Best Of

Today I finished updating all my cockpit speakers, except for the sub (still need to order it). Of course there were several steps before I got the speakers in place.

All of the speaker wiring had questionable splices. Most were non-heatshrink crimp connectors, one pair were wire nutted, and the arch speakers were electrical taped together:

I've previously had to resolve some issues due to the bad splices that I inherited, so I try to fix them whenever I find them.

This next pic shows what is typical for each speaker:

Back near the cutout you can see the wire extension has proper adhesive lined heat shrink butt connector. I also had to replace all of the spade connectors, the existing spades were too small for my new speakers. Additionally I ran 4 conductor cable to each speaker for RGB lighting. I terminated these with deutsch connectors, so I can easily disconnect/reconnect in the future. Lastly, on the arch I used speaker mounting rings from New Wire Marine. They are a half inch thick and came predrilled for my JL Audio speakers. They are made of king star board, and are a thousand times nicer than whatever deteriorated junk the last owner installed.

After all that, finally got the new speakers mounted. They sound great, and really help make the boat look less dated: