Best CD/Radio for a boat?

[Midnight]

I'm going to replace my old JVC CD/Radio and have heard that you can now get radio/cd players that don't rely on the 'always live' wire to maintain the settings but use solid state memory.

Anyone got any recommendations?

[NMEA]

In rely to the header question, then Fusion are in my opinion the most suited to use o a boat.

 

[Richard10002]

I'd like one that doesn't rely on always live as well. It's a bit of faff to isolate everything but the radio on the circuit to the front of the boat.

[dmr]

Its said that CD players don't last long on a boat with a coal/wood burning stove due to the dust, and my own experience confirms this.

Probably best to copy all those CDs onto a hard disk, memory stick or Ipod, and get a good radio that supports these things, its the way of the future.

Hard disks are cheap so you can copy the CDs as WAV files if you are one of those people who feels that MP3 does not always sound quite right.

..............Dave

[cuthound]

Many modern car radios can accept memory cards or USB memory sticks, as well as a mini-jack for iPods etc. 

Copy your music to either of these and then there are no moving parts to wear out.

[Naughty Cal]

We currently have one of these:

https://www.caraudiocentre.co.uk/product_m-sony-cdx-dab500u_p-31263.htm?gclid=Cj0KEQjwzpfHBRC1iIaL78Ol-eIBEiQAdZPVKuWJD8yYch3Vplf1utTN4tcTioJ-_lPiM2yo0xrtoVEaAph_8P8HAQ#

But we will be replacing it towards the end of this year with a Rockford Fosgate head unit.

Nothing wrong with the Sony but we just don't need the CD player and are well impressed with the Rockford Fosgate speakers we bought this winter so are upgrading the head unit as well.

[Midnight]

Thanks the Sony looks a likely prospect, l want a cd as too much time required to rip all my cds onto mp3

[jonathanA]

I know you say you want a cd but I got 'deckless' unit for 35 quid from aldi or lidl can't remember which, but it has Bluetooth - brilliant saves fathing with cables and memory sticks, I'd say get one with blue tooth then you can play your tunes straight off your phone..... ( or other Bluetooth equipped device / laptop / Whatever)

[frahkn]

2 hours ago, Midnight said:

Thanks the Sony looks a likely prospect, l want a cd as too much time required to rip all my cds onto mp3

I agree, anyway you probably wouldn't want the loss of quality that mp3 versus cd would involve.

 

[cuthound]

7 hours ago, frahkn said:

I agree, anyway you probably wouldn't want the loss of quality that mp3 versus cd would involve.

 

With the kind of speakers usually found on a boat, you would be unable to hear the difference.

[Robbo]

On 06/04/2017 at 06:54, NMEA said:

In rely to the header question, then Fusion are in my opinion the most suited to use o a boat.

 

I do like the look of the Fusion stuff myself, does anyone actually have one here and can comment on the sound quality?

[Naughty Cal]

41 minutes ago, cuthound said:

With the kind of speakers usually found on a boat, you would be unable to hear the difference.

Speakers can be upgraded for not a lot of money.

[WotEver]

48 minutes ago, Naughty Cal said:

Speakers can be upgraded for not a lot of money.

If they're not a lot of money then you're simply buying new low quality speakers to replace the old low quality speakers.

In one edit suite I have a pair of small Ruarks which cost about £500. Whilst they're excellent speakers you'd be hard pushed to hear the difference between a high bitrate MP3 and a wav. By comparison, in the main suite I have a pair of Proac Tablettes which retail today at around £1000. The Proacs would clearly allow you to hear the difference - it's like pulling a curtain away from the speakers. 

So yes, speakers can be upgraded, but if you want to upgrade to quality where the difference between a high bitrate MP3 and a wav is clear then you won't be doing so cheaply. You'd then need to be replacing the amp because the speakers would reveal all it's faults. 

[frahkn]

9 minutes ago, WotEver said:

If they're not a lot of money then you're simply buying new low quality speakers to replace the old low quality speakers.

In one edit suite I have a pair of small Ruarks which cost about £500. Whilst they're excellent speakers you'd be hard pushed to hear the difference between a high bitrate MP3 and a wav. By comparison, in the main suite I have a pair of Proac Tablettes which retail today at around £1000. The Proacs would clearly allow you to hear the difference - it's like pulling a curtain away from the speakers. 

So yes, speakers can be upgraded, but if you want to upgrade to quality where the difference between a high bitrate MP3 and a wav is clear then you won't be doing so cheaply. You'd then need to be replacing the amp because the speakers would reveal all it's faults. 

I don't see the point of putting decent speakers in a space 70' x 6' x 6', you will never get good reproduction.

