MacGregorSailors.com

Hello all,

I am looking to switch out the stereo in my Mac 26D. The current speakers are fine for when inside, but can't handle volume or bass well. My current stereo has bluetooth and a remote which I consider a requirement. I see no need for a CD.

I was thinking about something like the Dual MGH20 Gauge Hole Stereo. It does lack an aux in, but I can live without that. Thoughts?

Any suggestions on speakers and speaker placement?

I'm typically a day sailor with occasional weekends spent on my boat, any concern of draining my battery too far to be useful with a weekend of blasting the tunes? I do have a small solar panel attached to keep it topped off.

Thank you,

Curwen

I always view these threads with interest, but mostly because I have no music on anything I own (iPhone 4) that is bluetooth capable. Is it that popular these days? I just listen to FM.

(What a Luddite I must be. )

I have an EcoXGear. Great for working on projects around the house, in the garage, outside, etc. I have the small cube. It's durable, waterproof and for it's size has good sound. On the boat you could clip it on to something in the cockpit and then clip it on something in the cabin when you move. However, if you're listening in the cockpit, your crew in the cabin won't be able to hear very well.

Jeff

Could not find a good picture of the speaker but here is one. I have 6X9's in the cabin on each side just aft of the sink in the seat area. In the cockpit I used 2 6" marine speakers in the aft part. I have been happy with the placement.

Curwen wrote:... but can't handle volume or bass well.

Made me start cringing and thinking of this.



Generally, I love to get away from loud sounds and enjoy the peace of the wind and waves.
With that said, I have cheap little speakers in the cockpit under the rail seats (no holes in fiberglass). I have a long 3.5 headphone plug to the stereo below that I can plug a device (phone/mp3 player) into.
Cheap speakers that I don't care if they break or stop working and are easy to replace.

OMG

I too do not like loud noises while sailing, but that does not mean I object to what is to me appropriate music. To each, his/her own

This is my speaker set up; two in the cockpit, and two located far forward in the cabin.


As to which stereo, The WM near me has a wall of speaker and stereo units so as to make choices. I don't know if that is representative of all, but it could make your life easier. There is a West Marine in Midvale, UT. Also, while the speakers need to be marine grade, the stereo doesn't. Try going to a car stereo specialist store. There may be a larger selection.

Ray

NiceAft wrote:I too do not like loud noises while sailing, but that does not mean I object to what is to me appropriate music.

Agreed.

I guess what I object to is how others feel the need to "share" their music. Either at a traffic light or on the water, it's nice to offer to share your "music", however we like to pick our own thank you. Sharing the deep bass massage is a nice gesture though.
And why do these wake boats with the large speaker towers feel the need to buzz the sailboat at anchor. We anchored close to shore so you could "play" out in the middle.

We do have had some great "What's you favorite sailing songs" threads.

I'm just not a fan of cutting big holes in my boat. Maybe it's some dumb phobia. I should hang with Highlander a bit to cure me of it.
If I had to buy a new stereo, I'd get a bluetooth enabled one. I actually have a bluetooth aux adapter that I want to install so I can play/control from my phone in the cockpit.

--Russ

Here's my son's favorite music when sailing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RisL9l8HzmM

NiceAft wrote:I too do not like loud noises while sailing, but that does not mean I object to what is to me appropriate music. To each, his/her own

This is my speaker set up; two in the cockpit, and two located far forward in the cabin.


As to which stereo, The WM near me has a wall of speaker and stereo units so as to make choices. I don't know if that is representative of all, but it could make your life easier. There is a West Marine in Midvale, UT. Also, while the speakers need to be marine grade, the stereo doesn't. Try going to a car stereo specialist store. There may be a larger selection.

Ray

maybe just install an amp and bluetooth, when i was a kid, in one car, i just had an amp and ran my walkman into the amp

Flightfollowing wrote:https://ecoxgear.com/ecocarbon/

Wow! That IS a handy double-duty bit of kit, and waterproof too! Also charges your cell phone or other USB stuff. A word of good advice: If you shop around for the best price, as I just did out of curiosity, and come across offerings from Jet.com, you would do well to read their reviews before committing! After some longish unexplained delay in shipping, they eventually did OK by me and the wife, the one time we used them, but I'm guessing from those reviews that we may have caught them on a very good day indeed. Yikes!

