Tower speakers are up!!(mid cabin speakers installed w/pics)

[CraigAR]

Only got the wires ran and the towers up. Need to add my htx-6 to my amp board still and cut in 2 more speakers. Pulling the wires through the 17' ar240s tower was a PITA! I used marine 14ga wire that also had a sleeve over the positive and negative. Tried running both wires at the same time in the same hole as navigation wire that runs through the lower base of the tower outta sight with no success. Then tried running 1 at a time and couldn't get the 2nd one to fit. Finally I stripped off the outer sleeve to expose the 4 wires and taped all the ends together and bam.... wires pulled icon 8s installed.

 

[Julian]

Finally I stripped off the outer sleeve to expose the 4 wires and taped all the ends together and bam.... wires pulled icon 8s installed.

Did you go from top down, or bottom up? I'd love to hear more description of how you ran them...this is in my future!

 

[CraigAR]

Did you go from top down, or bottom up? I'd love to hear more description of how you ran them...this is in my future!

My amp board is located in the storage area on the starboard side behind the steering wheel so i started pulling from that location. I first installed the speakers on the tower to see where they would fit the best and be out of the way from people hitting their head. So glad i bought the swivel clamps because this allowed me to mount the speakers more towards the curve of the tower. I made sure to loosen the swivel set screw and adjusted the speaker to my liking and marked the location for the hole i needed to drill into the tower. If I had the fixed clamp the speaker would of had to sit more towards the center on the tower to make it plumb and level. Im 5'11" and on the 17' ar240, I would have hit my head. Once I removed the speaker i drilled a pilot hole with a 1/4" drill bit and then switched over to my step bit and drilled out a 3/4" hole. Once done file all the burrs out. Now since im anal about everything lining up perfect I took a string from the base of the tower and followed the tower up to the center of my drilled hole, I had my son with me so the extra pair of hands helped. I figured this way i know my other speaker hole would be exactly the same distance. Mark and drill the 2nd hole same as the first. I bought a 100' roll of marine speaker wire that had both the positive and negative wires wrapped in a pvc sleeve. I followed the navigation wire since it was already drilled thru the hull going into the tower. No problem getting the wire ran to the tower. When the tower is folded forward you have a small hole in the base that the nav wire goes thru and i could not fit my hand in there to see how big the opening was. So i grabbed my fish tape and decided to tape both sets of speaker wire together to fish everything at once. After fighting with this setup for over an hour i took a break because i was getting pissed that i could not fish it up the tower. So im looking at my wires and realise that im trying to fish almost 3/4" of wire at once. I finally said F this and cut off the pvc sleeve (jacket) to expose the positive and negative wires ( i figured if i bought the wires with the sleeve over them it would be easier to pull, i was so wrong) I taped all 4 wire ends together and just pushed them thru the small hole at the base of the tower and up they went. Wow so easy, like 2 seconds for me to see them pass by my first hole. I made myself a small hook out of a wire coat hanger to grab the wire thru the first hole and then just pushed the wire on to the 2nd hole. Now i had to take another break because I was pissed off again because it only took me about a minute to fish the wires this time and i was being a stubborn asshole the first time when i was fighting with the damn thing for an hour. So wiring them up, i use adhesive heat shrink and butt connectors. Slip the first heat shrink onto your fished wire, crimp on a butt connector, place another piece of heat shrink over the tower speaker wire and crimp that into the butt connector. Now you have heat shrink on both side of the connector, heat it up and shrink it! 2 sets of hands here really help. Have your buddy hold the speaker in place and just screw in the top clamp. Done. I did use blue thread loc on all my tower bolts. I hope all my trial and error speeds up the process for anyone looking to install tower speakers. Realistically, this is about an hour job.

 

[Julian]

My amp board is located in the storage area on the starboard side behind the steering wheel so i started pulling from that location. I first installed the speakers on the tower to see where they would fit the best and be out of the way from people hitting their head. So glad i bought the swivel clamps because this allowed me to mount the speakers more towards the curve of the tower. I made sure to loosen the swivel set screw and adjusted the speaker to my liking and marked the location for the hole i needed to drill into the tower. If I had the fixed clamp the speaker would of had to sit more towards the center on the tower to make it plumb and level. Im 5'11" and on the 17' ar240, I would have hit my head. Once I removed the speaker i drilled a pilot hole with a 1/4" drill bit and then switched over to my step bit and drilled out a 3/4" hole. Once done file all the burrs out. Now since im anal about everything lining up perfect I took a string from the base of the tower and followed the tower up to the center of my drilled hole, I had my son with me so the extra pair of hands helped. I figured this way i know my other speaker hole would be exactly the same distance. Mark and drill the 2nd hole same as the first. I bought a 100' roll of marine speaker wire that had both the positive and negative wires wrapped in a pvc sleeve. I followed the navigation wire since it was already drilled thru the hull going into the tower. No problem getting the wire ran to the tower. When the tower is folded forward you have a small hole in the base that the nav wire goes thru and i could not fit my hand in there to see how big the opening was. So i grabbed my fish tape and decided to tape both sets of speaker wire together to fish everything at once. After fighting with this setup for over an hour i took a break because i was getting pissed that i could not fish it up the tower. So im looking at my wires and realise that im trying to fish almost 3/4" of wire at once. I finally said F this and cut off the pvc sleeve (jacket) to expose the positive and negative wires ( i figured if i bought the wires with the sleeve over them it would be easier to pull, i was so wrong) I taped all 4 wire ends together and just pushed them thru the small hole at the base of the tower and up they went. Wow so easy, like 2 seconds for me to see them pass by my first hole. I made myself a small hook out of a wire coat hanger to grab the wire thru the first hole and then just pushed the wire on to the 2nd hole. Now i had to take another break because I was pissed off again because it only took me about a minute to fish the wires this time and i was being a stubborn asshole the first time when i was fighting with the damn thing for an hour. So wiring them up, i use adhesive heat shrink and butt connectors. Slip the first heat shrink onto your fished wire, crimp on a butt connector, place another piece of heat shrink over the tower speaker wire and crimp that into the butt connector. Now you have heat shrink on both side of the connector, heat it up and shrink it! 2 sets of hands here really help. Have your buddy hold the speaker in place and just screw in the top clamp. Done. I did use blue thread loc on all my tower bolts. I hope all my trial and error speeds up the process for anyone looking to install tower speakers. Realistically, this is about an hour job.

