Most important question when planning any kind of stereo upgrade is:
What do you want from it?
Do you want to integrate iPod? Do you need Radio? Do you want ocean shaking bass or just enough sound to comfortably hear whilst underway? Do you want tower speakers so you can listen to your tunes whilst you ride? Etc etc...
Most people these days go down the iPod route and ditch CD's altogether.... Something like our Fusion iP-500 allows you to slide your ipod inside and locks it away nice and dry/safe/warm. You can then control it and pull up all your tracks from the remote control or the front of the stereo unit....
Next 4-6 speakers within the boat is plenty... the Fusion unit would power all these as it can control upto 4 zones (each zone being 2 speakers). But most stereos will only control 4 speakers as standard... plus amplifiers... something to take into account.
From the basics you then need to plan how loud you want everything and to what quality. this will lead you onto the answers to what speakers and what amps (if any) to choose. And if you are going multi-amp you may need to consider more than 1 battery etc...
Boat audio is simple but it needs to be done right. If badly planned or badly installed the results will be poor. I've seen £300 systems blow the pants off £3000 systems just because they were horribly setup, badly installed and poorly spec'ed with product that didn't work well together.
Feel free to fire some more specific questions and I'll do my best to answer these for you!
Cheers,
Mike
Wakeboard Towers UK
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