How Many Watts Do I need?
 

How many watts do I need to get a good average sounding stereo?...I'm putting a couple of 10" or 12" speakers in and an amplifier...how much or how many watts do I need for it to rock in the cockpit area?.....it's a Pioneer am/fm cd unit..what do I need to add?...Fred

50watts for the 10s or 70watts for the 12s this if the rating is in RMS not peak power as rated on cheap amps peak power can be 3 times that of the rms power and is usually measured at 1000Hz
RMS is a continous measured undera wider Freq range
the power you need is also related to your speakers need
"Audiofn" would be able to get you the proper amp.

I have a gizzillion:D

50 watts? maybe for the smaller mids and highs.. for the 10's or 12's you need about 8-10X that.... I have 600 watts running two 10 inch JL audio subs in my truck just to give you an example. I do have alot of power for a set of 10's and in a truck many/most people would not have that much, but in a boat you need more power for the same/similar set up because of the amout of open space you need to "fill" with music... Much of the music content is lost to "nothingness" because of this. I have put a system in my friends 33' scarab with it running 3 12" subs under the rear seat are and 3 pairs of 6" speakers in the cabin/cockpit area. To run this we added 3 amps totaling about 1100 watts. When we pull into an area you can hear the stereo over the dry stellings he has on the motors.

The most common size amp that I use for boats is a 50X4 and a 100X1. The sub channel will give you 200 watts if you run two subs. What you have to remember is that to get 3db (the smallest amount that the average human ear can pick up) you have to double the power. So to get three DB more you will have to go up to 400 watts. 3 db more and you will have to go to 800 then 1600 and so on. There are of course different variables in this but that is the basic ground rule. Also there is definatly a difference like hase been said btwn different manufacturers. There are regulated and non regulated power suplies and many other ways to measure. Stick with the good manufacturers and you will be happy.

Jon

The reason I said those lower power levels is if he had to ask
then I know those 10 or 12 are not Pro speakers AKA "circuit city" I use JBL Pro Tour cabinets for DJing and Live sound production run over 1000watts RMS per cabinet, so watts is my biz.
I run on my boat 2 Denon car audio amps 8 years old
dcm 600s 600watts "claimed" but I measured them with meter
150rms each channel for a total of 600w so peak is 14-1800w
current draw over 35 amps each. Runs down a pair of 700amp marine batteries in 3 hours

Jon,

Would a capacitor or two help from draining the battery as fast?

Matt

what kind of boat are you putting them in?
where in the boat do you want them to go?
if you are not worried about weight, i can make
2 10s pretty loud. give me a call i can get you
what you need.
Tyson 417-437-0665

no a cap will not help

4 - 100 watt solar panels would, but they be pretty ugly on the engine cover and leave no place for the babes to lay out:D :D

100 watt solar panels would be twice the size of the boat
but a good idea

not the BP ones I have on my house 21x47 inches each

I agree Caps will not help with battery life at all. The easiest way to increas your playing time with out the engien running is to get another battery. Another thing about amps is they are not all the same in the amount that they draw off your battery. Some are MUCH more efficient then others. I can run my Zapco amps all day with out the engine running and so far have not had a problem with starting the engines up even off that same battery.

Jon

So would a 600-750 watt advertised amp give me some boom? should I have other speakers like 6x9's in the system also?....its all to be in the cockpit area which is in a 40' Excalibur Hawk so there is some room for sound to fill....Fred

Fred I am running out the door but I will try and get back to this later this evening

Fred, with the pretty young daughters you have (not to mention their friends)....are you sure you want a booming system in your boat? They will be dancing on the sun pad.....hanging from the arch....attracting all the low life guys in the area!!!!! LOL!!!

In all reality Fred, I have two 10" JL Audio subs running off a Rockford Fosgate Punch 45, and four speakers running off a JBL 4x50 amp. Rocks pretty good.

If you're going to add more than one amp, you need to make sure you have 4 pre-outs on your head unit. If not, you will have to use speaker leads to get to your 2nd amp....some amps will not accept speaker lead inputs. Make sure you don't buy anything you can't use.

