Warning: This is a long post about a stereo upgrade project with some relatively poor quality photos at the end. However, some of the commentary accompanying the photos is marginally humorous (at least in my opinion) and might be worth the read. With a build-up like that, how could you refuse? And since you're probably at work anyway, what do you have to lose?

When we purchased our boat, it came equipped with its' original 1996 cassette stereo mounted in the cabin and connected to three sets of speakers. One set of speakers is located in the forward stateroom, one set is in the salon, and one set is on the flybridge. An amp is used to drive one set of speakers, but the overall volume and quality of sound is terrible on all of the speakers and the speakers themselves are rusting. I connect an IPOD to the head unit through one of those IPOD cassette thingies with the pig tail hanging out. The IPOD works fine and I'm able to use an RF remote so it can be operated from the flybridge.

What the system lacks is decent volume, sound quality, a set of speakers in the cockpit, and a way to control the volume of each set of speakers independently. Controlling the speaker zones separately is important because if the kids are sleeping inside the boat, I still want to hear music outside and I don’t want to wake them up. So I've been thinking about a stereo upgrade project for a while and fortunately for me, fate intervened as the stereo head unit died a few months ago.

I don’t know what any of you guys would have done at that moment, but I hesitated barely a second before sending a PM to Al, master of all projects, all knowing electronics guru, and implementer of several cool marine stereo upgrades. I'm not sure that's the title on Al's business card, but it should be. Al educated me on heads units, high vs low output thing-a-ma-bobs, amplifiers, impedance matching devices, IPOD connectivity, etc., etc. I've framed a number of the detailed schematics he created and will be selling them as artwork on EBAY shortly. Al also guided me through selecting the various components and turned my thoughts to an important aspect of the project...mounting the goodies. This took a good deal of thought and measuring on my part as I had limited space to work with and needed some way to support the four rather heavy impedance matching devices used to control the speaker zones independently. I decided to incorporate an existing shelf for support and to mount the various components on a piece of black Corian (the stuff used for countertops before someone invented granite).

Al and I then brainstormed a bit and based on the color scheme of the new head unit (silver with black controls), and dimensions/clearances of some of the components, he suggested a method and look that I thought would be perfect for the project.

The plan called for a few silver metal pieces to be made which would match the stereo in size, including it's pseudo curved sides. These pieces would sit on top of the Corian and switches, an IPOD docking station, and knobs (for the speaker volume controls) would be mounted to the metal pieces. The area of Corian behind the head unit and the metal pieces would then be cutout to provide clearance for the components. The metal pieces would also be engraved so I could remember what all the knobs and thingies were for and the engraving would match the fonts on the stereo.

I don’t know what any of you guys would have done at that moment, but I hesitated barely a second before sending a PM to Frantically Relaxing, also known as Kevin, master of all things metallic and/or engraved (both, in this case).

After taking some measurements, creating some paper templates, and lots of discussion, Kevin set to work on proofs and then finally creating the metal pieces, making cutouts in them per my design, and engraving the pieces with a font that matched the stereo perfectly.

Next, I placed a call to a company that Al recommended that provides Corian for small projects. In addition to providing the stuff, they also rounded the corners, beveled the edges and wet sanded it until it shines. I made all of the cutouts in the Corian piece, and drilled screw holes to hold the Corian to the wall and to hold the metal pieces to the Corian. Thankfully, Al cautioned me to make small holes first in the Corian as it chips easily. To make the Corian and components behind it fit in the space provided, I had to enlarge a hole in the cabinet wall and remove some framing in there formerly holding the old stereo head unit. Fortunately, I waited until I had all the pieces assembled before making the hole and the Admiral never saw the huge raw cutout.

I replaced all the existing speakers with new ones. For the speakers in the cockpit, I re-used holes already in place for two large deck plates. Unfortunately, the speakers would have fallen inside the holes, so I removed the deck plates and mounted the speakers on small square pieces of starboard, which I cut a little larger than the existing holes.

Like all good projects, I spent too much money, scraped too many knuckles, bought some new tools, and learned quite a bit. The most important thing I learned was that planning is key if you’re going to contract out pieces of a project (the Corian, and metal pieces in this case). Once I received the metal pieces from Kevin, I realized I hadn’t taken something into account where the volume controls needed to be mounted and the lower plate needed to be made larger. Without a second thought, Kevin had a new piece to me in no time.

Another thing I learned is that it takes a tremendous amount of time and effort to design something. Every component of the system was selected carefully, either for it's function, price, or its' aesthetic value, right down to the color of the knobs (black) and the color of the screws used to hold the metal pieces in place and the Corian to the wall. The Admiral preferred a more "hidden" look, using silver screws on the silver pieces and black screws on the Corian.

One thing this project reinforced is that there is an incredible amount of knowledge on this board as well as people who share it freely. The PM with AL is 8 pages long with 74 responses and the one with Kevin is 6 pages long with 59 responses. Without their help, I'd still have a broken cassette stereo from 1996 sitting on the boat. So gentlemen, thank you very, very much.

So, how does the new system sound? I have no idea since I haven’t done any of the cabling yet. I'll do the cabling over the winter along with some other cabling projects that require removal of the fridge to run cabling up to the flybridge. In this case, the cabling is for a wired remote, which will reside at the helm and will allow me to control the stereo and the IPOD, when it's inserted in to the IPOD docking station.

So, how does it look? Al thinks it needs rack handles and I wouldn’t mind them. The admiral, though, is so strongly opposed to rack handles that it makes me wonder whether she was terrorized by them as a child. To me, it looks great and will be a welcome addition to the boat. I can’t wait until the wiring is done so I can crank up Engleburt Humperdinck for everyone to hear.

