"Matt" wrote in
:

I have a 21' bowrider and plan on redoing the stereo system. Getting
a marine Amp, Subwoofer, Headunit, 4 speakers.

Question:

I plan on getting a 6 channel AMP anyone have any experience on
mounting, as far as where? I was going to put it in a compartment
that really doesn't get airflow but is somewhat ventalated, does the
amp need alot of constant airflow? The subwoofer is going to be in
an enclosure and non-powered.

Any help is appreciated.



There is no such thing as a "marine stereo". Putting a white face on a
black faced car stereo that's wide open to the water doesn't wash, so to
speak...pun intended. None of these car radios sold at marine stores is
waterproof, so treat it like you would any ol car stereo and mount it
way up inside the boat so it never gets wet unless the boat sinks. Even
then you'll be hard pressed to keep it from getting wet. In a 21' bow
rider, your best bet is inside any cabinetry the boat has on it.
Putting it into a hole in the dash hanging out the back of the plastic
over your knees in the open just hastens its failure....as soon as the
boat gets splashed by a wake...when your feet get wet. Even with that
"cover" on the front of it, the back is still wide open.

ALL speakers must be PLASTIC coned....no paper at all. You must keep
the back of the speakers DRY or it won't matter. Plastic speakers
labeled "marine", other than tripling their price, only let you splash
the front of them. If any of them have any METAL grillework, don't buy
it...plastic doesn't rust.

My advise....Get a nice PORTABLE stereo you can run off 12VDC plugged
into the boat battery or a small AC inverter. One of those inverters
built into the back of a cigarette lighter plug is plenty to power their
AC cord. No mounting necessary and you can carry the radio over to the
beach blanket or campsite on that little island. Put the stereo in a
trashbag to keep all the water off it...It'll even run that way. Make
sure the portable has no METAL cabinet parts...they're all cheap steel
that will rust awful. My boat radio is one of the windup radios that
also has a solar cell to run it in the sun....no connections, no
batteries and it will run about an hour on a windup after the sun sets.
It'll run continuously on the beach all day for nothing.