PassageMaker - July 2018

28 passagemaker.com July/August 2018

Electronics

ther way to quickly get to the track or
station you want without having to re-
call the play controls. This allows users
to control the stereo without taking their
eyes off the water or navigation displays.
Given all that’s packed inside, the RA-770
is strikingly compact, just 6.6 inches wide
without the end caps (which add an extra
inch) and less than 4 inches deep (which in-
cludes a cowl to help protect all the input/
output cables). The RA-770’s baby brother,
the Apollo SRX-400, is crazy tiny at 3.4
inches wide without end caps, 2.8 inches
high, and slightly less deep than the RA-
770. Its 2.7-inch color screen is not multi-
touch enabled, so it has permanent control
buttons. Nevertheless the SRX-400 can still
serve as a standalone stereo as it includes
many features of the RA-770, and it can be
networked with an RA-770 unit as well.
The RA-770 Apollo head unit (or multi-
ple head units) can be controlled by existing
Fusion NRX remotes, MFDs using NMEA
2000 or ethernet, mobile apps using Blue-
tooth or wi-fi , and the ANT wireless found

in many Garmin watches. And the SRX-

400 can do the same except where NMEA

2000 is needed. But there’s more to Apollo

control interfaces than even all that.

APOLLO NETWORK (PARTYBUS!)

Picture a large boat with a Fusion enter-

tainment network. In the main saloon is an

Apollo RA-770, and let’s assume that two

of its four output zones are used for two

pairs of speakers in the cabin, while anoth-

er goes to an amp and cockpit speakers.

So the closest fi xed control for the cockpit

zone is an MS-NRX300 wired remote at-

tached to the boat’s NMEA 2000 network,

though most any of the boat’s MFDs or a

phone running the FUSION-Link mobile

app could also control the cockpit zone au-

dio. While the audio source in the cockpit

and saloon will always remain the same,

separate SRX-400 units installed in places

like the fl ybridge and staterooms can each

have independent source choices. But by

linking the SRX-400 units to the main RA-

770 unit (by wi-fi or ethernet) the linked

Apollo control heads introduce Fusion’s

new feature: PartyBus.

While at the press event, I heard Party-

Bus in action and it seemed like an easy way

to multi-source stereos. In the cabin with the

SRX-400, it was just like having your own

personal audio system (in fact, it is called

“Personal Mode”), but with just a couple of

button taps you could join the “PartyBus,”

which on this boat meant sharing an audio

source with an RA-770 in the main saloon.

The music synced across the two otherwise

standalone systems perfectly, with zero lag

in places where you could hear all speaker

sets at once. The networking is multilateral

in the sense that multiple RA-770 and SRX-

400 control heads can join and share con-

trol of the network sound at the user’s be-

hest. Moreover, PartyBus mode allows the

more limited SRX-400 to access the whole

suite of RA-770 audio sources.

UNIVERSAL PLUG AND PLAY (UPNP)

I’m just starting to learn more about

UPnP, but I already know the sound

Personal Mode: h e RA-770 and the SRX-400 each have their own personal

input, sound, and control.

Party Mode: h e RA-770 shares one linked audio source across the

network (either wi-i or ethernet). h e music syncs across each system with

zero audio lag. Any head unit can control the source audio.

Personal Mode + Party Mode: h e SRX-400 on the l ybridge allows for its

own input and audio control for that unit and zone, allowing the user their

own audio experience. In the saloon the RA-770 shares its audio via Party

Mode with the SRX-400 in the forward stateroom. h e forward stateroom

SRX-400 can control the RA-770 audio source when needed and the audio

syncs without any audio lag across the network.