I will be purchasing a Road Glide Custom soon and have been reading most of the upgrades to the audio systems ideas. I wanted to bounce an idea around and see what people think. If you took the stock speakers out the fairing and replaced them with more of a woofer (seems to be the major complaint is lack of bass) based speaker and added the seprate tweeter pods with added power from an amp and proper crossovers, not to fry the tweeter would this work better. Seprate systems work better in cars and home why not bikes?

 

They're called component speakers and yes they are better. Make sure the tweeters are adjustable for directing voice and highs
toward you.

 

I have a set of Elf components for this very idea.....haven't picked up the tweets yet.

what I mean is, I haven't got a place to put the tweets yet. I'm not taking my 2 gauges out to use the tweets I have. I'll have to get some of the hog pod tweets.

 

Was thinking about this too. The KICKER CVT652 6.5" Single 2 ohm Shallow Sub Woofer 300w just might be the ticket.Although not sure how much bass would dissipate at higher speeds. But definitely worth talking about.

 

i did just that i used sony explode speaker woofers and tweeters with cross overs no amp yet but sounds awesome

 

you are up against being in an open space as opposed to an enclosed area ( like a car, living room, arena).

nothing for the sound waves to develop and resonate.

a 60 hertz sound wave ( bass notes- bass drum synth etc.) needs over 18 feet to develop, the 60 hz sound wave is 18.3' long. ( low E string on a guitar is 82 hertz)

the sound waves will resonate to frequencies related to the size of the space they are in.

you can throw all the money you want at it, but you won't get bass sitting on a bike-

you could install an "shaker" which translates low frequencies to physical movement and is attached to the seat or floor in theater and concert sound application
( but I would worry about shaking more parts off of the bike, or interfering with the ECM)

sound waves are funny animals- treble waves are easily produced, very directional, easily absorbed and reflected

bass waves require 10 times the power to produce, omni directional, difficult to dampen or reflect. ( in pro-sound applications, you notice that the square footage of the sub-woofers typically outnumbers the other speakers )

that's the reason you can hear the bass from a party up the street better than the other sounds- or that you can hear the bass in the lowered honda next to you at the light better than the passengers seem to. the sound waves need room to develop

mike

 

With all the talk about upgrading the exisiting speakers, right now I have a FLSTS springer with no full fairing just the clear windshield. So I have used custom earbuds made to fit inside my ear, no wind noise and just the light rumble of the motor and the music has good highs and lows. It seems this will no be the case on a touring bike. Does the stock head units have a plug in for my existing ear buds(by the way only $199.00 for the custom ear buds)?

 

I used buds on my evo, as the stereo was low powered- and to isolate ambient noise.

with my 09 the stereo is so darn good ( comparitively) that I have just been using the speakers

- however, it's gonna ruin what's left of my hearing if i keep doing this ( music + wind noise + road noise + rumble) so I am going to wire in for buds.

what i did on the last bike ( and will do again).

get the 6' radio shack 1/8" stereo headphone extender- it is white ( yes you can make your own but this is so much easier.

cut the plug off.

use a nylon cable tie or other rigid yet flexible tool to 'fish" the cut end under the tank and then into the fairing

so you now have the socket dangling by you thigh- this is a good place to plug in your buds.

fairing off ( cover your spots with socks, do the center windscreen screw last so you can hold the fairing while you loosen that last screw).

fish your white wire into the fairing, strip it back.

the shield ( bare) wire to attach to the - on one of the speakers, just pull the terminal, stick your new wire on top and push the terminal back on.

the other 2 wires ( colors can be different- if white, usually left, if red usually right- sometime green or black- this is not crucial)

attach same way to terminal on speakers one to each side on the + terminal.

turn on radio, volume ALL the way down.

start it playing.

plug in earbuds- bring up volume...past tests? got both sides?

cool.

Now on one of my bikes, the buds were so sensitive, I could only just crack the volume.
The volume is positioned between th epreamp and the power amp sections of the radio-

because of this i would get lots of spurious noise.

so, get the radio shack inline volume control.

plug it in between buds and the socket of the white wire.

lower volume of the inline all the way.

turn on radio, bring up speaker volume to low/moderate level.

buds in, and bring up volume to comfy.

all works, all tests OK and the wiring in the fairing is secure ( cable tie strain relief).

then button up and ride.

also run your wires inside/under jacket to reduce mechincal noise transference from wiries being blown around.

mike

 

WwAre you able to clearly hear music, and surrounding traffic with earbuds?

 

Yes you can still hear the bike but most of the wind noise is gone and this is on a no windshield bike. It only has to get better with a fairing in front of you. There is some state that it is against the law to wear ear buds while driving but mine look like ear plugs and that wht I tell Johnny Law I'm wearing to protect my hearing.