How do you like your sound bar? I was thinking of going the amplified route just to get something easy on the tower for when we’re anchored on the beach. The regular speakers don’t do much to get sound out of the boat.
Sorry man, just saw this. I assume you were asking me as well
Anywho, we love the soundbar. It throws enough sound out behind the boat that we can listen to the tunes while at anchor and floating off the swim platform. It's loud enough that I've been asked to turn it down more times than I care to admit (my wife, and buddies wife both don't like loud music). It has NO bass output at all. (8) 4in drivers, and (2) 2in tweeters will do that, I wasn't expecting much though.
We went with the internally amplified version. 300watt class D amp in there if I remember right. Again, plenty of volume with no signs of distortion even at higher levels. Installation was a breeze (once I got the tower off the boat). Ran the wires through the tower, then the hookups are super easy from there. 12V+, Ground, and a 3.5mm Audio jack for signal. It's really remarkably easy. I'm running an RCA-3.5mm adapter at the back of the head unit, and that feeds into the soundbar.
Two small gripes about it. It has it's own power and volume controls. This is good and bad. Good because you can run the stereo without it, and just have the regular speakers. Bad because you have to turn it on, and select the source each time. It's two button presses, but, well it's two extra button presses. Once on, the volume scales with the head unit, so only one volume adjustment controls the whole system. It also allows you to turn the main or the bar up and down independently. So we can throw some sound out the back, and not deafen the people in the boat, if that makes sense.
Second gripe.....it whistles.....This might be due to the way I have it tucked up under the tower, I'm not really sure. Windspeeds over about 45mph make it whistle. So 30mph on water into a 15mph headwind and it whistles. Not a huge ordeal on the water, because, well, my boats slow. Trailering however it's terrible. Like obnoxiously loud. Vacation two years ago, my buddy wanted to pull over because he was following us, heard the whistle, and thought he lost a piece of windshield trim on his truck. I had a pool noodle that I strapped to it for awhile, but it blew off somewhere. Hoping to get a cover made for it this spring before we trailer 10hrs to destin.
Oh yea.....Get the mount kit. The stock mounts with the soundbar won't work with the towers because there is too much curve in the top sections. It's like $50 more, but it's worth it.
