2022 AR195 Audio Upgrade questions/opinions

[chrisinrockytop]

I’ve spent a lot of time reading posts here and using the search function to learn a lot of things and found it very helpful, made an account and hoping to use this site for help as I get ready to embark on an audio upgrade. This may be a cluttered first post with some questions and statements both or asking of opinions so hopefully it makes sense.

I’ve purchased already:
SKAR Marine 6.5” Speakers x8
SKAR Marine 1,000 watt 4 channel amp
SKAR Amp kit, speaker wire etc

Plan to purchase:
Dual wakeboard tower enclosures x2
2nd battery
Battery switch
NOCO 2 bank charger


So first question, is anyone running 2 dual enclosures on the tower (4 speakers), I didn’t much think about it until I started reading on here but most everyone seems to have just 2, will 4 fit? Will it effect storage measurements? Right now it barely fits in my garage with the tower down. At quick glance it appears there’s only 2 RCA plugs on the stock head unit, is everyone just using a splitter to get to 4? Was planning on running new speaker wire to the cabin speakers, should I not and just use what is currently there? Dumb question but if I do that where am I pulling them from at the head unit to then put them into the amp, is there a harness?

I have many more questions etc, but I figure that is probably a good starting point, please take it easy on me as I’m sure some of these are rookie questions. TIA

 

[Farny]

Not exactly 2 duals, but 4 individuals. It fits in the garage still. I strategically placed the towers to not bump heads but also get low enough to fit in the garage. (Pic on the left is my buddies barndominium garage)

I wired speakers in parallel. Towers on 1 amp running zone 1 RCAs. Cabins on other amp running on zone 2 RCAs. I believe you can run a splitter on the input RCA lines if needed.

For cabin speakers wire - I just tapped into the stock wire, but if I were you and you don’t mind running more wire, replace the crap stock speaker wire with some good stuff. Stock wire looks like it is barely 18AGW.
Here’s my thread:

https://jetboaters.net/threads/195s-dual-battery-sound-system-upgrade.36607/

 

[Farny]

One more comment worth mentioning- all those tower enclosures has made it very difficult for 1 person to lower the tower safely. I’m now looking into how to counter the weight with either springs or counterweight……

 

[chrisinrockytop]

Not exactly 2 duals, but 4 individuals. It fits in the garage still. I strategically placed the towers to not bump heads but also get low enough to fit in the garage. (Pic on the left is my buddies barndominium garage)

I wired speakers in parallel. Towers on 1 amp running zone 1 RCAs. Cabins on other amp running on zone 2 RCAs. I believe you can run a splitter on the input RCA lines if needed.

For cabin speakers wire - I just tapped into the stock wire, but if I were you and you don’t mind running more wire, replace the crap stock speaker wire with some good stuff. Stock wire looks like it is barely 18AGW.
Here’s my thread:

https://jetboaters.net/threads/195s-dual-battery-sound-system-upgrade.36607/

Appreciate the response, looks great…did you place your amp by the battery or in storage behind the head unit?

 

[Farny]

Appreciate the response, looks great…did you place your amp by the battery or in storage behind the head unit?

My choice was on the port aft storage behind the batteries ( shorter power run, shorter run to head unit, and shorter tower speaker run). You just have to be able to get into the compartment to reach the rear wall to unscrew. I figures once I had it tuned and mounted I wouldn’t be messing with it any more. I’ve seen it done both ways. You can search the threads for amp mounting 19ft. I’ll post pics of my first mod and now my second amp added to the same board.

Bottom pic is the compartment with the board removed

 

[chrisinrockytop]

My choice was on the port aft storage behind the batteries ( shorter power run, shorter run to head unit, and shorter tower speaker run). You just have to be able to get into the compartment to reach the rear wall to unscrew. I figures once I had it tuned and mounted I wouldn’t be messing with it any more. I’ve seen it done both ways. You can search the threads for amp mounting 19ft. I’ll post pics of my first mod and now my second amp added to the same board.

Bottom pic is the compartment with the board removed

Thats where I was leaning on putting the amp too, and if I’m going to run new speaker wires not much advantage to putting it behind the head unit storage area. Maybe a dumb question, but do I need to do anything with the old speaker wires running to the head unit?

 

[Farny]

Thats where I was leaning on putting the amp too, and if I’m going to run new speaker wires not much advantage to putting it behind the head unit storage area. Maybe a dumb question, but do I need to do anything with the old speaker wires running to the head unit?

Questions are what this forum is about - no worries on the questions. If your not using stock wiring. Either - Crimp them off at the head unit and heat shrink the ends sticking out of the unit. Or - crimp and heat shrink the ends cut near the speakers. Your choice. Ultimately you don’t want exposed wire shorting your HU.

 

[chrisinrockytop]

Questions are what this forum is about - no worries on the questions. If your not using stock wiring. Either - Crimp them off at the head unit and heat shrink the ends sticking out of the unit. Or - crimp and heat shrink the ends cut near the speakers. Your choice. Ultimately you don’t want exposed wire shorting your HU.

Gonna measure tonight and see about the 2 duals, now I’m second guessing the fit and walk through of that…they are 6.5” so won’t be nearly as big as having 4 8’s up there, but still want to make sure, hadn’t thought about it until I started seeing folks mentioning hitting their heads on walk through.

 

[chrisinrockytop]

What’s the easiest/best tool to cut the speaker holes bigger? Not looking to buy a high end saw for one time use, any good options?

 

[Farny]

What’s the easiest/best tool to cut the speaker holes bigger? Not looking to buy a high end saw for one time use, any good options?

