Carver Owners Forum

Hey folks.
The 15 year old Clarion speakers are distorting and its time to upgrade. I am certain many of you faced similar situations and am interested in how you approached it. As an older system the receiver is not 'bluetooth' capable. That would be a good thing to have given today's streaming technology. I understand that there is a bluetooth receiver that can be plugged into the auxiliary port of the Clarion that will enable this function,
Did you simply replace the speakers? ( 2 on bridge, 2 in aft cockpit, 2 in the salon)
Did you replace the entire system? What brand did you go with and why?
I do know that since I have a Garmin plotter I can replace with a Fusion receiver and run an ethernet cable to the bridge and control function from the plotter. How challenging would that be and what is best approach if I go that route?
What do you guys think?
Thanks.

On my last boat, 1999 Bayliner 3055 Ciera I replaced both the radio and speakers in the radar arch. Sound was better overall.

IMHO there is really only 1 option out there which is Fusion. Face it, tape players and CD's are history. Streaming, bluetooth and apps are here for a long time. I purchased a Siruis lifetime subscription way back which I enjoy on the boat which I added to my Fusion system. There are a few options to choose from at Fusion, just need to choose what suits your life style and installation. As for speakers I ended up with Polk Audio, not that they are the best but they looked cool, are marine speakers and were cheap on eBay.

Thanks guys.

Buy all Fusion products, they are the best for marine applications.

I separated the bridge from the salon stereo. For the bridge I installed a kicker kmc 10 head unit with blue tooth, four 6.5" kicker coaxials, a 10" kicker sub and a 800.5 amp. it is crystal clear at any level. If you want you can crank it up and hear it for quite a distance.
For the salon i replaced the factory Kenwood cassette receiver and cd changer with a Kenwood bt5hd unit and four alpine speakers in the original locations. It sounds really good.
I can stream to both from my phone and also control them via apps.

Awesome! I just started a separate bridge stereo upgrade. Ordered all of the equipment, got the power pulled to the bridge... Hopefully get it finished before this weekend.

Zones is a good idea especially on a fly bridge. Fusion comes with 3 zones so rather easy to accomplish. I broke them up into flybridge, salon and master suite.

Here's a couple pics. The kicker head unit is compact and fits in a gauge hole. The sub is mounted just below in the helm console. The amp is mounted inside the helm console. I added a wired remote in the aft deck area also.