As for me, I must be a mouth-breathing Luddite too, having had Bluetooth in one device or another for easily more than a decade and never having used it even once for anything in all that time. Ever. My teenage son, who is by very definition way cooler than I (See? I used the nominative pronoun there: I must really be ready for "The Home") refers to Bluetooth headset users in terms evoking feminine hygiene products of yore or maybe what could easily be New Jersey's state motto. I'll confess that his scorn may have had a chilling effect on any subsequent possible exploration of that technology on my part, despite Bluetooth's very moniker's admittedly semi-cool Viking Origins (C'mon...Haven't you wondered why its symbol is a ligature of runes?). For me, the "must-have" feature of my recent stereo purchase, to replace a dodgy on-again/off-again Pyle unit already in the 26X when I got it was the very Auxiliary Input or "aux in" that our original poster Curwen mentioned being able to live without, since my ancient iPod, resurrected from the battery recycle bin at work, has no Bluetooth, but enough decent tunes on it left by its previous owner (3000+ songs...most of which I haven't even listened to yet) to handle a circumnavigation...maybe two...without getting stale, including the only Jimmy Buffet tunes I've ever owned. It does have a headphone jack. So do my phone and a little SanDisk player, with similar origins to the iPod, that I have my Russian Conversation lessons and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy episodes on. You could also just plug in an old Walkman or other cassette player (or even an 8-Track player, assuming your tastes, like mine, lean towards moribund technologies...Not sure about Victrolas, but since they make their own mechanical noise, no amplification's really needed). I'm not sure I care to figure out how to retroactively "Bluetooth-up" an 8-Track player, like these beauties. Nope..I'll just stick with that "aux in" plug for now.

I ended up getting a near-identical refurbished Pyle head unit to the one that was already in the boat for about $50, which was originally sold as part of a set with four semi-decent speakers, the sound of which I really liked both inside and outside the cabin...when it worked, that is. Thing is, the head unit would sometimes simply not power up, though its connections seemed tip-top. Apparently, this is a common enough issue with Pyle products to have found frequent scathing mention in reviews. Also, Its CD player never worked. Still, I got the similar refurb model, presumably a patched up warranty return, in the hope that whatever flakey electrical connection that was causing this common issue may have been identified and properly soldered down, and also because I had hoped to just "swap and snap" the new head unit in. This turned out not to be the case, as the snap connectors were completely different, but I got it all squared away, and now it sounds great. So, fingers crossed. I also now have a little remote I didn't have before, and I didn't have to get a whole new set with speakers I didn't need (I mean, I already have an extra set of spare speakers from the previous owner).

Actually though, I'm sort of hoping to bring my old tin whistle out on the Bay when I'm single-handing, where I won't annoy family, friends and neighbors or cause sterility in beloved family pets.

I have tried a bunch of options over the years. I have a JVC deck on the 26s with a 7inch dvd screen the kids like it most of the time. It has surface mount speakers like a previous poster showed. It leaves something to be desired in the full sound as these speakers just don't have the punch. The is the first boat I have owned that came with a decent stereo setup. I would likely duplicate this setup on a future boat if need be. It has a Sony marine deck near the galley with a Wired remote with a display on the pedestal. As far as speakers, this is equally as important and I have 2 sony 6.5 inch in the bow v berth and 2 infinity 6.5inch near the companionway. I like this setup because I can hear well enough in the cockpit and control it from there. What I like the best is no additional holes from the outside of the boat to the inside less chance of leaks. These 6.5in speakers on a head unit rated for 50watts rms make a pretty decent quality sound. I would not have interest in amps and really loud music on my sailboat, I have done this in cars and definitely would require it in a wakeboard boat, but not while sailing. I am attracted to the general lack of loud sounds when sailing. Mostly I listen to music when working on the boat or I am in the marina and on occasion when sailing.