Thanks Jon....no hurry, I'll check later in the evening....Fred

On the batteries, what do you do, wire two into a series.

boating fool
the batteries would technically be wired in Parallel. this is with the +'s together, and the -'s together. this doubles the amp-hrs, or volume x time to play the stereo, but the voltage is still 12 volts.

if you wired them in series ( like a 2 battery flashlight for example) you would have 24 volts and get loud music for about 200 milliseconds:D

deep cycle batteries are better for stereos as they have a larger sustained amperage capacity ( like for a trolling motor)
The starting batteries, obviously, are for starting and can pull higher amps for a short period of time to start the motor.

the ideal setup. a battery switch to separate one starter battery, and one or even two parallel deep cycles for running the radio. the switch allows you to flip back and forth to charge either back up, or use all to start the motor in a pinch.


so audifn what would be your suggested setup
for say $400-500 can you get anything good for that. assume you have a tuner already with preamp out
lets go shopping!!!!


in my case i have a tuner with preamp out,
one 80Wx2 sony (rms at 0.04% THD, a decent one) and two 6 1/2 coax right now

i have a crossover not begin used but found that it clips too much range out of the 6 1/2's even when dialed all the way back. can you buy a pramp crossover that sends full (most of) the signal to the 6 1/2's and then just the sub sonic punch to the subs?


I am looking to add to what i have here this winter also.

Fread's tunes
 

Talk to as many people locally, even sume of the younger guys as they usual dont have as much money to spend and can give lots of good ideas and what shops to go to without getting hosed. How much power? I usually try to talk in RMS numbers for the most reliable comparisent from brand to brand. But big or small systems of any real quality I give the mid's and high's the same amout of power as the bass (or lows). This way it wont be overpowerd like somehighschool kids car were the boom is all you hear.
Examples my MasterCraft had one 12" four 5"1/4 and four tweeters. An ADS amp that was RMS 6x66 watts four chanells went to 5's a tweet and two briged to the sub. Metro deck power 4x25 watts to four 4" and four tweeters and Old School Alphasonic 2x25 wattts briged to a 10" in a custom Dual Bandpass box. Acura Legend Boston 6",4", tweet combo and 12" in a custom dual band pass box. that runs on a Old School Rockford Fosgate POWER 650 4 channel 1/2 to the front 1/2 to the sub. Charlie's .02

The amplifier brand that I found that work best on boats is the Rockford Fosgate bd models. Subwoofers are the power hungry side to a sound system. Many people have learned that Class D amps are far greater in efficiency at making big power with the least amount of current demand. Class D amps are more efficient than all Class AB amps at high volumes but at low volumes they are very inefficient.

Rockford Fosgate took this one step further. They use a Class BD circuit to be most efficient at low and high volumes. Bear in mind that an ampliers output is rated usually at 13.8 volts and that as the voltage goes lower the amplifiers demand increases. Choosing the correct amp is critical as you can either buy an amp that exagerates power ratings or an amp that requires more battery voltage than what you can offer in a marine application thereby the amp cannot perform as promised.

If anyone is looking for professional advise or a good deal on an amp feel free to call (813)882-8477 Monday thru Saturday 9 to 6 EST.

Andy Buzz

Ram,

Thanks for the info. That was what I was meaning just used the wrong terminology:rolleyes:

this is the beginning of my 8-15" sub install and 8-7x10s
can you say boom

apache77
Yikes, won't that create a time warp?

can you say stress cracks:D :D
And I thought I was bad having 2 pro touring JBL cabs in my Yukon 4-15" 2- compression horns + factory 6 speakers


8 x15s and god knows what else thats gotta be one Fu--king
loud boat:eek:

Apache 77 I guess sound quality is not critical to you :D:D

That is a very agressive project. What you going to to to cover the speakers? Please tell me not leave them visible. I have been tossing some sub ideas around for my boat but have not come up with the best fit yet. I was trying to make it so that you would not see any subs at all. I am close but the numbers are still a little off. If I can get it right it will hit hard and loud and will be almost invisible!!! :D:D Not a easy thing to do.

