Well, here's a weird one: I had an aftermarket flash performed on my stock head unit prior to installing my Rockford-Fosgate front and rear kits. After I installed the hardware, the same stereo store professionally balanced the system for me. When I got the bike back, I'd noticed that the Fader option was visible, and set biased a little more to the front as I would expect it to be. However, this setting was locked so I couldn't change it. I asked my source if that was normal, and he said that is done to retain the optimal tune. I figured as much, no problem.

System has worked great. Yesterday, something happened. I was on a longer ride with 5 or so stops. At one of the stops the radio came on when I started the bike instead of the USB media that was selected when I shut it off. I would have expected the media to come on at start-up like always. I thought it odd, but oh well. Switched back to media and went on my way.

At this point I noticed no sound from the rears. After a couple more start cycles, still no sound from the rears. After thinking about it last night, I checked the Fader this morning and sure enough, it was fully biased to the front. Unfortunately because the adjustment is locked per programming, I cannot change it. I'm sure this is the culprit.

I know that the flash is non-volatile, meaning that if I upgrade the HU software from a Harley update the upgrade will not affect the settings they programmed into the unit. I specifically asked that question. That said, does anyone know if a factory reset might correct my issue? I'd hate to lose my user settings if it wouldn't fix the issue. Thought I'd check here before trying it.

I suspect the HU had a hissy fit glitch and goofed up the one setting. Everything else seems to be as it was before the glitch. what say you? Thanks!

 

Take it back to the shop u paid to tone it and tell them u want it tuned properly at zero fade, zero bass, and zero treble and to NOT lock down the fade. Each speaker set should be tuned to run wild up to 3/4 volume in balance (neutral fade) via amp gains. Then when ur riding conditions vary ur should be able to fade to your liking.

Regarding the media glitch, that's normal. About 1 in 20 start ups the Boom goes thru its cycle and starts out on the FM then in a minute or so finds the media source.

Take that back to the shop brother. But read the tuning sticky above for a bit of education so u can verify what is being accomplished.

T

 

I remembered that the Fader can't do anything anyway. The amp is set to 2-channel input, so only the front input is active. The fade was adjusted at the amp. Gotta be either a loose output cable, blown rear speakers, or blown rear channel on the amp. Time to diagnose.

 

So let's back the bus up a bit. Why would you have the HU flashed if u did not intend to use the fade feature?
What specific flash did you have programmed? How is the amp specifically wired from the HU front and rear speaker outputs?

I'm not doubting that u have a blown set of speakers or bad connections on the rear channel but the flash and fade thing just makes no sense if ur not using front and rear input / 4 channel input.

In a nutshell, if u paid some shop to flash ur sled to enable fade control and they did not wire it to obtain such functionality then u wasted time and money on this exercise. That is unless the flash was real only accomplished as an attempt to flatten the HU bass curve. (2 amp 8 speaker).

Also, I have never heard of a shop "locking down" the fade feature to maintain an optimal tune thus I really think u need to back the bus up and find out specifically what was accomplished and why. Then u can work on the trouble shooting of why u now have no sound at ur rear speakers.

T

 

The flash has to be done to defeat the HD EQ curve and turn off the internal HU amp, else you wind up with terrible audio quality and blown speakers. Alternatively a line-leveler can be installed, but I wanted the flash. The fader just showed as an option in the audio controls because of the flash, but is redundant. I don't need Fader control, so that's fine by me. They had it balanced perfectly.

I substituted a speaker it the rear, and still no joy. I'll pull the outer fairing off this week and see what's going on. Thanks.

 

U totally lost me on this one brother. Why all the narrative on flash and fade if u luv the way it is set up?
Turning the page. A HU reset is never a bad idea but it's not going to fix the rear speaker issue nor will it fix the HU from a very isolated and infrequent startup on FM vs USB.

Good luck w the rear Speaks!!! Either blowed up or bad connection.

T

 

I finally had some time to diagnose this issue. Turns out that the rear harness connector at the amp had snapped off at the terminals behind the connector. Not enough slack when I installed it, evidently. Luckily I had another harness so I cut off the bad section, extended the wires, and soldered in the new connector. Right as rain, back to rockin'!

Thanks for the input.