We have a Sony marine with two cabin speakers. With the fg 'box' and two way 6" it acts as a ported sub box and there is plenty of bass and mid tones to keep the harbor awake and the kids if we're up after hours having a drink in the cockpit; So we run a 'lil wiz' Bluetooth speaker for localized sound without disturbing the peace. This speaker uses vibrations to transfer the bass and lower frequency tones to whatever it sits on (an enclosed wood box creates the best sound) but at lower volumes the fg sounds great with deep tomes and very little resonance (higher volumes on fg tend to get some feedback) That being said Bluetooth eats through battery life so expect to have something charging fairly frequently. This is why we mainly use the auxiliary cable with the deck during the day at anchor or underway.

Bilgemaster wrote:

Flightfollowing wrote:https://ecoxgear.com/ecocarbon/

Wow! That IS a handy double-duty bit of kit, and waterproof too! Also charges your cell phone or other USB stuff. A word of good advice: If you shop around for the best price, as I just did out of curiosity, and come across offerings from Jet.com, you would do well to read their reviews before committing! After some longish unexplained delay in shipping, they eventually did OK by me and the wife, the one time we used them, but I'm guessing from those reviews that we may have caught them on a very good day indeed. Yikes!

As for me, I must be a mouth-breathing Luddite too, having had Bluetooth in one device or another for easily more than a decade and never having used it even once for anything in all that time. Ever. My teenage son, who is by very definition way cooler than I (See? I used the nominative pronoun there: I must really be ready for "The Home") refers to Bluetooth headset users in terms evoking feminine hygiene products of yore or maybe what could easily be New Jersey's state motto. I'll confess that his scorn may have had a chilling effect on any subsequent possible exploration of that technology on my part, despite Bluetooth's very moniker's admittedly semi-cool Viking Origins (C'mon...Haven't you wondered why its symbol is a ligature of runes?). For me, the "must-have" feature of my recent stereo purchase, to replace a dodgy on-again/off-again Pyle unit already in the 26X when I got it was the very Auxiliary Input or "aux in" that our original poster Curwen mentioned being able to live without, since my ancient iPod, resurrected from the battery recycle bin at work, has no Bluetooth, but enough decent tunes on it left by its previous owner (3000+ songs...most of which I haven't even listened to yet) to handle a circumnavigation...maybe two...without getting stale, including the only Jimmy Buffet tunes I've ever owned. It does have a headphone jack. So do my phone and a little SanDisk player, with similar origins to the iPod, that I have my Russian Conversation lessons and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy episodes on. You could also just plug in an old Walkman or other cassette player (or even an 8-Track player, assuming your tastes, like mine, lean towards moribund technologies...Not sure about Victrolas, but since they make their own mechanical noise, no amplification's really needed). I'm not sure I care to figure out how to retroactively "Bluetooth-up" an 8-Track player, like these beauties. Nope..I'll just stick with that "aux in" plug for now.

I ended up getting a near-identical refurbished Pyle head unit to the one that was already in the boat for about $50, which was originally sold as part of a set with four semi-decent speakers, the sound of which I really liked both inside and outside the cabin...when it worked, that is. Thing is, the head unit would sometimes simply not power up, though its connections seemed tip-top. Apparently, this is a common enough issue with Pyle products to have found frequent scathing mention in reviews. Also, Its CD player never worked. Still, I got the similar refurb model, presumably a patched up warranty return, in the hope that whatever flakey electrical connection that was causing this common issue may have been identified and properly soldered down, and also because I had hoped to just "swap and snap" the new head unit in. This turned out not to be the case, as the snap connectors were completely different, but I got it all squared away, and now it sounds great. So, fingers crossed. I also now have a little remote I didn't have before, and I didn't have to get a whole new set with speakers I didn't need (I mean, I already have an extra set of spare speakers from the previous owner).

Actually though, I'm sort of hoping to bring my old tin whistle out on the Bay when I'm single-handing, where I won't annoy family, friends and neighbors or cause sterility in beloved family pets.

What

CliffsNotes version please

Ray