Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Ok, so i ordered a pyle marine stereo with 4 speakers .... got a good deal and installed it. Speakers fit and look great and stereo fits in hole fine. Problem I am having is the wires for power and ground that were hooked up to the old non working stereo do not seem to get power to the new stereo. The only way I could get power was to go directly to the pos and neg connections under the console. I have installed many car stereos and have never had a problem like this. All the fuses are ok. Any ideas? thanks in advance for any help! jon

On my Party Cruiser and on most boats, that's how it's done. Wire directly to the postive and negative bus bars, always hot unlike automotive systems that are powered up with the ignition switch. As long as you used the inline fuse it's fine.

I have a accessory switch that is wired directly to the battery through a inline fuse. Power for the stereo, 12 VDC power outlet and a few other accessories are controlled by this switch. Your old stereo wiring may already be switched. Did you check for a switched circuit?

Could it be that the reason you're old stereo didn't work was because of the power issue and not the stereo itself? Doesn't matter, Pyle makes a great marine stereo for the money. Power problems and electronics go hand in hand when it comes to boats.

Like wed the couple of boats I've had the radio was on a switched circuit. I had a party hut that I utilized for parts and I'm almost certain it also had a switched circuit also. On the boat I built myself I wired the receiver hot (red) to a switched circuit on the dash/console and the yellow power (memory) directly to a hot buss bar. Ground went to a common ground buss bar also.

I like to have the memory on a un-switched source to retain all settings and it consumes very little power. But its easier when leaving boat to check and confirm all switches are actually off and there less danger of leaving radio on and draining battery's before I return.

Both methods are actually right, but use the one you're most comfortable with for your use.

On my Tracker, I have to insert my key, and turn it to the left to get my stereo to work, so its not hooked directly to the battery...

Thanks for all the input guys....I'm gonna leave it hot wired for now.....and then figure it out when I install the battery switch. thanks!

i pair the ignition wire on the head unit to the red positive wire so all i have to do is hit the one button on the radio. mine is a pioneer head unit.

Ya, but yours isnt a stereo BF.
Its a Nuke!

Brandon,

some of the guys here haven't seen your setup I believe pics are in order....

curtiscapk wrote:Brandon,

some of the guys here haven't seen your setup I believe pics are in order....

I have seen and heard it...it's nice!

Brandon, show them the battery you have too.

ok cover your ears



beast battery


thats all i could find at the moment cuz photobuckets being a bitch but there are currently 16 speakers total at the moment. 2x 10" subs 2x 12" subs 12x6x9s full range

In short, shes one loud son of a bitch.

Thats crazy!! Nice work, I bet you can stun the fish and they just float to the top! I have a boston pro series 10" sub under one of my seats fed by a Phenix Gold M50 amp, OLD School stuff left over from the early 90's back when I was into big stereo's (more into flat response vs huge db)...

I'm getting ready to do a nice upgrade to my stereo too. I currently have an el cheapo stereo and speakers on the boat, the were new last year when we bought the boat. They don't sound too good when I turn it up, and I have some "spare stuff" that I'm going to install on the toon to make the beer drinkin a bit more enjoyable.

I'm going for response over bass as well.