I haven’t done any cutting just yet.. but here is a video I found

 

[Smiley]

I just got these in the mail yesterday. Good tip on the mounting spot for the amp.

 

[Farny]

I just got these in the mail yesterday. Good tip on the mounting spot for the amp.
View attachment 172437

That’s some nice equipment!! Enjoy!

 

[white2kstang]

What’s the easiest/best tool to cut the speaker holes bigger? Not looking to buy a high end saw for one time use, any good options?

Dremel with fiberglass bit. Mounted my amps under the helm.

 

[chrisinrockytop]

Ok so I got everything hooked up and fired up today, all is working but I’ve got a pretty noticeable hum/whine coming from all the speakers that is more noticeable the more you turn up the volume on the head unit.

I tinkered around with some different things, turning gain up on the amp and lowering the volume on the head unit would decrease the hum. Example being, gain all the way down, no music playing, volume on 35/40 and the hum was loud, turn volume down to 25 but turn gain up and hum was much less noticeable.

The Amp has a LPF, when switched to that the hum stops, but obviously speakers don’t sound right like that. On HPF the hum is the same as running it at full…when you unplug the RCA’s it becomes less and less each of the 4 you remove and stops with the 4th, so I’m guessing it’s not the amp but head unit or RCA’s? Could it be something else? TIA

 

[Farny]

Ok so I got everything hooked up and fired up today, all is working but I’ve got a pretty noticeable hum/whine coming from all the speakers that is more noticeable the more you turn up the volume on the head unit.

I tinkered around with some different things, turning gain up on the amp and lowering the volume on the head unit would decrease the hum. Example being, gain all the way down, no music playing, volume on 35/40 and the hum was loud, turn volume down to 25 but turn gain up and hum was much less noticeable.

The Amp has a LPF, when switched to that the hum stops, but obviously speakers don’t sound right like that. On HPF the hum is the same as running it at full…when you unplug the RCA’s it becomes less and less each of the 4 you remove and stops with the 4th, so I’m guessing it’s not the amp but head unit or RCA’s? Could it be something else? TIA

Might be the ground - do you have a common ground bar where all connections are tight?

Also I am not an audiophile, but I believe the rca input connection, wire or connectors may be a possible cause.

 

[Farny]

Might be the ground - do you have a common ground bar where all connections are tight?

Love to see the pics of your handy work

 

[chrisinrockytop]

Might be the ground - do you have a common ground bar where all connections are tight?

It’s grounded to the house battery with other grounds, also tried swapping the ground to the 2nd battery and didn’t help. Will probably check the ground into the amp tomorrow and see if that’s possibly it? Other than that it seems like RCA’s maybe could be the issue?

 

[chrisinrockytop]

Might be the ground - do you have a common ground bar where all connections are tight?

Also I am not an audiophile, but I believe the rca input connection, wire or connectors may be a possible cause.

So update…redid the ground and power wires into the amp, ran some cheap RCA’s I picked up just for today from the amp directly to the head unit instead of passing the batteries/switch/engine and it’s still doing the exact same thing.

What is interesting, or to me at least, is that with no music going and hooked to Bluetooth the noise only increases when you increase volume on the head unit, not when you increase volume on my phone running the Bluetooth? This makes me think it’s something with the HU, but maybe I’m reading that wrong? Only other thing I know to try is one of the ground isolators on Amazon, they’re cheap enough to give it a shot. Only other question, would the cheap RCA’s I bought today be sufficient for the test run I was trying to make? The amp & batteries are in the port storage compartment where the house battery is located, the side of the amp with RCA’s is facing away from batteries so when I hooked up RCA’s today to run straight to HU at closest point they were probably 18” from batteries/cables, would that be close enough to still be picking up that sound? Or should that have been sufficient enough space?

 

[Farny]

So update…redid the ground and power wires into the amp, ran some cheap RCA’s I picked up just for today from the amp directly to the head unit instead of passing the batteries/switch/engine and it’s still doing the exact same thing.

What is interesting, or to me at least, is that with no music going and hooked to Bluetooth the noise only increases when you increase volume on the head unit, not when you increase volume on my phone running the Bluetooth? This makes me think it’s something with the HU, but maybe I’m reading that wrong? Only other thing I know to try is one of the ground isolators on Amazon, they’re cheap enough to give it a shot. Only other question, would the cheap RCA’s I bought today be sufficient for the test run I was trying to make? The amp & batteries are in the port storage compartment where the house battery is located, the side of the amp with RCA’s is facing away from batteries so when I hooked up RCA’s today to run straight to HU at closest point they were probably 18” from batteries/cables, would that be close enough to still be picking up that sound? Or should that have been sufficient enough space?

I hope you don’t have a bad amp or HU. Should be sufficient space. My wires are within 8” of the battery and don’t have that issue so I doubt it has anything to do with that.

One of my sets of RCAs I got from my scrap tv wire box and are pretty cheap. So I highly doubt it’s the quality of the RCAs. But higher quality rca is a pretty easy and cheap thing to try,

I’m at a loss. Some of the experts on the forum might have an idea. Have you tried calling Kicker support- those guys are great at fielding questions.

 

[Farny]

I hope you don’t have a bad amp or HU. Should be sufficient space. My wires are within 8” of the battery and don’t have that issue so I doubt it has anything to do with that.

One of my sets of RCAs I got from my scrap tv wire box and are pretty cheap. So I highly doubt it’s the quality of the RCAs. But higher quality rca is a pretty easy and cheap thing to try,

I’m at a loss. Some of the experts on the forum might have an idea. Have you tried calling Kicker support- those guys are great at fielding questions.

Here you can see how close everything is to the battery, I even have power wires nearly touching the speaker runs and rca’s