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Need a pair of cabin speakers...


Big Jay D

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I bought a 6 pack of Arc KS6 to replace to garbage that was in the boat when I bought it. The problem is the Arc speakers require about a .5" bigger hole to mount them. While it was a major pain in the a** I was able to cut the holes using a body saw. This same issue has to be dealt with on the dash speakers and I'm just not going to pull the windshield to install these speakers. I am looking for a GOOD quality speaker to put in the dash. I want something that will fit in the existing hole and have a great sound quality. I think it's ok to spend a little bit more on these 2 speakers because they are the primary speaker (for me) to listen to.

Any suggestions?

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1) You can use the Crutchfield or Parts Express menus to narrow down the choices that are true 6 1/2" drivers.

2) Pulling the windscreen is too easy to discount using what you bought. You're risking more damage to the dash trying to squeeze the drivers in. Just make sure you have clearance on the height, some speaker grills sit too high.

3) You can enlarge the hole using a 2" drum sanding attachment on your driver/drill. The dash cap is plastic, not fiberglass.

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Big Jay D,

Certainly, you will want a matte black or charcoal speaker to minimize the reflection off the dash.

A great majority of 6.5" coaxials drop into a 5" hole. But if the outer plastic cap doesn't line-up just right with the inner mold then you may still have to do a little work depending on the particular speaker's basket and magnet.

There are some other acoustic considerations for dash-mounted speakers. Any speaker reflecting off the windshield will end up with more of a peaky or eratic response. A brighter speaker tends to misbehave or become more strident in this application. And from the driver's perspective, this is the speaker that will dominate due the positional advantage. So I prefer a balanced, smoother speaker for this location. You might start with coaxials using a soft dome tweeter. These typically have lower resonance and are well-damped. A coaxial with a built-in 2nd order highpass filter may also have a smoother response.

It will be helpful to have a dedicated pair of channels to help bring the dash-mounted speakers in better balance with the rear cockpit speakers. If not, and if the dash speakers share channels, then a common stereo autoformer will give you 10 or 12 precise attenuation steps. Set it once, hide it away and forget it forever.

While too sophisticated for most, you can also introduce a passive contour (sound shaping...not attenuation) network that will create a soft null in the exact area where the glass reflection causes the most eratic behavior. So if you are willing to put in the effort/investment, you can get very close to perfection from a difficult position.

David

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1) You can use the Crutchfield or Parts Express menus to narrow down the choices that are true 6 1/2" drivers.

2) Pulling the windscreen is too easy to discount using what you bought. You're risking more damage to the dash trying to squeeze the drivers in. Just make sure you have clearance on the height, some speaker grills sit too high.

3) You can enlarge the hole using a 2" drum sanding attachment on your driver/drill. The dash cap is plastic, not fiberglass.

:plus1:

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1) You can use the Crutchfield or Parts Express menus to narrow down the choices that are true 6 1/2" drivers.

2) Pulling the windscreen is too easy to discount using what you bought. You're risking more damage to the dash trying to squeeze the drivers in. Just make sure you have clearance on the height, some speaker grills sit too high.

3) You can enlarge the hole using a 2" drum sanding attachment on your driver/drill. The dash cap is plastic, not fiberglass.

+2 for this.. I just pulled mine this weekend to add some new Polk DB651's and i figured while the windscreen is out I will have my tint guy tint it. It was alot easier than i tought to do...

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There is often some confusion on what is considered a 6.5" speaker out there. It goes way beyond the boat application your asking about. This extra .5" the op mentions is usually described as a "true 6.5" or "oversized 6.5 speaker". Japanese cars typically utilize a 6.0" (thats called a 6.5) and the Euro cars use a 6.5" (the true 6.5). This has always been confusing to me too... so if we get right down to it, we can clear things up like this: one is 160mm and the other is 165mm. Amazing how metrics clear up confusion, eh? So the issue is... you bought 165mm speakers that require some oversizing of your mount locations because your boat has hole for 160mm speakers. It can be a PITA as you described for sure. But it is achievable as you have mentioned.

Acoustically my take is a bit different than Davids. While I respect his view, my experience in the marine world is that I prefer a brighter (more of a live sound) tweeter sound that can compete better with the ambient wind noises, water haul chop, and all the other things active water sports brings into play on these boats. The silk dome acoustically is a smoother/flatter sound (I'd agree with that), I'd skip it for the reasons I suggest above. If this where a car discussion, I'd flip flop on you and say silk dome all the way because its much more a controlled environment.

What to do: I'd match the same speakers you have in the system (Ks165's). They will give you the same cosmetics, and also the same acoustic tonal sound. Yes, that puts you back into the PITA install by taking off the window and doing some mods (which it didn't sound like you wanted to do). However, removing the glass isn't to hard. If you don't want to do that, then find yourself a nice 160mm speaker and drop it in the old fashioned way.

All of this is going to depend on your taste for sound. The glass will be more reflective. That either can be a good thing... or a bad thing to you.

-Brian

PS: +3 for the tinted window upgrade too :)

Edited by Brianinpdx
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Boo! I'll just take the wind shield out. At least the hole won't be too hard to open up. I did wire the two dash speakers to their own dedicated channel on one amp so I can tune for sound for me. I can't stand when the dash is as loud as the rest of the boat because it blow the driver, me, out of the seat.

Thanks for the reply guys!

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Yes, I also prefer a little extra brightness from a coaxial boat speaker to compensate for a noisy marine environment, especially when the speakers are down low and you are in motion.

However, I like all the speakers throughout the boat to sound similar in their tonal balance. And the dash speakers, if the identical speaker, will certainly sound the brightest at the same output level. Whatever dash speaker you use, once placed in the wedge between the dash and windshield and reflecting off the glass, the sound of that particualr speaker will be altered and not for the better. And if one speaker is inordinately bright due to the position and boundaries then you will localize that speaker. Your ear definitely has a way of zeroing in on those peaks.

David

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Boo! I'll just take the wind shield out. At least the hole won't be too hard to open up. I did wire the two dash speakers to their own dedicated channel on one amp so I can tune for sound for me. I can't stand when the dash is as loud as the rest of the boat because it blow the driver, me, out of the seat.

Thanks for the reply guys!

On second thought, it may actually be a little harder than I originally remembered, the kickers weren't as deep as the crappy RF's that I replaced them with. The windshield removal is easy but I also had to cut out some fiberglass that was in the way under the dash.

  • Like 1
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  • 2 weeks later...

Polk makes a componant speaker set that has separately mounted mid-bass woofers and tweeters. Model MM6501. The "woofer" part can be mounted in the dash while the tweeter can be mounted anywhere you like. I mounted my tweeters to the upper windshield frame and ran the wire inside the "U" shaped windshield pillar that divides the front and side glass. This puts the tweeter away from the "wedge".

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Polk makes a componant speaker set that has separately mounted mid-bass woofers and tweeters. Model MM6501. The "woofer" part can be mounted in the dash while the tweeter can be mounted anywhere you like. I mounted my tweeters to the upper windshield frame and ran the wire inside the "U" shaped windshield pillar that divides the front and side glass. This puts the tweeter away from the "wedge".

That is another way to go and can be a good plan as described.

For those reading this, just don't take this to the extreme.

Stay away from TOO much physical separation, especially lateral separation, between the tweeter and midbass driver.

You want the midbass and tweeter to still sound like one coherent speaker.

Try listening to temporary tweeter locations with isolated vocalist material before commiting.

David

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