Looking for some Head Unit advice on a new purchase

[inkling]

I'm looking for some good advice on purchasing a new head unit. The head unit, will be used on my boat but it's in the cabin, so a car unit would be fine. The trouble i'm having with my Kenwood head unit is that it's cutting off constantly when the volume is up to around 26. I don't have any speakers hooked up to the unit itself. Below is a list of what I have in the system below. Any help pointing me in the right direction for a good head unit for this set up with be greatly appreciated.

Equipment:

2x12" Rockford Fosgate M2's

2x8" Rockford Fosgate M2's

2x8" Bazooka MT8002 Tubies

2x6.5" Rockford Fosgate M2's

2x6.5" Bazooka MA6502

2x3" Bass Audio Bullet Tweeters

2x2" Pyramid TW47 Tweeters

1 JL Audio E1800dm class D Amp

1 JL Audio M200 clas D

1 Bazooka MAA465

1 Capacitor

I have 4 Marine batteries but while the system is playing I use my generator, which powers my battery chargers to keep the volts over 12v.

Click to read more...

 

[inkling]

Also, the Kenwood head unit I'm using now is a Kenwood KDC-HD942U

 

[VWBobby 10+ year member]

I hope you don't plan on catching many fish with that boat.... You do know that noise scares away fish, right? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

If you don't have any speakers attached to the HU, but its still cutting off, check for shorts in the RCAs or if the HU wires are grounding out (touching).

I have a HD545U and have zero problems with it.

Any decks made by Kenwood, Pioneer, or Alpine that are over $130 or so, are generally decent HU's. It will come down to cosmetics more than anything. As long as you have at least 2 sets of RCA outputs, it will be fine.

 

[inkling]

Yea, no fishing on my cruiser..lol

Thanks for the advice. I'll check the wires. The head unit worked fine up until the end of the summer last year.

Yea, i'm only using the RCA preamp outs running to the amps and not using the head unit to power any speakers.

If those things check out, would say something's wrong with the unit? It's two years old.

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[VWBobby 10+ year member]

Its definitely possible that if everything checks out, the HU is bad.

I'm not sure if you have salt water exposure in your area, but moisture and electronics = corrosion.

I live in a coastal community and battle corrosion on a daily basis. Even stainless steel rusts/corrodes after a year or 2.

 

[inkling]

No salt water exposure, i'm on an inland lake in Georgia. I was thinking about corrosion. During off season, I do take it off the boat but, it's still exposed i'm sure to some humidity, even that I have air conditioning running down in the cabin.

 

[inkling]

If I do end up replacing the HU, do you recommend any great Marine HU's that doesn't sacrifice sound quality. I mainly use the usb out for my external harddrive for tunes.

 

[VWBobby 10+ year member]

Not sure what your budget is, but this is $349 and it has a 24-bit Burr Brown DAC (super high SQ for digital) and its active capable AFIK. I don't have any personal experience with this unit, but if I had the money, its what I would buy. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

http://www.amazon.com/IDA-X100M-Alpine-Multimedia-Head-unit-Control/dp/B0028WGVSS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1304988123&sr=8-1

 

[inkling]

Boy thanks for listing that. My budget, is really no budget. All I care about is having good quality sound, so this sounds like a great option if I don't get my Kenwood up to par this weekend. Thanks for all the help and pointers, it's much appreciated.