There are two things to consider when trying to make a speaker play loud. One is will it be able to handle the power that you are tossing at it. DO NOT get a speaker that is rated for 300 watts RMS and only put 15 watts to it. You will not be happy. More speakers are blown from not enough power then to much. The second thing that you need to look at is the speakers efficiency. This is rated at 1 watt/1 meter. The DB rating that fallows that helps you know how efficient the speaker is. So if you see a speaker that is 90db and one that is 93 db then the 93 db speaker is going to use up twice the power of the other. Some times people aske me what is the best speaker. Well there is no real correct answer to that. That is why guys like me design systems. We know the parts that like to work together. That being said the speaker that I seem to incorporate into every marine system that I do are the Babbs. They are very efficient so you can use a small amp. They sound great. They do not have a spider on the back so they seem to last longer. They are alluminum cones so when you are washing the boat, go ahead and hose them down, it is actually good for them. For front speakers due to the ussuall crappy locations available for the speakers I ussually try for Component speakers. These are ussually but not necassarily less efficient then others. That I like to do is to put the mid bass speaker (ussually 6" rounds) and then move the tweeter around tell I like the location and the sound that I get. Then I mount it up. The most common set up that I seem to put in boats is a pair of 6" component Clarions up front, 6X9 Babb speakers in the back maybe under the bench seat, and a pair of 10" subs. Boxed if you can, if not then put them free air (just make sure you have free air subs). I run all this ussually with the Rockford amps as they seem to take the beating that the boats hand out. I have yet to have any go bad on me. I have had a few dead out of the box but it seems that if they make the UPS trip that they work well :D:D

Hope that helps some. If you have any other questions fire away. :D:D

Jon

This is what that boats gonna look and sound like! :D :D :D

Is there any special tricks when cutting the fiberglass to make the holes for the speakers? What is the best tool and procedure? Also is there any tricks when mounting subs that have big heavy magnets to prevent stress cracks and such. Thanks

I have heard very good things about the Roto-Zip for cutting speaker and other types of holes in boats.

Well there are two ways that I do it and that depends on the location. If I can I like to use a Laminate cutting bit on a saber saw. It creates a LOT LESS dust. I put Duct tape on the bottom of the saw and put Masking tape on the boat This will make sure that it is not scratched. I do not like ROTO zips as they can grab and take off uncontrolled. Well if it takes off in the wrong direction you are screwed!!! So I use a Dremmel with a roto zip bit in it. Then you can control it easily. Hope that helps. Oh ya if you put a vacume near were you are cutting it will greatly reduce the mess. :D:D

Jon

Same here Ive put my rotozip blades in my dremmel too
then use a foot switch to very the speed
the damn rotozip is pretty powerfull and doesn't
stall like the dremmel , So your right it can wreck stuff

I will have good sound quality, and the subs will be seen for the wow factor. The 93 db speaker at the same volume level will take half the power of the 90.

You got me again you are correcto moudo. :D:D THANK GOD I have some one checking me out. Brain is still fried from all this moving and crap I have been doing. :D:D

Jon

I cut my speaker holes (6.5" & 12") with a roto-zip and the circle cutter guide. Worked ok for controlling the tool and making a perfect circle but... the inside walls of my boat are 1/2" plywood + 3/16" glass skin. That's real thick for a rotozip blade. Had to go real slow and used a bunch of blades (not cheap). If I had to do it again, I'd borrow a large holesaw.

So how many speakers and what sizes would sound good with a single 600-750 watt amp?....Fred

depends on the amp, watts mean nothing at all really, what amp make and model. And what are you trying to do with it

Hey I was wondering if someone could help me make my van a little louder! It just does not tickle me the right way.

apache77, I was just going to put a couple of 10"s in under the back seat and any other speaker required, add an amp to the Pioneer CD player, just want something reasonable in price to improve the system....nothing that has to loosen screws.....unless I can do it cheap...what would you suggest?.....Fred

what are the dimensions of where you are putting them?
when you buy an amp, the more money you spend the more power you get, so do not worry about watts, for a good cheep system you could do 2-10" crossfire subs (they have plastic cones and work well around water) a box and crossfire amp for $269
or a rockford system with a little more power for 389. Personally I would go with 2 digital design 10s and a 1000d amp and a fiber-glassed and gelcoated box that moulded in, but that would cost 2200.
tyson 4174395040