For less than you need to pay for reasonable small speakers (say £500) you have a good choice of headphones, these are IMO, far better on a boat.

Frank.

[Naughty Cal]

16 minutes ago, WotEver said:

If they're not a lot of money then you're simply buying new low quality speakers to replace the old low quality speakers.

In one edit suite I have a pair of small Ruarks which cost about £500. Whilst they're excellent speakers you'd be hard pushed to hear the difference between a high bitrate MP3 and a wav. By comparison, in the main suite I have a pair of Proac Tablettes which retail today at around £1000. The Proacs would clearly allow you to hear the difference - it's like pulling a curtain away from the speakers. 

So yes, speakers can be upgraded, but if you want to upgrade to quality where the difference between a high bitrate MP3 and a wav is clear then you won't be doing so cheaply. You'd then need to be replacing the amp because the speakers would reveal all it's faults. 

Very good, however would you fit those in a boat?

[rusty69]

I don't see much point having £1000 speakers unless you have £2000 ears to match. 

[WotEver]

18 minutes ago, Naughty Cal said:

Very good, however would you fit those in a boat?

Very simply, they're only about 12" x 8". 

You prove my point though - you can't 'cheaply' upgrade speakers. 

20 minutes ago, frahkn said:

I don't see the point of putting decent speakers in a space 70' x 6' x 6', you will never get good reproduction.

For less than you need to pay for reasonable small speakers (say £500) you have a good choice of headphones, these are IMO, far better on a boat.

Frank.

I agree completely

6 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

I don't see much point having £1000 speakers unless you have £2000 ears to match. 

On a boat there's no point. In a suitable environment there's every point, particularly if it's your livelihood. 

[Naughty Cal]

But we are talking about a boat not someones livelihood 

And yes you can upgrade speakers on a boat and get better sound quality for not a lot in the grand scheme of things.

[WotEver]

16 minutes ago, Naughty Cal said:

you can upgrade speakers on a boat and get better sound quality for not a lot in the grand scheme of things

No you can't 

The point made by cuthound was that you'd not hear the difference between a high bitrate MP3 and a wav with the typical speakers you'd find on a boat. You incorrectly stated that you could cheaply upgrade the speakers in order to do so. You are wrong. You couldn't. My example above was intended to demonstrate that fact rather than simply pronounce an opinion but you seem to have missed the point. 

Edited April 7, 2017 by WotEver
Added the bold bit to make the point more obvious.

[WotEver]

On WotEver we replaced the really cheap and nasty speakers with a pair of JBLs from Halfords. It sounded much better for not a lot of money. Would we then have been able to hear the difference between an MP3 and a wav? Not a chance. 

[Naughty Cal]

I correctly stated that you can improve the sound quality by changing the speakers on a boat. You can. Not all speakers are the same.

It was you who started twittering on about high bitrate MP3 and wav.

To most boat owners that just isn't relevant.

ETA: We recently upgraded our speakers to a set of Rockford Fosgate units. They are considerably better then the original Blaupunkt speakers which were installed on the boat and have far better clarity and sound quality. Quite frankly I don't give a toss if we could hear the difference between MP3 and wav on them, which I suspect would apply to most boat owners. 

Edited April 7, 2017 by Naughty Cal

[WotEver]

Just now, Naughty Cal said:

I correctly stated that you can improve the sound quality by changing the speakers on a boat. You can. Not all speakers are the same.

It was you who started twittering on about high bitrate MP3 and wav.

Nope. That was the post to which you replied. You even quoted it!

[Naughty Cal]

2 minutes ago, WotEver said:

Nope. That was the post to which you replied. You even quoted it!

Yes I asked you a question. Would you fit those in a boat?

[WotEver]

Just now, Naughty Cal said:

Yes I asked you a question. Would you fit those in a boat?

It's completely irrelevant to your assertion that you could 'cheaply' upgrade the speakers to enable you to hear the difference. 

As for whether I would, it depends.

If I lived on a widebeam then I would probably organise my lounge to be a quality music listening room, in which case yes. I do have similar speakers (albeit larger and with a sub-woofer) in our home cinema.

But I don't live on a widebeam. I don't live on any kind of boat. On WotEver the answer would be no, as I've already explained above, because as many (except you) have acknowledged you'd never create an environment with speakers on the boat which would allow you to hear the difference between an MP3 and a wav. Nor would I care to try.

Headphones are probably the best solution for quality sound reproduction on a boat as already suggested. 

[Richard10002]

I've got a couple of Kef Egg speakers which were no longer used at home. Much much  better than the previous cheap car radio type spekers.