Here are the components I used in the project:

Stereo Head Unit: Clarion CMD-5 with wired remote option
Speakers: Polk Audio DB651
Amplifier: Alpine F250
Switches: Carling Contura III Illuminated Rocker Switches
IPOD Connector: MB Quart IPOD Docking Station
Impedance Matching Switches (Volume Zone Controls): Phoenix Gold VMT100
Volume Control Knobs: Kilo International Black with Top and Side Saw Cuts
Corian Piece: Art Specialties
Metal Pieces: Williams & Sons Engraving (aka Frantically Relaxing's company)

And here are the much anticipated "pictures of poor quality" and the accompanying "marginally humorous commentary".

One of many schematic's Al produced so I could understand the movement of electrons. At first, I thought it was map of the British underground rail system but by the end of the project I could understand most of it. I decided against installing the flux capacitor for fear I would travel back in time and accidentally undo most of the project, but if you look closely, you can find it in the schematic somewhere near Piccadilly Circus.


"Before" picture of cockpit deck plates. The black thingie in the second picture is where the outboard for the dinghy is mounted.




"After" picture of cockpit speakers mounted on starboard covering the deck plate holes. I toyed with the idea of using round pieces of starboard instead of square ones, but I couldn’t find a hole saw big enough. Once I cut the starboard I decided the square piece looked OK and at prices higher than platinum per ounce, I decided not to invest in any more starboard.




The Project taking shape. It took lots of thinking just to get to this point. Eventually, I made the final template out of wood and mounted everything to it to ensure I wouldn’t wreck the Corian piece. Good thing too, because I messed up the first wood template pretty good.


Al trying to convince me to use rack handles. I'm not sure, but I suspect he gets a piece of all rack handle business in the U.S.


Kevin's proof for the upper metal piece. Decisions like whether to align the top or bottoms of the switches with the IPOD dock vs centering them and the associated effect on lettering were considered. In the end, all my decisions were either approved or over-ridden by my wife, also known as, "She who must be obeyed".


"Before" picture of old stereo head unit, which was state of the art in 1996. There is a shelf underneath the stereo that is holding "stuff" in the picture. The hole in the cabinet was opened slightly downward to take advantage of this shelf to support the heavy volume zone controls. The hole was also expanded upward to accommodate the slightly different position of the new stereo head unit and the top portion containing the switches and IPOD docking station.


"After" picture of super new stereo system designed and built with Al and Kevin's help. It sure looks good sitting there and I get a kick out of twisting the knobs and imagining all that great music. Hopefully it'll sound great too. The large black oval that says "Clarion" at the top / middle of the head unit is actually a button. When it's pressed, the face plate of the head unit rotates down and exposes the CD player inside. When an IPOD is slid into the slot at top it can be controlled directly from the head unit as well as from the wired remote on the flybridge. The switch on the right will be connected to an existing antenna. The Switch on the left will be connected to the Amplifier, which in turn will drive the speakers in the first two speaker zones on the left of the bottom panel (ie Stateroom, and Salon). The stereo can then be on supplying music in the Cockpit and Flybridge while the Amp is turned off. This will be useful for keeping it quiet for the kiddies.

SWEEEEEEET

Nice install and great write-up! Thanks for sharing!

Nice upgrade Bruce. Jobs like that make one step back and think to themselves...."Wow, that looks great....and I DID IT MYSELF!!"
Good Job!

Very Nice! The 3 of you do good work together.

I hate to disagree with Al, because his work always seems to look good, but I think it is better without the rack handles.

That is a quantum leap forward - great job

If there were rack handles that close to the kitchen (err, galley, sorry ) they'd probably turn into towel holders!

I see you found the bezel to the iPod Dock.

i sure did. there's also a cover that snaps over the bezel, but i didn't like the way it looked and once it's removed, i'd have to store it someplace, so i decided not to use it.

Very, Very Nice!

I like the look of the all the equipment mounted....

I also used the same Polk speakers as a replacement for the cheap Clarion speaks that came stock in my boat, they Rock!

Are those the Polk db651 speakers? I just put 4 of them in my son's car and plan on putting 4 in my boat over the winter.

yes they are.

Bruce - Great job on the project.......I laughed out loud more than once.....you crack me up dude!

For me, you can't go wrong with the Polks. I put 4 of them in my last boat, and 9 of them in my current boat.

And although not everyone may like the rack handles, I like the industrial-art look of the chrome on black. It makes for an artsy, yet rugged unit. Its almost as if its a piece of art that functions as a stereo.

I might suggest trying to see how it looks with or without them.

Bruce, I think you should bubble-gum stick a rack handle on your unit and see how it looks.

The rack handles I use are highly chromed units, especially made for the electronics industry - not a retrofit kitchen cabinet pull.

Oh well, maybe its just me. Having worked on rack mounted electronic equipment for a large part of my career, I kind of like the look.

Bruce, you have inspired me to re-work my stereo. Shucks, I just did mine last year, but my head unit won't interface with an iPod - its firmware is too old for the adapter. So we're thinking of re-working our system with a new head unit.

One really nice advantage to using a Corian base such as you did is that you can make the unit into a single - monolithic assembly. I did not have these photos when we talked before, but here is how I did my unit.





I know you did something similar to hold the volume controls, but last week I took the stereo out of the boat so I was able to take a photo for you.

thanks. btw, if you haven't done so already, check out the pm i sent you about the new stereo with a built-in ipod dock. the ipod dock is sold seperately and it's about half the price of the mb quart unit. not sure if it works with other stereos, though.