boat speakers

[mere]

hey guys, Im an industrial design student and our latest project is to design a left and right speaker. im trying to collect feed back from sailors and i would love to hear your opinions.

im not redisigning any electrical compnonets, my interest is in redesigning the use/interaction with the product (if it could be better) and the speaker housing/design.

so tell me a few things, maybe something youve always complained about to others, why something was bad, or why something was good. Tell me where your speakers are located, how you installed them, anything! I hope to improve your lives one day.

 

[Don12364]

Compass Safe distance not greater than 12" please.

 

[Stu Jackson]

Good question

I've always felt that many folks get the down below speakers backwards. They put them on the right and left (p & s) sides of the bulkheads. You can only sit in one place at a time down below, so you either get full left or full right sound. The balance gets immediately unbalanced because of your location.

We installed our speakers on the port side shelf we have, one forward and one aft. When we sit in the dinette on starboard we get the full stereo effect.

When we sit on the settee to port, we get the full effect plus the speakers are closer. It's like having headphones on without the weight!

With the self-powered low wattage powered subwoofer between them we have great sounds below.

Two simple West Marine 7" speakers under the helmsman's seat takes care of the cockpit. If I had to do over, I wouldn't cut the holes in the glass under the seat for safety purposes, and would buy outside speakers to mount somewhere, although the speaker placement keeps the noise "inside" the cockpit with less sound out to neighbors in the anchorage. Come to think of it, box speakers below the coaming level would also work if we could fit them in. So many folks have their damn boom boxes under their perch seats, but they're noisy neighbors when the sun goes down.

So, in addition to your question about components, it's like real estate: location, location, location.

 

[MJWarner]

Well, you did say anything!
Shielded (mag interference w/ compass)
waterproof
shallow back depth so they can fit into rear of shallow coamings and between fiberglass liners
low profile fronts that are unobtrusive. We don't want to look like a flashy ski boater. secure vibration-proof connections to speaker wires. Hate climbing in to reattach stuff twice.
and could someone develop a salon speaker system that is small, high quality, slim design in white and wood color brown that will blend into the cabin instead of shouting "I'm a speaker!"
Full disclosure: this is a woman sailor's view.

 

[Kevin3447]

Controls.
I would like to be able to, at least, mute the speaker with a touch. Better yet, control volume from the speaker grille. Something similar to the "networking over power lines", one should be able to integrate a simple control panel in the grille, without running extra wires, so you could have a volume up/down, mute, and maybe some other controls, like ff/rew, next song, etc.

The best speakers that I've had, so far, are PolyPlanar:
http://www.polyplanar.com/productsingle.aspx?prt=MA-8506

K

 

[mere]

thankyou everybody, this kind of information is great! lets keep it going.

 

[Maine Sail]

I would much rather have a low volume speaker box with a v-shaped back designed to fit into corners. Ideally they would come in two sizes, one to fit 5 1/4" round car or boat speakers and one to fit 6 1/2" round car or boat speakers Perhaps even a 6X9" size too..

I would much prefer to buy the speaker box and install the coaxial speaker of my choice. 5 1/4" and 6 1/2" coaxial speakers take up far less space than a box designed for a woofer and a separate tweeter so a box could be considerably smaller than doing the same thing with an indoor/outdoor product like those from Boston Acoustics, Paradigm etc. etc. which have separate woofers and tweeters which take up LOTS of real estate..

 

[Ctskip]

I like the shallow waterproof speakers idea. Speakers that need no hole to mount. Who says a speaker must be a permanent fixture? Maybe Velcro like, so they can be taken in and out and moved to various place at will. But the most important thing I'd like to see about a speaker is the wire. Lose the wire. How about a speaker that we cant destroy?
Is that asking to much?

Keep it up,
Ctskip

 

[Slim pickins]

I like Kevin's idea about having controls on each speaker, one head unit to run the whole boat and have the option of turning off, and/or volume control on each speaker. And have those speakers surface mount or portable like ctskip suggests, and wireless!!!

 

[Bill Roosa]

magnetically shielded
waterproof/salt proof/sun proof
rugged enough so that a bang with an oar, or boat hook does not crack them
Make the grill last more than a season or two when exposed to the sun. Mine seem to get crumbly after two years
volume control integrated into one of the speaker housings with dedicated mute so I can hear that Mayday call on the VHF
Slim design. I'd like to not have to cut hole in the boat to mount them AND not bump into the things. Baring that a smaller hole is preferable
Wire grommets supplied with the speaker
pckage them in sets of 4 with two colors avalable (white/white, white/brown, brown/brown etc)
make the housing removable so I can mount the inside speakers in existing hidden mounts