Very helpful....thanks!

 

[ScarabMike]

What is the difference between the Icon and Rev 8s? Clean install!

 

[swatski]

What is the difference between the Icon and Rev 8s? Clean install!

Rev models are all HLCDs - for projecting over longer (wakeboarding) distances, the ICON8s are more of a surfing/swim deck speaker. Generally speaking a HLCD will not sound its best up close.
Many like JL880s (similar to ICON8s) for their more mellow sound quality.
ICONS are pretty awesome, just about as good as it gets, but they are very "bright".

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[CraigAR]

I will put up a video later this week when i get the amp installed to see how far away the sound projects with these. I bought the icon 8 so they will play well along with the 6 inboat xs 650s

 

[FloJet]

Only got the wires ran and the towers up. Need to add my htx-6 to my amp board still and cut in 2 more speakers. Pulling the wires through the 17' ar240s tower was a PITA! I used marine 14ga wire that also had a sleeve over the positive and negative. Tried running both wires at the same time in the same hole as navigation wire that runs through the lower base of the tower outta sight with no success. Then tried running 1 at a time and couldn't get the 2nd one to fit. Finally I stripped off the outer sleeve to expose the 4 wires and taped all the ends together and bam.... wires pulled icon 8s installed.
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Very nice. Congrats.

What kind of Bumper guides are those on your trailer? I'm digging those.

 

[redthumper9]

Nice work! Not sure about the newer towers.... But I used the fishing line and cotton ball method to run my wires. Simply tie a cotton ball to some fishing line, insert into the hole you are starting at and stick a shop vac at the hole you want it to come out. Tape the wires to the fishing line and pull through. It does get to be a pain with lots of holes and wires like I have..... The speaker wire I had to come down both sides with 4 REV10's and RGB led's in all of them. I too, had to get swivel clamps in order to mount them near the sides so I didn't bump my head.

 

[swatski]

Thanks @CraigAR, you motivated me to re-install my ICONs!
I have them placed out to the sides as far out as the non-swivel mounts allow and there is a slight "toe-out", but I like the location and the speakers a lot.

You know, I went with the strait mounts as I didn't trust the swivel mechanism and was afraid it might brake and hit me on the head... (LMAO) (Which is ironic, if you know what I mean.)

Anyway - love your work, keep the pics coming.
Did you end up getting the WS420? With these speakers the WS420 comes in useful, IMO. They also came down in price without the BT (which you want anyway as the Connext has one) it is not much over $200 if I remember correctly.




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[CraigAR]

Very nice. Congrats.

What kind of Bumper guides are those on your trailer? I'm digging those.

They are ce smith from bass pro and i also bought the covers from bass pro.

 

[CraigAR]

@swatski , the ws420 is in the near future. I did not realize it was that cheap. I kind of just spent a lot of money between the seadek thats getting installed tomorrow and my stereo ($3300). But i did make the wife happy after spending all this money on my boat, i upgraded her diamond!

 

[CraigAR]

Well got the amp board wired up just now and found out one of my new icon 8's doesnt work. Looks like ill be going out this weekend with only one playing. Good thing i ordered them from crutchfield, no questions asked and shipping a new set out tomorrow. On the bright side, they are super loud!

 

[CraigAR]

Cutting in and installing the mid cabin wet sounds today. Taking a break now but almost complete. 1 tip if your cutting fiberglass by yourself, hold your shop vac in the upper corner close to the hole saw and you will barely make a mess. Also, spin the saw in reverse after the pilot bit goes thru to score your hole. Still need to drill out the screw holes and run the wire.

 

[jcyamaharider]

Looking good! Are you going to be putting in a sub?

 

[CraigAR]

Looking good! Are you going to be putting in a sub?

At these moment i don't think so. I have 6 wet sounds xs650's in the boat running off a wet sounds htx-6 amp with each speaker having a 12"x12" by 4" thick fireproof acoustic foam pad on each side tuned to 65hz and then my set of icon 8 tower cans (only 1 working at this time) bridged on a rockford fosgate m400-4 amp also tuned to 65 hz with the head unit set flat and this baby pounds. My wife came out of the house thinking i had my truck system on ( 2 12" alpine type R's) yelling at me to turn it down lol. So at this time i do not see the need for a sub. The wet sounds speakers are really deep you just need a small amount of treble with this setup.