GL1500 Radio Help. Any Professional Radio Installers Out Here?

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Well I found a connector that works perfectly. It fits very tight but it does fit. It is a Scosche DO01Bhttp://www.scosche.com/products/productID/222



It was designedfor a Daewoo 1999-up. I incorrectly called it a female connector. I assumed since the factory connector plugged into it it was female but because it has the prongs it is considered a male adapter. Checking with Metra, the part number would be 70-8405. http://www.metraonline.com/products.aspx?s=70-8405



I am not sure about the Metra one but the Scosche only has 13 wires in the harness instead of 18 wires. Thats ok because I will onlybe using7 of the wires( 12 volt hot, 12 volt accessory, ground, 2 for left speaker, and 2 for right speaker). Now I will be able to leave the factory wiring intact.

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For background, I got the idea from this thread: http://www.goldwingfacts.com/forums/view_topic.php?id=86866&forum_id=4&jump_to=952739#p952739By going with an aftermarket setup, you will most likely lose the intercom. I had already expected that and bought a new JMCB-2003 Dual version http://www.jmcorp.com/SeeProducts.asp?PF=38on Ebay for a good price. I bought one of the radio adapters mentioned by Marcellus Wallace on his thread from the guy on ebay.



It was advertised as handmade. I don't know how many he made or if he is going to make anymore. The seller user name is trayk-by: http://myworld.ebay.com/ebaymotors/trayk-by/The item took a few weeks to arrive because it came from Minsk, Belarus. The item isn't a perfect fit in the old radio shelter but pretty close. Also the opening where the bracket for the new radio goes wasn't quite large enough and had to be slightly tweaked but now the radio fits fine. The radio I went with was a refurbished Sony CDX-M30 marine radio that was on sale from Sonystyle.com but it looks like the sale is over: http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665801225 This also gives me an indash CD player and an AUX connector for my MP3 player. I have not finished the installation yet. I did connect the speakers and power to the radio using the Scosche DO01B adapter. So far it works.I did have to switch the pins and wires around in that adapter but the wiring diagram I mentioned in my first post was spot on on the pin locations. I'd rather mess up the adapter then the factory wiring. I only used the left and right speakers, 12V positive, backup power, and ground pins. When I get the J&M CB mounted, I will have a CB and an intercom. I always listened to the radio on the dash speakers and I always use headset speakers for CB and intercom. There is a harness that can be bought to connect the radio to the J&M CB so the radio could play through the helmet speakers but but I didn't see the need. The only thing I was worried about was losing info on the LCD display, especially the clock. It will no longer show the info from the radio but it still displays the time/clock and info from the air compressor. The new radio now gives me adjustments for bass, mid range, and treble. It also has a fader which would allow me to add rear speakers by just running extra speaker wires to the rear. No extra harness or extra fader is needed. This radio also has the ability to add a HD radio module that will give me HD radio stations. The headsets I have were HS-CD9174 and I only had to change out the lower cords from 5 pin to 6 pin cords.

The sound is now a lot closer to what I want. The only thing I want to experiment with are the foam speaker baffles made by XTC. I have seen them at Crutchfield. Has anyone else tried these? It seems like on the GL1500's there is, at highway speeds, a lot of air pressure inside the fairing that doesn't allow the speakers to move as they should and the audio quality suffers. By using the baffles, it might help seal off the speakers a bit and allow them to move more as they should. What is the general opinion on this?

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base wrote:

Sorry for the delay. I didnt put a whole in it for port. I just put a tiny whole in just to run the wires through it. An then put silicone around that. It was definately air tight. I enjoyed the sound so much I am now trying something a little different. I took the boots out. I am now in the process of using sound matt which is used in alot of professional insulations to insulate door panels, trunks and etc. It is very thin easy to use just cut it with a regular pair of scissors, no adhesive in necessary and it sticks like glue. Where my winshield release is I put a piece of cardboard over it to keep it moving freely. An then layered it with the sound matt. The reason I decided to try this because it doubles my air space which should allow my speakers to perform even better. And this is something that can be easily taken out if necessary and its not messy at all. I'll let you know how it turns out. I am taking pictures of this project.

