www.iFourWinns.com

Hey everyone,

I'm completely new to the boating scene, and this summer has been my first official season. I have a Four Winns 204 boat, not entirely sure the year, I'm guessing 2008.

Here's a photo of it:



So I'm pretty sure this is the stereo that it has: http://esupport.sony.com/US/p/model-hom ... ownloadTab

It's been working great, and all of last season it was working, but this year right when we got the boat into the water it didn't work. I tried resetting it, but no sound was coming from the speakers whatsoever. Then I went into where the amp is located, and apparently the amp was stolen:



Although no amp would still result in sound being played wouldn't it? I'm kind of confused on that part, but yeah I was hoping I could get some help on this forum. If I buy a new amp will the sound work again?

Thanks for the help!

No amp, no sound. You can probably contact four winns for the wiring schematic to see what wire is for what, and rewire a new amp in.

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2011 SL242 5.7 VP GXi - 320 HP Dual Prop

Basically you are looking at a plug n play install, since everything is already there. What ever amp you decide to buy, will come with wiring instructions, although they will be general.

Large red and black are the main power cables
The blue/wht is the remote turn-on from the head-unit
The clear browning cables with the fancy plugs on the ends are the RCA signal cables from the amp
The other wires are the speaker outputs that will connect to the amp's speaker chnls. The color pairs are for each speaker and the one with the black tracer should be the negative. You can "tickle" each pair with a 9V battery to determine which speaker it is.

My amp choice would be the Kicker KXM400.4

Yeah that's what I was planning on doing, but I'm not very technical when it comes to wiring and audio. I could follow a diagram though.



Thanks so much for writing that up, I read it over a few times and I think I might be able to buy another amp and hook it up, although I might come back on here for more instructions. Like I said before I'm technically literate, but not in the audio department, the ends of the cables that don't have regular plugs always confused me.

Also regarding the amp choice, the only one that ships to me since I live in Canada is this: http://www.amazon.com/Kicker-40KX4004-4 ... ker+KXM400.

Are there any other amp choices that you recommend and that would work for my particular boat? Not sure whether there are certain amps that won't fit, or for a particular amount of "channels"

Thanks for the help so far!

That does not look like a factory install. I could be wrong - but it looks more like an aftermarket install.

The amp comes between the head unit and speakers, so no amp = no connection to the speakers. And from there, no sound.

You'll find the following - Red is Switched 12v power, Yellow constant 12v, Black is ground Blue/white is amp power, RCA wires (The red and black plugs on the right side) from head unit to Amp, and then your speaker wires, of which there will be 2 for each speaker, and each will have it's own color.

If you want the easy way - Just go buy an amp from a dealer and get it installed. It may be worth the $50 to save the headache, and you'll probably have to pull each speaker to see what color wires they have, and which is positive and negative.

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2008 Four Winns h180 Bowrider
3.0 Volvo Penta

2013 Dodge Durango HEMI

BB,

The difference between the KX and KXM is that the "M" is the marine version. It certainly has its advantages to go with a marine amp. If the boat is a freshwater trailer boat, a non-marine amp can be used and yield many years of trouble free service. Its all about the install location.

If you want to stick with a marine amp: Wet Sounds HT-4, JL M400.4, Rockford Fosgate M400-4D. These are marine 4 chnl amps that will offer FADE, which is nice if you have bow and main cabin speakers. If all 4 speakers are in the main cabin, FADE is not needed, so you could use a 2 chnl amp like the Kicker KXM400.2, JL M200.2, Wet Sounds Syn Micro.

I replaced my head unit, the color code for the speaker wires are the same between Sony, Fusion and Clarion.