I am now riding with the new Cycle Sounds 3" speaker set on my Softtail Deluxe. The amplifier and speakers are all waterproof. These sound fnatastic. Just as loud as my husbands Electra Glide. I am using my Ipod and for $50 more I bought an Apple accessory that makes my Ipod a tuner also. I purchased mine from Chrome Glow and my husband installed it - not hard at all. And they have free shipping!

 

you will have plently of clean clear sound if you add 2 6x9s (1 in each bag bag) and a small amp, like the arc audio 2ch.

use a ipod adapter (like the pac LC-1 volume control along with the ipod cable, which also charges the ipod while plugged in).. you would mount the 6x9's in the bag like i did in my extended bags (click on the link in my sig to see my setup, the new bags are toward the end of my thread)

anyway, you can do a setup like this for around $250-450 depending on what speakers you use (if you use the arc amp, i think they are around 250-300, so you would be looking at the higher price)... you can also do a "quick disconnect" wire setup on this and the amp would go inside one of the bags, will not take up much space at all and will sound awesome...

you can do the install yourself. it is fairly simple, if you have some skill using basic tools...

 

ask firecap501 for more info on the arc amps... i have 2 alpine amps for my bike, but will more than like switch to the arcs before all this is over...

 

I had the radio box from crazy biker on ebay, It sounded and worked great. I think it was around $330 loaded with radio and speakers, the radio had a aux jack for the Ipod. I just sold it with my windsheild for $300 cause I bought a fairing.

 

Can you actually hear it at road speeds? I'm really interested in this setup but am nervous about paying that amount of money for something that wont work.
Thanks,

 

I installed the Kurykan, Sound of Chrome on my wife's Dyna Low Rider. The advantage is the amp is built into the speakers. It took less than an hour to mount and hook the wires up to the battery.

As far as sound, they sound pretty good for a 3" speaker. You can hear the music when rolling down the highway at 75 with Rhinehart 2 into 1 exhaust. Her only complaint is that she wishes there was more bass. But we're talking a 3" speaker they sound good, you can hear them clearly, but they aren't going to compete with 6x9's in saddle bags. But then you lose storage, so there is a trade off.

 

i bought one of those boxes from ebay it was 188 without radio or speakers,,, i had a decent 50w stereo and bought some kenwood marine rated speakers for it ,,, i have heard bad stuff but my experience is that it sounds fine and plenty loud even doing above 70mph,,,i will caution you to take your time and wire it right using wire loom and shrink tubing, my radio needed two hot wires one battery hot the other accessory hot to keep clock and presets ,,, there is an accessory wire inside the headlamp housing but battery wire i ran to fuse panel with an inline fuse

 

J&M amplified speakers worth the $$

 

Repeat after me:

CYCLE SOUNDS/2 WHEEL TUNES ARE CRAP!

Trust me on this one, I spent over $500.00 and had nothing but frustration with crappy speakers blowing out all the time. I want to RIDE, not spend my time replacing and remounting lousy products.

Now, having gotten that out of my system, I can calmly offer the following:

Over a year ago, I ordered from J&P Cycles the "RUMBLE ROAD" sound system. I AM VERY HAPPY AND PLEASED WITH IT!!! 3" speakers and individual amps mounted in the same light housings as touring passing lamps. I have Samson Silver Bullet exhausts on the RKC, and I don't need to crank the tunes all the way up to hear it at highway speeds. The only noticeable distortion I get is when I play something with a very heavy bass load.

The mounting is very straight forward and as simple as you could want. The speaker grilles are fashioned to let in very little, if any moisture (Other than from, say, a pressure washer). I spent less than $50.00 in extra stuff to mount it up to my liking, and that included a retractable power supply for the I-Pod from Belkin.

Now, to the details:

I added an H-D cigarette lighter/power supply under the seat. Plugs into the auxiliary power point next to the battery. Having made sure I had identified the "hot" side of the lighter, I wired the speaker power to that. It's a fused power supply from the battery, so I'm not too concerned about any issues there. The Belkin I-Pod power plugs into the lighter, and the whole shebang is tucked firmly and neatly beside the battery.

The speaker and I-Pod power get fed under the tank dash panel (I could have run it all under the tank itself, but that seemed a much larger proposition). The power exits from under the dash panel under the rubber flap at the front of the tank, and I wrapped them around the bike's main wiring harness at that point to secure them.

Next, the power runs upward, into the handlebar clamp cover, where most of the other connections are. Keeps the whole thing a little cleaner-looking as well as out-of-the-weather. The supplied wiring has plenty of extra slack in it, so being able to pull the wires and RCA jacks out to hook it up, and then push it all back was no problem.

I ran each side of the sound system's wiring through some heat-shrink tubing, again, to clean it up and keep it as dry as possible. The main power wire connection to the speaker is inside the tubing, soldered and sealed. The tubing can be scrunched up to make the connection possible, then smoothed out, then heated.

I made a couple of tabs out of scrap steel and painted them to mount the speakers to the stock mirror stems, underneath the switch housings. They're only about 1/4 inch thick, so the stock acorn nuts can be used. I put the end of the heat-shrink tubing over the speaker housing mounting stem (that's where the wires come out), and shrank it into place. Again, no water issues wanted here.

The I-Pod is in a cheapo "leather" pouch with Velcro on the back, an it mounts to a plate on the right side. The mounting plate uses the stock mounting hardware for the switch housing, with no problems.

Photos on this post:

Where the power starts. The grey wire is for the apeakers. Once under the handlebar clamp cover, it gets split to the left and right sides. The black Belkin power cord goes up and to the right side.

Into the clamp cover. This shows the power being wrapped around the main wiring harness, and up into the cover area. There's plenty of slack, so that when the bars are fully to the left or right, there's no strain on the wires.

Out of the clamp cover (on the right side). As you can see, there's pleanty of room for all of the wires, with no pinching or binding.

Right side detail. Depending on the year of your bike, you'll need to push the throttle cables forward. This makes no difference in the throttle response, or anything else.

Driver's view. Well...there it is!

 

I just installed Rumble Road 100 watt "Ultra" speakers. I previously had the "Premium" but found I needed them a full volume to work at highway speed. I also had the Cycle Sound 2" speakers but were terrible at highway speed.

The Ultra speakers work great. At 75mph I have my ipod at les than 74% and no distortion. I pissed away a lot of money trying to find bar mounted speakers that worked. These are the best I've found.