“Kicking” Up Your Boat Sound System? What you need to know… from KICKER® Marine Audio
Published: Wednesday, March 24, 2021
There is a beat to boating—whether heading to the sandbar, out on the lake, fishing, cruising, wakeboarding, or surfing—you’ve got to have tunes! How to set up or restructure your sound system takes a little planning and KICKER® Audio’s John Myers, an expert from the mobile sound leader’s “Livin’ Loud” company, provides some tips to “kick” your system up a notch. As the company moved steadily into the marine market, its tag line was modified to “Go Overboard!” as KICKER Marine Audio proves its top-quality sea-worthy line is powerful, durable, and affordable.
“You’ve got to have a game plan,” Myers states emphatically. More complicated than the stereo system in your home or car—due to the extreme elements of moisture, salt, heat, and vibration—a boat system not only needs to be durable, but requires more thought and planning. Myers recommends asking these 3 questions:
- Where do you want your sound?
- Where can your speakers be located?
- How loud do you want your music to be?
Where you want your sound depends on how you use your boat.
What areas are most important—the helm? The bow, the aft deck? Where do you plan to listen? At the sandbar, while wakeboarding, while cruising? This will determine how and where you project your sound and also will help to answer the second question—where will you put your speakers?
Location depends on the construction of your boat as speakers require certain depth to fit the magnet and basket, which hold the speaker components. Your installation will depend on your boat’s construction, where panels are located, and where the fiberglass and core can accommodate the depth of your speakers’ design.
How loud you want your music also determines the size, type, and number of speakers, subwoofers, and amplification required.
Subwoofer size, number, and additional power to run them is especially important if you want a lot of bass. More bass output requires bigger speakers or subwoofers. You also need appropriate amplification when adding more speakers or subwoofers and the location of multiple or larger amplifiers will depend on where you can properly ventilate them. While powerful, newer, smaller amps generate less heat than older ones, you have to evaluate not just air circulation to keep amps cool, but the additional power requirement for your audio system.
Installing More Sound Requires More Supporting Electrical Power
The number of additional batteries and the possibility of a larger output alternator needs consideration. Myers offers the rule of thumb, “For every 1500 watts, add an identical battery to the existing battery.”
Do you want to tie batteries together? While deep cycle rechargeable batteries are popular, they are not the best for sound. Since your house battery starts your boat, a battery isolator can ensure that your house battery maintains power even if the auxiliary battery—which you may add for your sound system—is drained by other operations or fails. If you play music primarily while the boat is in operation, just connect additional battery(s) to the existing battery and wire them parallel. If you play your stereo with the ignition off, you will want to use a battery isolation method to avoid draining your main battery.
The typical 6.5” or 8” coaxial may not reproduce sufficient bass, so bigger speakers—or subwoofers, which are really just speakers that play lower frequencies—come into play. These all need more power and a dedicated amplifier. The purpose of a speaker is to move air. Larger speakers move more air and require more enclosure space. Myers explains sound like a stone hitting the water and causing ripples—the bigger the stone, the stronger the ripple effect. So, size does matter and if you cut corners on your speakers, subwoofers, electrical system, or amplifiers, you sacrifice the quality of your sound.
Speaker Mounting is Very Important to Sound Quality
The most popular marine applications utilize open spaces to mount speakers. The open-air space is called “infinite baffle,” often called “Free Air” (a KICKER-coined term that is now used industry-wide to explain the lack of a dedicated speaker enclosure). Most speakers in boats are mounted on a panel that is not specifically enclosed for the speaker, but may also house other items like life jackets, towels, and other boating essentials in under-seat storage compartments. Infinite baffle installation contrasts with tower cans, which are sealed enclosures since the speaker is wrapped in an airtight environment.
A sealed enclosure for the subwoofer offers improved power handling and output but requires a specific air volume. Subwoofer enclosures can be made of any material so long as it does not flex. That is why fiberglass makes a good enclosure but it is time-consuming, more expensive, and harder to construct. All subwoofer enclosures need the right volume of airspace to be at their best. In fact, sealed is an improvement over infinite baffle but, to get even more output, the enclosure may need to be vented.
“It’s like a turbo-charged engine,” explains Myers. “A port will provide more air and boost the sound.” This requires a very specifically-constructed enclosure.
An ideal boat system, according to Myers, is one that will play as loud as desired with as much bass as desired without any distortion or without the amplifiers shutting down from heat—all without draining the batteries. It will also project sound to the intended listeners.
Getting Wired
A weak link in the chain can be avoided by using only pure copper amplifier power wire to avoid saltwater corrosion. Copper Clad Aluminum (CCA) wire should be avoided as it is 98% aluminum with a thin copper coating which will produce more corrosion and less connectivity. Again, cutting corners will compromise your sound and KICKER Marine Audio warranties its equipment because it is all top-marine grade and is tough enough to withstand the marine environment. KICKER Marine Audio components have undergone the stingiest testing and meet or exceed ASTM, UV, and salt/fog exposure standards and are referred to as “Real Marine™” to indicate their ability to be resilient and tough in salt and freshwater environments.
So before you spend any money, spend some time analyzing your boat and your boating lifestyle—and your budget—to be sure that you can include the most important elements to keep your sound pumping, your engines running, and the fun at full throttle!
A version of this article appeared in the Spring Issue (Mar/Apr) 2021 of Great Lakes Scuttlebutt magazine.
tags: Accessories, Boating 101, Do It Yourself (DIY), Retrofitting
