)

Now when you say the subs can't sustain high output for hours, I assume the sub is being driven hard because you want more output from them? If thats the case what about multiple subs, or a different sized box.

I know at the bottom of your post you mention your limited box size of 1.0 sealed and 1.4 ported, is that due to the space of the location, or just a preference? Adding another sub would help alot in output and would require the subs to be driven less to require the same output from the sinlge sub (that is assuming you add more power as well). You would also want a fairly effecient sub, specially in a boat. You dont want to be ramming all that power into the sub and not have much of it translated into sound energy.

What about a horn design or transmission line box? I have seen some 6.5" audiobahn subs in a transmission line box and people thought they were dual 12's because the box made them very effecient and maximized the energy output from the sub.

You can also check out some how audio drivers, specially ones used in HT use. They can usually take a beating and have a low FS so you will really feel the ground shattering effects and low impact from your music.

Inverting the sub in the box would aos help keep things a bit cooler, allowing the voice coil to be ventelated better, and also save on box space, but it would make the sub more vulnerable to its enviroment.

Mikeski,

you mentioned some 6 X 9's that were good for the budget minded, I cannot locate that brand, where would you purchase them?

I want to build an enclosure for some on my tower, I cannot afford the high dollar speakers.

I just want something that will sound good hanging out and are up and out of the way.

Thanks,

Kelly

i would like to chime in on subs in boats if you dont mind...

there are multiple major problem since most boats are running 3 systems (sub, interior, tower) in a unreinforced listening area..

this is MAJOR drain on the amps and the electrical system (dual or 200 amp alternators would be nice)along with multiple gel batteries and caps.. most car audio electrical systems arent taxed as hard...

so here are a couple of suggestions on subs if you want a small enclosure..
- high quality class d amps with regualated power supplies.. they can run high output and stay cool for extendded periods, and last a very long time (jl audio slash series or mmats are very, very good and reasonbly priced)
-high efficency subs (89-92 db efficency)..this is a problem with the high excursion subs(very inefficent and require large boxes)...
-get a decent voltage head unit (i wont go on any further about this..but the source unit and the quality of the source material is one of the most important things..
-unisurround construction - durable beyond belief...i have tried a lot of subs and have lost them to torn surrounds (if you are blowing subs then chances are you arent running enough power and the amp is clipping) i have a friend who has a older "leaky bmw"..been through 2 boxes due to water damage (submursion) and the sub is fine to this day.. nice baskets look pretty but aluminum is better as a rust resistant finish..

i have had really good results with image dynamics idq series for a HARD HITTING, loud, efficent, forgiving enclosure (small), and durability... these are have been around for awhile and are used in car sound off's all the time..the best way to describe them would be a hard hitting/sound quality sub (nice combo imo)

btw, dialing in your sub plays a major factoe with how it sounds and how long it will last..