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Bow Speakers And Sound


Wake My Day

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I have a 2006 23 lsv and I would like to improve the sound in the bow area. I have replaced both bow speakers with 6.5 rockford Fosgates pushing 75 rms. I have stand alone amps powering up all my boat speakers. It sounds good but when underway it sounds a little weak and not much base. I would love to hear what other Bu owners have done. I have a 12" Kicker mounted under the helm and it fills the boat with great base, but the bow section is more than a little weak.

Any ideas.

Thanks

rob

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I have a 2006 23 lsv and I would like to improve the sound in the bow area. I have replaced both bow speakers with 6.5 rockford Fosgates pushing 75 rms. I have stand alone amps powering up all my boat speakers. It sounds good but when underway it sounds a little weak and not much base. I would love to hear what other Bu owners have done. I have a 12" Kicker mounted under the helm and it fills the boat with great base, but the bow section is more than a little weak.

Any ideas.

Thanks

rob

I've got he same boat and I will argue you'll never achieve the percieved sound quality in the bow that you will in the cabin. Simply do to the speaker location and the elements you are fighting while underway. Sticking them in enclosures will net the same issue you're having now, and really doubt you'd be any happier.

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Wake,

First, you might try raising the highpass on those bow speakers to around 125 Hz given that there is no front to rear isolation. This will limit their excursion and improve their ability to play louder. Given the mounting environment you will not lose midbass that you don't have to begin with by raising the crossover. Simply raise the crossover until something is audibly subtracted and then back off a bit.

Second, at moderate listening levels you are not exposing as much the fact that the speakers are not acoustically isolated. But as you increase the volume and therefore the excursion, you are exposing more of the problem. There are two issues when you remove a speaker from an isolated baffle. 1st, the normal back pressure is canceled so the speaker loses any damping provided by the normal resistance of air. And that creates distortion. 2nd, the rear radiation of the speaker is naturally inverted as compared to the front radiation of the speaker. When the two opposing pressures (push/pull) meet they cancel the radiation. This cancelation takes place starting in the midbass and lower midrange depending on the wavelength based on the limited isolation distance. When the front to rear isolation is limited to about six inches between the back of the speaker and edge of an open coaming pocket the problem is more severe. The louder you play them the tinnier they will sound.

Don't confuse 'open' with 'isolation'. If the space behind the speaker is expansive but separated from the front by a reasonable distance then you have an ideal situation. In this case there would be nothing to correct. But, if the front to rear isolation is immediately compromised then you can make an incremental improvement that will definitely give you louder and cleaner sounding speakers. This is one of the most basic acoustic principles. As a simple test try removing a woofer or any speaker for that matter from its enclosure or door panel and see how it sounds in open air and without an isolating baffle.

So if you have the un-isolated condition (a speaker mounted at the edge of an open coaming pocket where the rear of the speaker is fully accessable) then you can either place the speaker in a pod or create a partition to isolate the speaker. Will a small pod raise the speaker's resonance and raise the cut-off point? Sure. But who cares since you can't reproduce those frequencies anyway. What will happen is you will gain the isolation, dramatically improve power handling with a louder and cleaner playing speaker.

David

Earmark Marine

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