I will try a new head unit and then add lowers and see what it does for me.

What are some of Kenwood model numbers that people are using? I would like to change the color to orange if possible so that it matches my gauges. Do they come with Orange leds already? I would like to be able to keep my hand controls also

Rick

 

If you're using front speakers only I would look at the Kenwood 599, you will need a handlebar control module for them to work. Easy plug and go is the Biketronics or the Hawg Wired units. The Scosche one isn't bad either and a tad cheaper.

 

I'm using the Kenwood KDC-X998 which is fairly popular here on the forum. The 998 has 3 4volt pre-outs. I have it set to 3volts with the BT4180. You will see in the link all the features and adjustments it has available.
Here's a pic of the color I think you are looking for. I found this color doesn't show up to well outside. The 998 does allow you too have the different colors for the buttons and the display.

 

I bought the Kenwood BT858U and install kit from Biketronics. Got it all together last week with a new amp & speakers. You can change the colors of the display and keys together or individually to match whatever you need. The install kit from Biketronics is clean, easy to install and allows all your factory controls to work.

 

So I guess I would need the kit from Biketronics to be able to use hand controls no matter which radio I went with?

Rick

 

Aquatic AV Head Unit and the Jensen HU are the only aftermarket HUs that are plug and play while retaining hand controls. Any other HU will require the above mentioned adds for hand control use.

 

Correct, you'll need some type of interface to work with the stock controls. There are other brands out there, but I chose the Biketronics because it's plug and play, no wires to cut and has a lifetime warranty.

 

Hi,

I think the confusion is because we say either is OK, so if you ask if 2 volts will work we will say yes, and if you ask if 4 volts will work we will also say yes.

We designed our amp to have a very flexible input stage as part of our desire to make it simple. We thought it would be neat if guys could get good sound without messing with anything or having to open the fairing to tweak things.

If you have two radios one 2 volt and one 4 the only difference will be you might need to turn the volume up a couple clicks more on the 2 volt radio to get full output from the amp. But it is only a small difference due to our input design. When doing it here on a couple of Sony radios the difference was about 3 clicks on the volume to achieve the same output.

This is not the case for a lot of amps we have tested, they are usually much more sensitive to input voltage.

A higher pre-amp voltage will in theory give you a cleaner sound, but the radios vary a lot so that is not always true. We have tested many 2 volt radios that put out a cleaner signal than some 4 volt models. And ones that are rated for 4 volts that definitely do not put out that much, or only do at really high distortion levels.

As for the original question it does seem like something is off, I would check the basics like amp ground and speaker polarity. We make a specific hi-low converter for each one of the HD radios now and supply those in our kits as long as we know what radio. We did not need any filtering on the older radios, we just tuned the hi-low ratio to get the highest volume that we could out of the radio without distortion.

You will always achieve much better sound with any aftermarket radio than with stock though. As a test to see if something else is going on you can get a headphone to RCA y-cable and feed the amp with a phone or Ipod, it should sound much better than the stock radio, if not there might be something wrong with the setup. That also would let you hear closer to how a aftermarket radio will sound compared to stock.

Bill