waterproof speakers?

[MyFirstRanger99]

im trying to turn my ranger into a little bit of a party mobile, and i want to put some speakers in the back. so i was thinking about making holes in the bed liner and puting in around 4-6 marine speakers. im concerned about theft and the waterproof capability of the speakers. the speakers are found at http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7245581&type=product&id=1115365494948 if you want to take a look. my whole stereo system is going to go for a major overhaul. please reply with any help that you can give me inorder for me to do this project.

thanks
rob

 

[mjonesjr]

Marine speakers can take a bath in water and still work.

As for the bolts/screws, I would use a special bolt that requires a special tool (allen wrench with hold in the center) to get them out. That would deter theft.

 

[97ranger4x4]

do you plan on having a camper or tonneu cover to at least keep them out of site. Marine speakers can handle the elements well, but being out in the sun without a cover is a easy way to trash a nice set of speakers. also I would build some sort of box to house them in so that way they are not ratteling around. also thats a lot of wire to be running it underneeth the cab and back in through the firewall.

But I did wanna do the same thing when I was in HS...

 

[exbass94]

Even if you're recessing them into the bed, you should make some sort of enclosure behind the bedliner. If the speakers are not mounted in some sort of box, they won't play loud at all and will sound bad. They'll be 10000x more efficient if they're in an enclosure.

 

[Mavrick70004]

Just for reference the bolts that are Allen with the stud in the middle can be taken off with the right size flathead screwdriver, i would go more toward maybe a carriage bolt or even a Rivet. Audiobahn also makes some nice Marine speakers, so does Bose but we all know how expensive those would be, an enclosure would be a step in the right direction also some Speaker baffles would not hurt anything also. As for the speakers you gave the link too i would find something with more power (RMS not Peak) if you are going to be using them outdoors and want to be heard and make a statement and to of course find a appropriately sized amp for them. The speakers you picked out are not that bad but personally i would not buy "MARINE" speakers from a company that painted there grills black, most high quality Marine speakers are painted white for a reason, i have always had great luck with http://www.crutchfield.com they even have people you can talk to that can walk you through stuff and give you more ideas. If you are familiar with stereos and installs and all that then you should already know all the other stuff you need to know in order to overhaul a stereo system (amps,voltage,wire sizes) if not dont be afraid to ask

 

[MyFirstRanger99]

no don't have a cover on the bed but that would be a good idea because of the speakers but i heard a lot of stuff that the covers really mess up the air flow in the back behing the cab. and as for doing it my self well.... im not going to lie im scared cuz i want to make a major overhaul of the stock radio that i blew out and only goes up half way thanks to "welcome to the jungle" and the speakers are jl audio that some one else put in, i think that they had an amp, (which im most scared of installing because of the battery hook up) but it was ripped out and now there are a bunch of wires sticking out of my floor. :/ but i want a system that i could be heard AND felt down a mile away because im still young and i like loud music.and im looking at the JVC KD-HDW10 because it got a good rating on consumer reports and is CHEAP which i like. but also im consurned that im going to be putting so much money in to the truck and i don't have an alarm system on it.
so thats my story
thanks for the help
rob

 

[MyFirstRanger99]

but i have to say that im most afraid of the battery connection and the wireing in the fuse box. but if some one could give me a good website that would have illistrations and very detailed about how to wire stuff up in the fuse box it would be greatly appreciated because im going to put a lot of additions to the truck including an air horn with the tank and compressor. and i know that the spelling is off but im in school so im trying to type fast and not get cought. so any info would be great.

thanks
rob

 

[kaskirov]

im not going to lie im scared cuz i want to make a major overhaul of the stock radio that i blew out and only goes up half way thanks to "welcome to the jungle"

hahahahaha thats awesome

while reading this i had a thought, you could (i have no experience in doing this, its just an idea i had) build a wooden tool box for your bed and cut the holes in the side so the speakers go into that. then maybe put a floor in it above the speakers so that they are concealed so that you can put stuff in your tool box, and they would be out of sight if the box got broken into too.

 

[Mavrick70004]

First Problem is that its not going to be cheap to do this in the first place, at least doing it the right way is not going to be cheap, what do you need to wire in the fuse box? did the stock radio wires get damaged or something? put out your whole plan here. are there going to be speakers inside as well as outside? are you going to install one head unit or two( one to control the inside speakers one to control the outside)? i have not checked out the head unit you want to get but does it have all the RCA connections you are going to need? front pre-amp, rear pre-amp, sub? Come up with a definate plan. How many speakers exactly do you want in the bed (it matters becasue then you know which amp you need) did you want subs in the bed too or are you going to put them in the cab or are you even going to have any. Did you ever think of installing a rollbar in the bed? me and my friend were going to do it on his F-150 a roll bar with marine tower speakers, the speakers come with special lock bolts and stuff to prevent theft and you will only need about 4 of them since they will all be facing rearward.

