After just purchasing a slightly used, 2004 Aqua Patio 22' pontoon, my first order of business was to replace the stock "Made in China" brand speakers. My boat audio is always a high priority, but I must confess, marine stereos and I have an historically rocky relationship to say the least. My marine speakers, not so much.....
After researching and price shopping, I ended up getting two pairs from Crutchfield for what appeared to be the standard price ($150/pair, but w/free shipping). One of the reasons I settled on these, in addition to the 100% positive reviews I saw on them, was that I have one speaker mounting location that prevents anything BUT a 6" round speaker from being installed. The space for a grill was somewhat limited, otherwise I might have opted for regular car speakers. Since I was somewhat confined to the "single construction" model where the grill and speaker housing are all one integrated unit (the grill is NOT detachable!) for the aforementioned reason, I decided that it was 4 of these Infinitys all the way around.
Installation was a simple remove/replace/plug in, and I was listening in no time. The speakers match well with the stock Clarion marine stereo I have on board (model number escapes me now, but it's a large-body model) and it's "Excite" sound settings and Magna Bass extension. They handle all the power I want to throw at them, though I refuse to power them to distortion level - at my loudest listening, it's just under distorted level. This requires turning off the extended bass setting and tweaking the EQ/Excite setting for optimal sound, depending on what I'm listening to (a compressed satellite signal, CD, or (rarely) local radio). The highs are crisp, and the lows come through nice and punchy (for being pushed solely by a receiver w/no amp). They sound great at high volume, as mentioned. While I've only had them for a couple months, they are apparently made with non-yellowing material, which I'm hoping works out. The color of the stock speakers I removed looked similar to a dank, basement drop-ceiling panel stained from years of cigarette smoke - that's what the color reminded me of. The Infinitys are still nice and white, though again, it's only been a couple months.
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