Music on board

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Unclematt

Unclematt

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 9, 2020
Messages
318
Location
United States
Vessel Name
Seaview
Vessel Make
Sundowner 32
What are you guys doing for sound systems? Built in stereo with speaker or blue tooth speakers and a mobile device?
 
Device via Bluetooth to Bose portables here. Easy quality sound.
 
Built in stereo and satellite radio on my boat. But the boat was built with spots for speakers in the salon and on the bridge, as well as a spot for a stereo. So just replacing the old stuff with decent newer stuff was pretty much a no-brainer.
 
Unclematt said:
What are you guys doing for sound systems? Built in stereo with speaker or blue tooth speakers and a mobile device?
Click to expand...

Many modern marine stereos have bluetooth support. I bought a Clarion M505 from Amazon for well under $100 which has BT, as well as Pandora (using your mobile phone for the Internet), Sirius (if you have a subscription), VHF weather channels, AUX input as well as AM/FM. It's really amazing how prices have dropped while the feature set has grown.

Pete
 
My boat came with an old high quality cassette player that I still haven't replaced.

I've got a big assortment of great old cassettes, that I hadn't played in years until the boat came along. I know it would be nice to have blue tooth and Spotify and Shazam etc but I'm ok with the original? 35 year old cassette player.

Any bad cassette tapes become wind direction indicators.
 
Multi-zone system. Zones are salon, cockpit, PH, flybridge, tower, crews quarters, and some staterooms (only sure of the owerns sr). Sources are two sonos receivers (in case people want different stuff), which gets its material entirely from the internet, so no good off shore, directtv radio stations, CD player, and songs on the computer. Also, each station has a control pannel with a 3.5mm input port, so it is easy enough to play songs from an iPad / iPhone, but only my kids actually do that.
 
Boat built with a good quality AM/FM receiver and speaker system with AUX input but no other media. Added a neat little "Bluetooth to Aux-in' adapter which lets me play tunes, podcast, phone calls what have you via the adapter thru the built in audio system. More than adequate.
 
I have a Fusion radio, CD and DVD. Very disappointed in it. Very expensive. I had to spend another 2 boat dollars on amps and stuff. I got it because of the 4-zone feature.
 
I have the newest Fusion Apollo main head radio, a secondary smaller Apollo, and a couple of amps from Fusion as well. 5 different zones with Fusion shallow speakers in the staterooms, outdoor Fusion waterproof panel speakers in the flybridge, and a bunch of MartinLogan speakers in the salon.

I have the TV connected to the main Fusion head via optical so we can listen to things throughout the boat, and the Fusion heads themselves allow for party mode everywhere, or different listening sources in some cases.

They also support Airplay but my experience has been so-so on that - they have a brand new release that just came out that is supposed to fix that. Instead, I use an iPad that uses Bluetooth and streams from Pandora or Spotify when we have internet, or from the local iTunes on the iPad, or Plex server on board.

I also have 4-5 of the little Fusion ARX puck wireless remotes so people can pause, play, skip and adjust volume in whatever zone their in, but you can also use an app if you're on the same WiFi network as the Fusion.

I've tried other things, but they just end up being too dependent on internet, not marine grade, or have other challenges. Fusion has treated me well for the last 8 years or so, I just wish there was more competition from other vendors in the same area.
 
stevemitchell said:
I have the newest Fusion Apollo main head radio, a secondary smaller Apollo, and a couple of amps from Fusion as well. 5 different zones with Fusion shallow speakers in the staterooms, outdoor Fusion waterproof panel speakers in the flybridge, and a bunch of MartinLogan speakers in the salon.

I have the TV connected to the main Fusion head via optical so we can listen to things throughout the boat, and the Fusion heads themselves allow for party mode everywhere, or different listening sources in some cases.

They also support Airplay but my experience has been so-so on that - they have a brand new release that just came out that is supposed to fix that. Instead, I use an iPad that uses Bluetooth and streams from Pandora or Spotify when we have internet, or from the local iTunes on the iPad, or Plex server on board.

I also have 4-5 of the little Fusion ARX puck wireless remotes so people can pause, play, skip and adjust volume in whatever zone their in, but you can also use an app if you're on the same WiFi network as the Fusion.

I've tried other things, but they just end up being too dependent on internet, not marine grade, or have other challenges. Fusion has treated me well for the last 8 years or so, I just wish there was more competition from other vendors in the same area.
Click to expand...

I would like to see that system some day......
 
Boat came equipped with a fairly new fusion stereo with two stations, upper helm and salon, first thing I ripped out of the boat. We now have a marly bluetooth for the salon, Ankar BT for the upper helm and another for the cockpit. Music is supplied through any of our smart devices, phones, iPads, laptops via Apple Music subscription, Sirus Subscription, Spotify or our own 10,000 plus songs in our Apple Music library, I would almost rather have music than food and I want it to be super simple and mobile.
 
Bluetooth!
I love music. We have a built in system with cutting edge tuner, speakers, and amplifier that came with the boat. However system was cutting edge 10 years ago....Not so much now. Still have all the equipment with built in speakers that we don’t even use anymore. A good Bluetooth speaker delivers better sound quality, is portable, and easily changed without leaving you with lots of built in speakers that will leave holes if you remove them. When the Bluetooth becomes obsolete throw it overboard and get the next cutting edge product. My 2 cents.
 
When I built the boat I put in a mid range aftermarket car radio with CD player, and hooked it up to sat receiver. Two small Bose speakers in the pilot house, two outdoor speakers in the overhead of cockpit.

I like the sat radio as it has lots of channels and works well offshore, even the Bahamas.

