GL1500 Radio Help. Any Professional Radio Installers Out Here?

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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.

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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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I was a car stereo installer for ten years .



Here is my 2 cents worth .



To do any work of this type you need to know what make of " head unit " you have .

If i remember correctly , Honda has used " Clarion " radios and speakers .

This is anexcellentmanufacturer of quality stuff for any year of bike be it tape deck or disc player.

This being said , almost all questions asked in this thread can be answered by taking a trip to your local car stereo shop.

Simply determine what make of " head unit " or " radio " you have , and the guys at the car stereo shop will not only answere all questions but also be able to provide all the male and female wiring harness adapters etc. that are required. And without having to change pin locations etc.! Its all there in aone stop shop.

Again.. if i am right on here , Honda motorcycle stereo wiring is identical to Honda Accord car wiring ... which is identical to 90% of all other Honda stereowiring .!

You see how this works.

Wiring can be scary as it only takes one in the wrong place to fry everything, so you must know what you are doing .

My advise to you all is see the folks at the local car stereo shop , you will be glad you did.

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Yes , im a pro. stereo guy.



If your system sounds good at all levels in the garage , then the speakers are not the culprit.

See previous thread concerning bad ant. cable and connections.

FM is great and provides true stereo sound but any slight imperfection in the ant. cablesystem is not forgiven as a AM signal is.

See my previous thread for checks etc.

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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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First off I am not a professional stereo guy. But I do enjoy good quality music. This has led me to where im at today with my GL. I have had alot of trials and errors in getting my music where I want it to be. Thru this I have learned alot of things. One of these things IMO is to stop looking at my GL as a motorcycle but as a car that is not equiped with a good system, for instance if I put a speaker in a door then take the outside door panel off and expect it to sound good what would I do? I would put a enclosure around the speaker. When I have seen kick panels made by professionals who do this out of fiber glass using a 5 inch to 6 inch speaker it is always a sealed enclosure. IMO this allows the amp or source of power to have full control of the speaker. When you look at companys like alpine, rockford F, kicker an etc in almost all cases when they provide numerous boxes you can have when they talk about SQ- sound quality 99% of the time this is a sealed enclosure. i looked up you radio it provdes 52 watts of peak power. IMO this is probably about 17 watts rms without distortion. Your speakers are rated at 45 watts rms. One of the downsides to a sealed enclosure it takes more power to operate the speaker. This being said IMO I would suggest something like a 30 watt amp at 4 omhs into your 2 omhs speaker which should give you a good 45 watts with absolutely no distortion. You will hear mid bass like you have never heard before.This will allow your amps and your radio to run cooler and volume not to be as high giving you much better SQ. Once again this is only my opinon. You are not that far from me, I have no problem coming that way and letting you hear it for yourself. I have been at this for about 3 years and a few headaches. Maybe I can save you atleast 1 headache. Good wishes

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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.