2012 Sound pack 3 question

[dm001681]

I just recently got a new 2012 LSV and it came with sound pack 3 which has 8 in boat speakers, 4 Titan alpha II tower speakers and a 12" sub. I know absolutely nothing about marine audio equipment and the boat already had this gear on it, I didn't order the boat myself. What I'm wondering is a couple things, what are the in boat speakers? Is this setup decent? I thought I read that people felt Malibu did a better job with the audio gear on the 2012 however the amps were lacking and that if you upgraded the amps the whole system performed much better, true?

I'm definitely NOT looking to spend a bunch of money at this point but just wondering if what I have is decent or what I might be able to do to give me better overall sound quality as well as better volume for the rider when wakeboarding. Thanks!

[wakesetter8796]

They use Rockford Fosgate equipment. It is good for surfing, but IMHO not the best for projecting out to the boarder. You would need some HLCD's for that job.

[wheelman]

You could start by taking off the do not remove warranty stickers on the amp controls and tune the amps properly. Mine came with gains turned all the way down and cross over set at all pass. Turned up the gains switched speakers to high pass and tuned the cross over frequency. Make sure sub amp is set to low pass and adjust gains and cross over as well. This made a good difference on mine till I replaced the amps. Yes by removing the stickers on amps you void warranty on them but you really have nothing to loose cause they are cheap anyway and you should not have a problem with them by turning up a bit.

[dm001681]

You could start by taking off the do not remove warranty stickers on the amp controls and tune the amps properly. Mine came with gains turned all the way down and cross over set at all pass. Turned up the gains switched speakers to high pass and tuned the cross over frequency. Make sure sub amp is set to low pass and adjust gains and cross over as well. This made a good difference on mine till I replaced the amps. Yes by removing the stickers on amps you void warranty on them but you really have nothing to loose cause they are cheap anyway and you should not have a problem with them by turning up a bit.

First of all, love your picture!

Second, with regards to gain, I assume that should only be turned up as much as it can be while having the HU volume up as high as I'm ever going to put it?

What is all pass vs high pass on the cross over? Is that just what frequencies are being sent to the speakers? Is that why you set the sub amp to low pass? You mentioned to adjust the gains and cross over on the sub as well, where should those be set? Sorry I clearly don't have a clue. Thanks for the help!

[bcoppess23]

First of all, love your picture!

Second, with regards to gain, I assume that should only be turned up as much as it can be while having the HU volume up as high as I'm ever going to put it?

What is all pass vs high pass on the cross over? Is that just what frequencies are being sent to the speakers? Is that why you set the sub amp to low pass? You mentioned to adjust the gains and cross over on the sub as well, where should those be set? Sorry I clearly don't have a clue. Thanks for the help!

You are correct, High pass - 6" and 6x9's, low pass - Sub. Some people can do this by ear, while there is a good app out there called Real Time Analyzer that will help you with the tuning. Once you have the cross overs set, you should be able to change the frequency from the app and notice the noise go from the low (sub) to the high (speakers).

I have the same setup as you and recently did this same tune and posted about it here in this article.

http://www.themalibucrew.com/forums/index.php?/topic/42900-shout-out-to-a-friend/

Good luck!

[wheelman]

First of all, love your picture!

Second, with regards to gain, I assume that should only be turned up as much as it can be while having the HU volume up as high as I'm ever going to put it?

What is all pass vs high pass on the cross over? Is that just what frequencies are being sent to the speakers? Is that why you set the sub amp to low pass? You mentioned to adjust the gains and cross over on the sub as well, where should those be set? Sorry I clearly don't have a clue. Thanks for the help!

There will be many different opinions on how to tune a stereo and I do not profess to be a pro. There is also iphone apps out for stereo tuning and professional shops. Don't be scared to adjust it yourself by ear, just make small changes at a time. I adjusted my gains with my hu volume almost all the way up(I did this for I have many teenagers in my boat that will just crank it all the way up and have idea what distortion is) All pass on the cross over will allow all frequency of music to play through the speakers(you do not want this) you want to set your amps for speakers to hp(high pass) which will limit the amount of low frequency(bass coming through speakers) and sub amp to lp(low pass) which will give you just the low frequency coming through sub. To set levels I'd suggest to do each set of speakers seperately, easiest way to do this is to pull out rca cables out of all amps and install one set and set that channel gains and frequency(start hp frequency around 125hz) now raise you hu volume to 80 to 100% of max volume and then start raising the amp gains till you get distortion and then back it off so you have no distortion. Now you can play with the cross over frequency to limit the amount of mid bass that will come through your speakers. The higher you raise the frequency the less mid bass you will produce out of them but will be able to turn up louder. You need to find your right balance between volume and sound quality you want by setting cross over and volume gain on amp. Once you are happy with those speakers unplug those rca cables and now do the same thing for the next channel(rca cables) and on till you have done all the speakers. Now do the sub, I would adjust the sub with all the other speakers playing and start with sub frequency around 100hz set on lp(low pass) now increase the sub gain on amp till you are happy with the amount of bass and you may be able to make small adjustment to frequench but I would not imagine a lot . Hope this helps and didn"t confuse you A well tuned stereo will make all the difference in the world so if you can't do it yourself it's money well spent to have a shop do it.

[JasonK]

And in case you don't know, if your head unit has a "loudness" setting, don't use it to tune the system for a high volume.

[dm001681]

There will be many different opinions on how to tune a stereo and I do not profess to be a pro. There is also iphone apps out for stereo tuning and professional shops. Don't be scared to adjust it yourself by ear, just make small changes at a time. I adjusted my gains with my hu volume almost all the way up(I did this for I have many teenagers in my boat that will just crank it all the way up and have idea what distortion is) All pass on the cross over will allow all frequency of music to play through the speakers(you do not want this) you want to set your amps for speakers to hp(high pass) which will limit the amount of low frequency(bass coming through speakers) and sub amp to lp(low pass) which will give you just the low frequency coming through sub. To set levels I'd suggest to do each set of speakers seperately, easiest way to do this is to pull out rca cables out of all amps and install one set and set that channel gains and frequency(start hp frequency around 125hz) now raise you hu volume to 80 to 100% of max volume and then start raising the amp gains till you get distortion and then back it off so you have no distortion. Now you can play with the cross over frequency to limit the amount of mid bass that will come through your speakers. The higher you raise the frequency the less mid bass you will produce out of them but will be able to turn up louder. You need to find your right balance between volume and sound quality you want by setting cross over and volume gain on amp. Once you are happy with those speakers unplug those rca cables and now do the same thing for the next channel(rca cables) and on till you have done all the speakers. Now do the sub, I would adjust the sub with all the other speakers playing and start with sub frequency around 100hz set on lp(low pass) now increase the sub gain on amp till you are happy with the amount of bass and you may be able to make small adjustment to frequench but I would not imagine a lot . Hope this helps and didn"t confuse you A well tuned stereo will make all the difference in the world so if you can't do it yourself it's money well spent to have a shop do it.

That all makes perfect sense to me so thanks for taking the time to explain it! I'll give it a shot!

[BSUBU_Kris]

I have the same system. I added an AudioControl EQ and it was like a whole new system, it sounds great.

Kris