Good replacements for 5.25 speakers

[Bilboinsa]

Our boat came with pretty weak Jensen 5.25 speakers. I am not a "sound guy" or "electrical guy", so an upgrade had to be simple. I didn't even want to cut out a bigger enclosure for bigger speakers, so my choices were limited to other 5.25 models. I chose these Polk MM521s for the job. They sound SO much better than the Jensens that were breaking up.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001E ... UTF8&psc=1
Maybe one day I will atempt an amp, bigger speakers, a sub and more power, but for now I am happy....

[joe20toon]

Thanks for posting... I may need to get these..

[JerEazy]

Those are some quality speakers! You're not doing them justice if you don't put an amp in there! Come on, it'll be Fun!!

Just an FYI to anyone running from a headunit straight to the speakers: They make a less expensive, less power handling speaker in the same size that are still great quality:

https://www.amazon.com/Polk-Audio-DB521 ... io+DB+5.25

[rancherlee]

Yep, the polks love high power, I have my pair of Polk DB's fed with 55wrms each and they play load and clear!

[Bilboinsa]

Those are some quality speakers! You're not doing them justice if you don't put an amp in there! Come on, it'll be Fun!!

Just an FYI to anyone running from a headunit straight to the speakers: They make a less expensive, less power handling speaker in the same size that are still great quality:

https://www.amazon.com/Polk-Audio-DB521 ... io+DB+5.25

Yep....those DBs are what I almost bought until I saw a review on the MM521s. OK! I will promise to put an amp in. What do you suggest that is good but simple (for me!)? I have a Jensen MSR2007 head unit that says it puts out 40w X 4 channels....

[jafo9]

i don't have a specific amp recommendation for you. i'm partial to wet sounds gear but it is pricey. i just wanted to make two general points. 1) as you may have surmised, pretty much any amp from a reputable company will easily outperform a head unit. 2)no matter what amp you choose, spend some time and money on proper wiring. make sure you fuse everything properly and keep an eye toward any future expansion. make sure and use the appropriate size gauge for the power wires (again taking any future upgrades in mind).

[JerEazy]

Jafo said it right - really any quality amp will do. Hell, even a non-marine amp will do just fine (at least for a while) if you keep it dry.

The best advice I can give is don't pay attention to the advertised power. That's almost always the "peak" power that you'll get. So although your head unit says 4x40 - it's probably putting out an RMS (average) power of about 4x17. Same with the speakers. Just cause they say 200watts doesn't mean you should pump 200watts to them all the time.

I like to power match (or get as close as possible) so that you're getting the cleanest sound through all of your volume range. According to crutchfield those speakers have a peak 200w but an RMS of 90w. So look for an amp that has a rating that is close to 4x90w rms output (4 channel 360 rms) and you'll be matched up nicely and getting the best quality sound out of those speakers. Sadly, this normally means you have to visit multiple sites to find all of the info. Amazon in most cases only shows the peak power, then you have to put it into google to find the RMS from either the manufacturer site or a third party. If you may want to add a sub in the future there are other options. You could go with a 5 channel amp. And normally the 5th channel has a higher wattage output than the other 4 so you can direct hook a sub to it. Personally in this case I like to get an amp that has an additional output and run a mono amp to the sub. Or just get a powered sub.

That's the readers digest version anyway. Setting up a sound system and researching what is quality and what isn't could literally take you days. Between clipping, power ratings, ohm settings and everything else. Personally I'm particular to JBL, inexpensive compared to others, but still quality.

(EDIT* did some checking through the google box and it looks like this may be a true 4x40 system as it is set up with a HU and tuner/Amp. So you're actually putting pretty good power to those speakers. )

[Bilboinsa]

Thanks very much for the input!