I purchased a Sony CDX-M50iP Marine Radio, the Biketronics Retro Kit and J&M 2 Ohm Road Glide Speakers.
The Sony is rated for 4-8 Ohms, do I need to add a 2 Ohm resistor to the Speakers?
Will the Sony power these 2 Ohms without burning up the amp in the radio as the Biketronic kit has a adhesive plastic sheet to wrap around the radio which would reduce the cooling of the radio.
Since the RG is a two speaker setup, is there a way to bridge the front and rear speakers or do you just Fade to the Front?
Since the Sony is 17 Watts RMS and 54 Watts peak and the J&M's are rated at 140 Watts, should this application be okay without any modifications?
Thanks for any help you can give me.

 

PM JMHOHN, he's the J&M owner and a member of HDF.

 

I just installed the same set up in my EGC. I ain't impressed with the sound. Any one else got this set-up. Speakers are breaking up .

 

Hi there

In simple terms, the closer the ohms are to zero, the "heavier" the load is. Your radio minimum impedance is 4 ohms. Since the smaller the number, the heavier the "load" your doing the equivalent of putting 1000 pound "load" on a tire rated for 500 lbs max. The poor amplifier chip in the radio is doing double time and sounds like crap because of it

You were sold the wrong speakers, my guess is off EBAY?? You may have an 06 or newer bike that requires 2 ohm speakers if your using the stock radio, but the radio you have looks for 4-8 ohmers.

The resistor will "waste" the extra power as heat--not a good idea. The only way to fix this is get the right speakers.

Youll need to contact the reseller and get them to fix this--this is the only way to make the system work right without adding an amplifier that can handle the 2 ohm speakers.

This is not a function of Johns speakers, or the Biketronics kit, or the Sony not being very good--this is simply the wrong combination of stuff

PEZ

 

I ordered the Speakers from J&P Cycle and the only options they have for the Road Glide is either 2 or 8 Ohms.
The Customer Service Rep at J&P recommended the 2 Ohm speakers and he also sold me the 06 Biketronics kit for my 02 Road Glide.
So much for Customer Service.
I've already reordered the 98-05 Biketronics kit and now it looks as if I am going to have to reorder the 8 Ohm Speakers.

 

Ghost, sorry to hear of your problem with the speakers. Personally, many HDF'ers (myself included)have purchased directly from Biketronics and found Mike, the owner, to be exceptionally good at customer service. And although I don't have Hog Tunes speakers (PEZ's product), he enjoys at least as good a rep as Mike @ Biketronics. Absent a significant discount from J&P (or a gift certificate that must be used there) or an Ebay reseller, it makesbetter sense IMO to buy direct--and the manufacturer makes better margins to boot--problems like this are avoided, and if there is something wrong with the product it is more easily addressed if the product was purchased directly from the manufacturer/distributor.

 

Whomakes a 4ohm speaker?

 

Your speakers sound crappy because the built-in amp is clipping......Clipping is when the AC signal waveformhits the rails and goes square.

Your amp needs to dump into a 4-8 load to stay between the rails.

Installing 4-8 ohm speakers will cure the distortion, but you will discover the system lacks power and punch becuase it was designed for the quiet interior of a car.

If your head unit has unamped output feeds, then you can install an outboard amp for mopower.....If you do, then you need to match the speakers to THAT amp.

You do not 'bridge' speakers, you bridge the amp.....Your built-in amp cannot be bridged.....Any two channel amp that is bridged then becomes a mono amp....A mono amp can drive multiple speakers, but they will only reproduce mono sound, not stereo.

Your best bet (without spending big bucks) is to select decent 8 ohm speakers that are rated at about 60-80 watts, and install one per side.

Pro audio is my next biggest hobby...it's a science in itself, but you can get great results if you follow the basic rules and laws associated with it.

 

I have a Sony in my bike with the Biketronics control kit. I have been running Polk speakers in the front and Rockford Fosgate speakers in the rear. BTW there are a lot of automotive speakers that are 4 ohm. All the speakers I currently am running are 4 ohm.

However tomorrow (Well today actually as I am typing this at 1:45 in the morning) I will be replacing my front speakers with the hertz model from bike tonics and the rears with hog tunes. (Hertz speakers are to big for the stock speaker pods and I don't want to upgrade them too.)

I have been running the bike tonics setup for a couple of years now. I am very happy with it.