Click to expand...

That sounds interesting. I wonder why Honda didn't provide for enclosures for the front speakers. I have seen on the Valks that they have speaker enclosures but sadly not on the Goldwings.

For my baffles, I put one in on the left and compared the 2 sides. I noticed that the right one would move in an out with the music but the left one with the baffle never moved at all. It also sounded like it was missing a little in the audio range. With the speaker in the baffle, it seemed like it sealed up the rear a little too much. As I had only gotten the shallow ones, leaving it sealed didn't seem like a good idea. I still wonder what the audio would sound with the deeper ones but that would have only added another inch of depth. I didn't cut holes but I did cut a slit along the bottom side of the baffle. This seemed to do the trick and allowed some of the pressure to leak out. The sound was a lot better then too. I installed the one in the right side and did the same thing. I am much happier with the sound now at highway speeds. Even though I don't get true bass like I would with a subwoofer and amp, I am pretty satisfied with the audio range and quality of the sound now with my setup.

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Actually the factory stereo on my 97 Aspencade was a Panasonic, not a Clarionand is about as basic as it gets. It was adequate but I was looking for something better. It only had a single tone control. It could be adjusted either towards low or high (bass or treble) but not both. The head unit combined with the basic speakers leave a lot to be desired and most owners of GL1500's will tell you that. I believe the factory speaker are 10 watt 4.5" 3ohm speakers. That alone should give you an idea of the power of the factory head unit. That is why there are so many owners looking to "upgrade" their systems.Mine had nothing to do with antennas or connections. As a matter of fact, I am still using the same antenna. Did the stereo work? Yes. Did it play music? Yes. I just wanted better audioquality and control.

I got the idea about doing a total upgrade from another member Marcellus Wallace. He was able to find that radio adapter that absolutely no one makes except for a guy in Minsk Belarus that made a couple by hand. I did go to 2 local stereo installers and as soon as they heard Goldwing or motorcycle, the way they looked at me, you'd swear that I had grown a third eye in the middle of my forehead. Needless to say, they told me that they couldn't help. I presented my question here, on a Goldwing forum because obviously there are a lot of folks here that are familiar with them. I have seen where several had even done upgrades to their own sound systems and figured that this was a better place to pose the question. After I stumped this forum, I tried one more time by stopping by the Install Bay at a Best Buy. I really had to bend this guy's ear because he initially did the "It's a Honda. You should try a Honda shop.". Finally he caved in and we both searched the wall of connectors and settled on the Daewoo one I mentioned earlier. It turned out to be a perfect fit. The pinouts just needed to be switched around, not a big deal. I wanted a connector so I didn't need to cut the factory wiring and now I had it. The radio I chose to install was a Sony CDX-M30 Marine Stereo. It's harness was color coded and came with instructions. Because I already had the GL1500 factory pinouts diagram that no installer near here would have had, I did the connections myself and it worked out fine.

As far as the baffles, absolutely no one around here sells them and I live in a very large metro area. So therefore no one I know had them so there was no way to compare them. So once again, I continued this thread with another question about them hoping someone else might have suggestions. Because of the lack of planning on Honda's part in designing the speaker enclosures, I thought the baffles would make up for it. Yes, the speakers prior to the baffles sounded great in the garage. (They are Infinity REF5022i 5.25" 2ohms) There was no back pressure behind the speakers to cause an issue. However, once you get up to highway speeds, that all changes inside of the fairing as it was never designed to be airtight and has a lot of air being pushed into it. (IMHO, I believe that is why there is the AVC, to increase the volume and compensate; givethe speakers more power to work but that is just my opinion) The inside of the fairing builds up pressure that doesn't allow the speakers to move as freely as they do inside a garage with the bike standing still with no back pressure. The baffles as I have now found out by using them compensate a great deal by limiting the effects of the buildup of pressure in the fairing and give me a much better quality of sound.

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I figure I should add some photos of the finished product.....











After having a conversation withbase, he has got me thinking about adding an 4 channel amplifier now. He made a lot of sense. He explained that I didn't have to spend a lot of money on a top of the line onebut just by adding one, it would make the radio not work as hard to produce some volume, the amp would do the work. This could be a future project.....

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I used a rotozip to enlarge the openings but unfortunately I opened them up a little too far. Thats where the speaker baffles came in. Originally I had used duct tape to cover up some of the mistake but the baffles did the trick. Here are a few photos of what it looks like but unfortunately, I didn't take any with the baffles.

The speakers installed photos show the open areas around the speaker before I did the duct tape. I have since removed the duct tape and the baffles fill it in perfectly. The last photo shows the dash back on. If you look at the bottom of the grills, it does bulge out just a bit but is not real noticeable. The key it seems is to mount them as far inward towards the instruments as you can and as close to the middle top and bottom as you can. Also to take as little plastic away so the speakers fit flush and still have enough to attach the speaker mounts. A little at a time works best but I kind of hurried the project. The Infinity speakers are rather deep and need quite a bit of space in the hole. Thats another reason to mount them towards the instruments because there ends up being a touch more space behind the dash face. I have thought about grinding a little of the bottom on the inside of the dash cover and I think that might solve the bulging issue. I just haven't got around to it yet. I have also thought about just raising the speakers up a bit as there is a little more wiggle room at the top of the dash cover than the bottom. Right now though I am happy with the setup so I am not too concerned with the dash cover. One day though.....

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I went with Infinity REF 5022i





SPECIFICATIONS

General


Power Handling, RMS
45 watts

Power Handling, Peak
135 watts

Sensitivity (2.83V @ 1m)
92dB

Frequency Response
67Hz -21kHz

Impedance
2 ohms

Mounting Depth
2-1/4" (57mm)

Another option you might consider is the Polk Audio DB501 speakers http://www.polkaudio.com/caraudio/products/speakers/5/db501/

They can be had for around $55 on the internet. They are 5" speakers but use a 4 inch mounting hole. That would work a lot better as the openings are 4 1/2 inches. And they are Marine rated. A lot of folks have been very happy with them. Honda did a very poor design on the speaker enclosures on the GL1500 Goldwingand did not provide sealed enclosures. That creates limitations like I mentioned earlier in this thread but the XTC baffles IMHO helped to overcome a lot of this. If I hadn't carved out the speaker openings, I probably would have gone with these and the regular depth baffles instead of the slim line. http://www.crutchfield.com/p_237XT40/XTC-4-Speaker-Baffles-3-7-8-depth.html?search=XTC&ssi=0 I am not sure if you would be able to get the 5 1/4 inch baffles to fit but I am pretty sure the 4" would work. The DB501's are rated the same as the Infinity REF5022i's except the Infinity's are 2 ohms and the Polks are 4 ohms. The factory stereo will tend to have slightly more volume driving the 2 ohms as compared to the 4 ohms but since the factory speakers are 3 ohms, 4 ohms isn't a big change. You will never get great bass reponse unless you add a subwoofer and an amplifer but by going with slightly larger speakers you should get a little better audio quality. You will still have the limitation of the tone control as it can only be adjusted between bass and treble but not both.

As far as how high the volume before distortion, I can't really give you an answer on that as I am now using an aftermarket stereo and a factory stereo is different. I do remember that even with the factory stereo, I wouldn't be able to turn the volume all the way up without distortion. Unfortunately, I didn't have the baffles installed when I had the stock stereo but based on my experience with the setup I have now, I am almost positive they would have made a big difference.

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I have seen those custom speakers in your auctions a couple times







They look great and they would probably provide great sound. They are just too expensive for me.

And with the radio adapter, I didn't even think about it but you are right, that top part would be perfect for switches. I may have to look into that.