Marine Head Unit with 6 Speakers?

iBrent

Seaman
Joined
Aug 4, 2008
Messages
58
I'm looking at open-bow runabouts that come standard with 6 speakers. My understanding is boats use marine grade automotive head units which only have 4 channels (L-Front-R, L-Rear-R). So how do they wire the other 2 speakers? If they wire the 2 extra with 2 channels and create some parallel or series combination, the levels will be unbalanced with the 2 connected to separate channels. So how do they get around this?
 

Wee Hooker

Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Sep 11, 2005
Messages
615
Re: Marine Head Unit with 6 Speakers?

Same as in cars. Two ways around it actually.

First, if 2 of the 6 speakers are tweeters, they likely use a crossover on a component set. The crossover magicly marries the tweeter and woofer/mid to give one standard 2 or 4 ohm output for that channel. ( So you have a set of components in the front and regular speakers /coaxials in the rear with matching 2 or 4 ohm impediance.)
Second way is to run 4 ohm speakers in the rear and 2, 2ohm speakers (per side) wired in series in the front. This also gives you 4 ohm's on all 4 channels. (BTW, 4 ohms is pretty much the standard in automotive /marine speakers. There are others, but selection is limited. )

In either case, you really need a decient sized amplifier to run 6 speakers. Headunits, even the good aftermarket flavors, just don't put out enough wattage to make 6 speakers sound good. All the ambiant noise you get in a boat makes the situation even worse.

hth
 

Silvertip

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Sep 22, 2003
Messages
28,758
Re: Marine Head Unit with 6 Speakers?

I can't imagine basing a boat purchase with a main criteria being that it have six speakers. You will pass up an abundance of excellent boats with no speakers, two speakers, and four speakers in the process of finding one with six -- and then paying too much for it. Considering the cost of audio system in relation to the overall boat purchase, adding it is a drop in the bucket and you end up with what you want.
 

iBrent

Seaman
Joined
Aug 4, 2008
Messages
58
Re: Marine Head Unit with 6 Speakers?

I can't imagine basing a boat purchase with a main criteria being that it have six speakers. You will pass up an abundance of excellent boats with no speakers, two speakers, and four speakers in the process of finding one with six -- and then paying too much for it. Considering the cost of audio system in relation to the overall boat purchase, adding it is a drop in the bucket and you end up with what you want.

I'm not basing my selection on the audio system. I was just curious how they are wired.

They aren't component sets, they are 6 full range drivers. They appear to be identical in all respects. I was just curious if someone out there had a similar setup and could tell me how the speakers were wired to the headunit.
 
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