I will likely upgrade the car stereo soon to a model that does the Bluetooth thing. At the dirt house we are starting to use the phones and sound boxes. Have not really started using them on the boat yet.

One problem I have not really sorted yet is once away from our dirt house wifi, any streamed sound has to come through the cellular signal which might get expensive data-wise. And also won't work very far offshore.

So we are going to dabble in the phone thing, but keep the sat receiver.
 
I have a quality bluetooth speaker which I move around the boat as we take on different projects fore and aft, etc. . Although I have about 2,000 songs and tunes on my phone (some are for my grandson, "Everybody likes Ice Cream") It is surprising that I sometimes get bored with the selection. Seems like I hear many of the songs over and over, even when I select "Shuffle".

Anyway, I still pay the satellite radio fee and have that if I get tired of my library of music. Sometimes it is nice to shift to a different genre of music or talk radio or sports.

Works for me..

pete
 
Something I really like about the sat radio is being offshore in transit or fishing and having baseball or football on.
 
As part of my larger refit and paint job, have closed-up all the old holes for speakers and stereo. I have a multi-zone (including TV auduo) Sonos system at home but frankly, still just use a bluetooth speaker 90% of the time. Works well for us. Glad to see the speaker and stereo holes gone!

Peter
 
I bring my classical guitar onboard, as there is no room for the grand piano.
 
Fusion for iPod, encases my iPod Classic inside the unit, and an external Bluetooth sensor so it will stream anything with Bluetooth through the system. I stuck with just two zones so no additional amplifier was required, on a 30' boat you can get away with a pretty simple system.

It has been outstanding! If it goes belly up I will replace it with another Fusion but without the iPod feature and just stick to Bluetooth streaming. Up here there is no Satellite radio service available, or I would be a fan.
 
Sirius Xm

SiriusXM thru Fusion head unit. 3 zones salon bridge staterooms. Fusion link controls to Raymarine Mfd. wifi control to iPad and iPhone. Wired remote on flybridge. All works well. Lots of content. Just renewed for 30 bucks for six months. Happy with it
 
I have a wifi network, bridged off a cell phone that allows me 150G per month. I use Sonos as my interior speakers, Sonos One (w/ voice control) in guest stateroom. Playbar and Sonos one (surround) and a sub in salon. Beam in master stateroom. I can control any room by voice and play something different in each room. I then have Sonos Connects paired to JL Audio Amps (4 of them) Those power all the exterior speakers which are also all JL Audio. Boat can be controlled via app or voice from anywhere. All areas of the boat represent a different zone (cockpit, sunroom, flybridge, bow, master, guest, salon).
The boat sounds AMAZING and I can do different things based off of where/what I am doing, loud as a concert or quiet watching movies. Tv's also linked into Sonos for sound and control.
 
Another happy Sonos user here. Playbar on the TV in the salon which doubles as a speaker, a Play5 in the helm (which we can point aft through the PH window when hanging out on the boat deck) and one of the less expensive IKEA Sonos speakers down below. We typically run everything from Spotify as my musicophile wife creates some amazing playlists like "Fortitunes", "On-the-hook", etc.

Sound is amazing and love the grouping features and options.
 
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New to me 1976 boat with built in speakers that was probably many boat bucks. I will be working on about every system over the coming year but for audio I will like just use some of the bluetooth speakers. One in each cabin if anyone wants music in their stateroom. They will stream from their phones. Put a new TV and Bose soundbar in the saloon (also with BT). May decide to hard mount some outdoor speakers in the cockpit and/or the flybridge. Much more mission critical areas to spend time and money!
 
I have a Fusion black box with 3 zones and satellite radio tied to the NMEA2k bus so I can operate it from all of my multifunction displays. Mostly use sat radio or bluetooth.

Like it.

Ken
 
Rather than figure out existing wiring we just use Bose Bluetooth or a Visio Sound bar with Bluetooth and stream from our phones or tablets. Used Spotify Premium last summer so we could download stations and playlists for off network use. We have some serious audio systems at home, but for boating on our 47’ pilothouse (no kids, just us and occasionally with friends) we find this solution works fine. I love music but on board don’t really care about music in staterooms and if we listen underway it will be in the pilothouse. There have been a few times at anchor that I would have liked music in the salon, on the bridge, and in the cockpit but haven’t set things up so support that yet. Next step will be an on board LAN to support Sonos or equivalent plus battery powered IP cameras.
 
Sirius/XM, radio, & CD through built-in system with Bose speakers.
 
We have a pretty nice six speaker am/fm/CD stereo system on board but only use the FM spectrum with this Nulaxy unit that goes from car to boat.

USB or microchip. We currently have about 2,000 songs doubloaded from Youtube through Clip Grab. Apparently the microchip has room for another 3,000 or so.

Our personal choice of music all the time. :)

https://www.nulaxy.com/product-page/km18-black-bluetooth-fm-transmitter
 
We installed a Fusion RA70 with Bluetooth and two zone speaker control - salon and flybridge. The app available for iPhone or Android makes it easy to control music and volume from anywhere on the boat. Really happy with the system. Fusion also makes a NMEA2000 compatible system which can be controlled through your chart plotter.
 
Visio

My Bose system (CD/DVD) was quite old and did not accept Bluetooth (even with adapters). So I replaced this expensive (at the time) system with a very inexpensive replacement, that being a Visio sound bar system bought from Best Buy . Has woofer, sound bar and two ceiling speakers, all which replace the speakers used in the Bose.

Sounds great and works great with my iPhone. Also, sets up easy with the TV.

Seriously though, with systems as they are today, a portable Jambox can do the trick!

Enjoy!
 
Bluetooth to my portable Sonos speaker. Probably not the most high tech approach, but I love the sound that comes out of my Sonos speakers.
 
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