 

[97ranger4x4]

Like Mavrick said, a good quality system is NOT going to be cheep. And you CAN defentatly tell the difference between a quality and shitty system.

I also agree with the above about planning it out. As for all of the wireing. It really isnt that bad. I dont really understand all the electrical crap that my buddy did in high school. The hardest part of wireing the sytem is pretty much unplugging the battery. Everything else is just laying the wire down. As much as your parents may not like the idea of basically pulling out the entire interior of your truck, its the easiest way.

So here are a few things I reccomend. Replace the head unit first. Most places will install it for free or for a $1 if you buy it through them. Not like best buy but the actual stereo shops.

Then choose the speakers you want on the inside. I recommend getting rid of the stock 18gauge wires also. I replaced all speaker wire with 12 gauge I think (this was like 6 years ago) The thicker wire will provide better sound quality as well as handle the beating your truck will take. Also for your bed speakers, consider going even thicker! Those have to deal with the elements of sun, rain, snow, etc.

I like the idea of the roll bar. The speakers will get amplified much better than just in the bed. But here is the downside. Sometimes you do not want everyone to hear your music. So I would also have a switch to cut power to those speakers.

So maybe you can set it up like this.

Head Unit powers 2 amplifiers. One is for the subwoofer, one for bed speakers. Then you can use the head unit to power the 4 speakers inside. Also if you want to install tweeters then you can run those of the head unit and get a third amp for truck speakers. Also not sure if your truck is extended cab or regular. if its regular, your going to have a hard time keeping your amps cool with little space. Even with the extended cab, i would pretty much devote the whole back of it to amplifiers and stuff.

Also get a good quality wireing kit and with this much watts, I would get a heavy duty battery. I know when I was in hs, most of my driving was less than 10-15 minnutes so it was hard to my battery to get a good charge because with the stereo and constant start/stopping it was pretty hard on it.

any other questions?

 

[MyFirstRanger99]

I think i know what i want to do now. i thought about it and this is what i can up with:
head unit: JVC KD-HDW10
4 2way speakers in the cabin
2 10" subs in the cabin
by the way my friend told me that i should stick to a smaller sub because a 10" sounds a lot better than a 12"sub. i don't know if he is right but i just wanted to run it by you guys to see if he might be right
in the bed:
4 2-way marine speakers
2 marine subs
and as for the amps i thought of 4 amps:
1 for the speaker in the cabin
1 for the subs in the cabin
1 for the speakers in the bed
and 1 for the subs in the bed
i would also have a switch either in the cabin or a remote that i could turn the speakers and subs in the bed on and off
and i was also wondering if i need to add a sound proccesor to my system, does it make a big difference or not really. im not a person that is going to sit in the truck and examine every note that comes out of it but i want it to sound good when it is turned up all the way.
and that is about it, i think that im looking at about 7,000 to 8,000 and maybe 10,000 with the sound processors.

thanks
rob

 

[Mavrick70004]

Never heard of a 10 inch sub sounding better than a 12 inch but i guess it all depends on what "better" sounds like to every person. i def would not put 10's in the bed at LEAST 12". I took a look at your deck and everything looks good about it but if possible try to find a Head Unit that has 5v pre-amp voltage. if your going for absolute awesome sound then 2.5v will hinder the capability of the system. Switching the speakers and subs off and on is actually pretty simple you just run the blue wire coming from the Head Unit to a switch and THEN to your amps that you want to be able to switch on and off. Sound Processors arent really needed it cleans the signal up that goes to your amps and speakers but since you are using an after market head unit, they are pretty much like crossovers, also if you want the best sound from your speakers look into Component speakers since they come with crossovers already( a crossover will split the frequency's of the signal so the bass driver gets the lows and mids while the tweeter will get the high frequency's). The Next big part and the most important is your amps you need to spend alot of time researching every amp you look at please do not get the knock off amps you find on ebay or other sites that say they can put out 1,000,000 watts for only 200 dollars lol, stick to name brand amps (MTX,Audiobahn,Rockford Fosgate,Kicker,etc.) You also might find that you need to run one amp per sub since there are not a lot out there that put out high wattage to Dual subs on a average impedance (2,4), also check to make sure your amp and subs have the same impedance, when you start to purchase and wire the subs and amps then it gets a little confusing with how you need to wire them ( parallel, series, a little of both maybe?) i would buy the best amps you can find, and THEN buy the subs. With subs, Impedance is a very important thing it will either make or break your system. Doing subs is a whole other chapter of audio systems and would probably too much to handle at this time haha. So start getting a list of the speakers you are thinking of getting and stuff like that and then well all go from there

 

[Mavrick70004]

check out the JVC KD-AHD39 its more expensive but has the 5v output and its JVC, i didnt know if you chose JVC for a reason so i didnt look at other brands.