oldredm3
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 49
- Reaction score
- 3
I ordered a brand new 2013 GSR 2550 (from Midwest Marine in Harrisonville Mo - Good guys BTW). I ordered it with out a stereo at all. Reason is that the Wet Sound upgrade was a 1 amp solution for everything (Mids/Highs and Sub) and it didnt have enough power. My goal was not huge volume but rather quality, crisp clear sound with no distortion or clipping. More Power is needed for this... I am an amateur but have done tons of research. I have also installed the 1000W all Alpine system in the Motor-home. I thought i could go higher quality for less money that the Wetsounds upgrade from Bennington and i was right!That said on with the build!
First the boat came in with holes cut in the front loungers for 6.5" speakers but not the Elevated Helm (expected) and there wasn't a hole for the head unit (Not expected). So I had to do some fabrication of cutting in to the fiberglass to make it all work.
The Hardware Used - System power total spec 1800W RMS - has additional cooling fan blowing on this amp by request of Polk Audio.
- 1 Alpine CDA-9886M (With 4 volt pre outs - important on multiple amp solutions)
- 2 sets Polk Audio MM6501 UM 6.5" separate speakers
- 1 Used (New take out of r 2012 Chaparral) XXX S 12
- 1 Polk PA D1000.1 (running at 1 ohm and 1300W RMS)
- 1 Polk PA D4000.4 (running at 4 ohms and 125 W RMS per channel 125x4)
- 1 ported 1.6 cu feet hard covered, Ported sub box (Has a hard plastic cover similar to the rhino liners in PU beds and claims water resistant)
- 3 Optima Blues One cranking Blue and 2 Deep cycle Blues.)Dealer installed the battery's, breaker box and charger..
- Bunch of wire, Connectors and a lot of patience.
During the design phase i wanted simplicity and quality. I wanted a 1 sub woofer solution and from others with larger sub-woofer power systems they ended up not liking the vibration in the seats so i opted for putting the sub under the helm. Problem here is most of the "Marine" sub systems that use large power use a multiple speaker setup. No one makes a Sub Woofer with the proper RMS handling except for Wet Sounds (that is considered a quality speaker). It just happened as an accident that a friend took his Wet Sounds XXXS 12 out and was going to give it to me. I ended up paying $100 for a $700 speaker! LOL. This sub handles 1000W RMS. For the 6.5's i considered a 7 or 8 inch mid range speaker but it was going to be more complex than i wanted so i ended up with the Polk separates (MM6501 not the coax) This means i have to drill holes in the cabinets to fit the tweeters. I also had to cut holes for the in-dash unit and the speakers in the helm. I opted for not cutting the hole where the helm was molded to go which was on the left of the driver (wait, Bennington puts the right channel on the left side of the driver???? so you have the right and the left channels in one ear while driving?? WTH?
) I made the cut on the right side just below the Echo 100 fish/depth guage. The challenge with the head unit was spacing. I had purchased a generic quality flip up cover to somewhat waterproof the head unit in a down pour. i not only had to measure the cut multiple times but made it smaller than i needed and trimmed with a grinder to fit just right.I also have to fabricate a spacer to space the heat unit out so the flip up cover would work. The head unit i chose was the Alpine single din set up for Marine which im familiar with due to having its sister in the motor-home. Once i got "The Tune" (not the boats name) i have to plan the amp locations. I decided to install the amps right next to the 2 Optima Audio battery's (Blue top deep cycle) in the Aft Starboard cabinet seating area. This makes for a very short power and ground wire solution. I used a total of about 4'ish of 4 gauge wire. Having the amps in that right rear seating i had to run 5 sets of 14 gauge wire and 2 sets of RCA's to under the helm for the sub box and head unit. I drilled a hole in the floor of the front right of the right rear cabinet and ran the wires up under the outsides just above where the side lighting would go. There is an pop riveted aluminum panel i had to drill out and screw back in when done. I ran ALL the wires in the hole that is already under the helm in a rubber boot and covered all the wires with protective loom similar to what you see in cars. This makes it look nice and helps with rubbing if they move much. They were also wire tied to keep secure in their spots. I would guess the hardest part was to take the left/port side cup holder box that sits next to the passenger captains chair off. I had to figure out how this was done and had to pull out the cup holders and "Try" to fit my larger hands in there to un bolt that entire part so i could take it off to drill the hole for 1 2" tweeter ( i had to drill these 2 " holes for every 6.5" mid range speaker from behind to not mess up the vinyl) Anyways that one tweeter hole took me about 2 hours or better. The in dash took me 4 hours to fab a spacer back plate and cut the hole. The whole install took me 3-4 days.After the Full install and power up the experts say let it run for a while and tune. Tuning means working the filters in either the amps or the head unit (Meaning sending the proper frequency's to the proper amps or cutting out the wrong frequency's out) I read on crutchfield that you only filter either the Amps or the Head unit. I went for the Amps. I went by the instructions that are in the Polk book that came with the amps.
That said, In my opinion even though the Sub Amp is or can bang out 1300W at 1 ohm its not usable at that level. I have it turned up about half to 3/4 and the 4 channel amp up to about 3/4. After break in it sounds amazing and much much better than i expected. You can hear the sub clearly (@ any level even low volume) when the helm cabinet door is closed but there is some rattle when cranked up a bit. Opening the door helps relieve pressure of air movement (solution to come for that).
My neighbor who has been sponsored in car audio competition was very impressed with the bass, My 2 friends at the lake with Wet Sound set ups were quite blown away and stated mine was MUCH cleaner even at a louder volume.
Total cost of hardware was in the $1500 range but suspect if i had a shop do this i would be paying full retail on labor and hardware and like $4-5000 especially when there was some fab involved....
here are some pics
http://club.benningtonmarine.com/index.php?/gallery/album/321-gsr-2550-serious-audio-upgrade/
I will ad more pics specific to this install once i get back to the boat and can do so.
Thanks,
Chris
Last edited by a moderator:
