Audio Systems: boat stereo installation, alpine eq, sea ray sundancer

Question
"I have a sea ray sundancer that I installed my sound system in, what I have is
a head unit (sony) with a alpine eq which runs my 4 speakers and subs
separately, I installed 2 amps aprox ' from the engine compartment, the amps are
installed under one of the cabin seats and that is also where I put 2 " subs in,
I used the same hvy gauge wire for pos and neg hook ups, the neg wire goes from
the neg battery side to one amp and then it branches from the first amp to the
2nd amp, one amp (2 ch) runs just my 2 subs and the second (4 ch) the 4
speakers, the problem I have been noticing is that it seems to cut out on the
right channel speakers and will go in and out, I never lose sound completely but
it is a significant drop, sound as if the balance gets turned slightly to the
left at random. do I need more ground wire? amps removed from the same area as
the subs? or moved closer to the battery? if closer to the battery can the amps
go in the engine compartment with out over heating?


Answer
It is not a function of the wire size. It could be a bad ground connection, but not likely - check them carefully and tighten them down to make sure.

It could be a bad amp or a bad speaker line or a bad speaker.

You must determine if the problem is "internal" or "external".  By that I mean, internal to the amplifier or eq or one of the electronic boxes OR external, such as bad speaker wires or defective speaker.

Here is a quick way to tell.  Disconnect the right and left speakers at the back of the amp.  Swap the connections so the left speakers are being driven by the right amp and the right speakers by the left amp.  If the problem of audio cutting out now switches over to the left channel the problem is "external" and is due to bad speaker wires or defective speaker(s).  If the problem remains the same after speaker swap you can suspect an internal or electronic problem with the amp (or with the feed to it).

If you suspect the feed from the head unit, do a swap of the  audio feed lines coming from the head unit.

Hope this makes sense to you.  Doing these procedures you can track down where the problem is coming from.

And, good luck.
Cleggsan
PS:  I would keep the amps out of the engine compartment if possible. The extra heat will not do them any good.