Marine speakers: bad idea in a car?
 

I tend to notice that every car speaker I have ever owned, produce acceptable (to me) sound for 4-5 years in general, after that the distortion goes up and loudness goes down.

I attribute that to the harsh environment that my cars go through (-25 to +32 degrees, every year) plus various snow/ice/water spray infiltrations (inevitable).

I windsurf a lot (meaning it's often very windy and the rain comes in EVERYWHERE), and ski a lot (meaning the snow can get blown in EVERYWHERE). It's especially bad in my current car, the awesome Dodge Magnum, with the huge articulated hatch, in which the rear speakers are beginning to die. Hmm, the car is 4 years old, surprise.

So I am shopping for replacement 6x9 speakers. The OEM speakers, despite being installed as part of the Boston Acoustics Premium Sound package, are paper.

And a thought occurred to me. If harsh weather slowly kill car speakers, why not put in ruggedized speakers? Maybe they will last WAY longer? Then I realized, hey, that's what marine speakers are supposed to be!

So the questions are:
- are marine speakers designed to operate in sub-freezing temperatures (I guess this is what concerns me most)
- do marine speakers sound good at all?
- do marine speakers have the same general shape as regular car speakers (especially 6x9 speakers) [or will they be oversized and be a huge installation problem?]
- do marine speakers operate at the correct volume in a car (e.g. a 4-ohm car speaker vs. a 4-ohm marine speaker: same level roughly?)

I was looking at buying a car speaker (2-way Alpine Type-R SPR-69C, very highly rated in the Magnum, 89 dB sensitivity), but now am hesitating to get a marine speaker (
Infinity 6912M, 96 dB sensitivity).

Both are 6x9" 100W RMS, 2-Way speakers, with the marine being an extra $20.

Looking forward to hearing from the people with marine speaker experience!

I would suggest a good old Moisture resistant speaker over a marine one. Being in a totally wet environment is one thing but having a speaker subjected to temperate extremes is another. As the cones on both types of speakers (moisture resistant and waterproof) are both going to be polypropene with generally a rubber type of surround, the difference may lay elsewhere. IE: a plastic basket over a metal one, black mounting screws vs. stainless mounting screws, a conventional magnet vs. a encapsulated magnet.

There are water resistant marine speakers and dedicated waterproof speakers. You need to look carefully at them to know the real difference. Most people see a white grill and it is automatically a marine speaker.

In your case I would go with a good standard moisture resistant speaker that is the right size and impedence for the application. If you are getting 4 years out of speakers in a car, you are doing something right. They wear out just like tires do.

Many car speakers are already marine rated such as polk and others.
That should be good to go especially for a rear speaker.
As for paper cones. well most companies highest end speakers are scanspeak or other slightly modified high end home drivers. And despite modern materials, there is something about paper cones that just seems to give a right balance of stiffness, breakup and resonance control that makes for a darn good speaker... so if you want ultimate waterresistance you may have to avoid the high end paper cone lines.

I may have found a major issue as to why nobody does this: all the marine speakers (6x9) that I have investigated, have integrated (non-removable) grilles! Starting with the Infinity 6912M. Since I don't want to be destroying new speakers to make them fit in the car, that about answers the question.

Thats how I thought it worked :dunno:

Pretty much any speaker with a plastic/carbon/kevlar or other water resitant material and a rubber surround would pretty much last the longest. Marine speakers have their place...in a boat since none of them particularly sound all that good.

Shop with your ears, there's tons of good choices out there, but never expect more than 4-5 year out of any set f car speakers.. the surrounds and Spiders wear and get looser and looser as time goes by.

All speakers fail at any other temperature other than operating temperature.

Get any speaker with a non paper cone. Polypropylene would be your best bet since they don't have as harsh breakup as the other hard cone speakers.

If you end up with foam surrounds, make sure they're UV coated else they will rot.

Not so... If they have foam surrounds, expect those to decay in that period of time sure.

But if you're treating them right, then they should last quite a while...

And paper cones are only to be avoided if you find they get rained on.