So all in all cutting to the chase. Sorry, for being long and drawn out but these experiences may help someone else. I have gone through the learning curve. There really is not much out there on audio upgrades to GLs except some J&M speakers.
I chose to put the amp in the left saddlebag. The amp is small in size and does not take up any usable space. I think I am going to make a cover for it to hide the wires, but this is what I have right now. Please excuse the mess underneath as this photo was taken before I had cleaned up.
The location in the saddle bag allows me to tinker if I choose. Another guy has mounted the same amplifier in the fairing. So that is another option. This is how I did it. The amplifier comes with two ways to mount it. I chose to mount is with the supplied Velcro. It works and you have to really pry on the amp to remove it. I ran 10 awg stranded wire for the positive and negative wiring directly from the battery with a 30 amp inline fuse. As mentioned earlier, I ran speaker wires in protected split loom
up to the front. The sound is much improved over the factory system. Everything works as intended.
Now for the closing act:
From the beginning, I panned to add a subwoofer or two to the saddlebags. I had different ideas of what and or how I wanted to do this. One plan was to add two 8" drivers inside each bag, with the drivers firing towards the rear wheel. This , I'm sure, would be very effective. It would've required some fiberglass work, which I don't have any real experience with, but was willing to try. Sat and watched many a tutorial on the subject. Another option was to decrease the size of the driver to use a 6.5" subwoofer. There are some really surprising speakers in this size range. In this size, I could have simply cut out a reinforcing baffle to secure in the proposed mounting locations. The idea is the same as with the 8" subs , but the 6.5 " size would allow them to be mounted without the fiberglass work.
The idea of putting speaker in the inward side of the bags and essentially using the saddlebags as an enclosure would work, but ultimately would probably have required an additional amplifier . Using an enclosure designed for the specific characteristics of a particular driver, generally yields a more efficient use of power.
So I ordered the micro sub. The thing is really small. It does take up a substantial amount of space in the left saddlebag because of the mentioned enclosure. There's maybe room left for a set of rain gear and set of gloves etc.... However, the sub is removed in about the same time it takes you to open up the saddlebag. With Banana plug speaker connections, you really simply just unplug the two speaker leads (pos and neg) and pull the box out. If I need the space for luggage, I can just leave it at home.
As of right now, I put a strip of Velcro that sticks to the carpet of the sub. This keeps the sub in place when cornering and such. A road trip yesterday confirmed this works. I may change that.
The other part to the sub install was that those saddle bags are sealed for the most part. There has to be a way ,obviously to vent the bags for the bass to get out. cooldude After all, It's all about that bass, 'bout that bass right? 2funny
I chose to drill in two places. I drilled many small holes in basically a circle pattern. I put one area facing the rear wheel and the other area is towards the front of the bags near where the battery sits.
I used a product called Frogzskins to cover the holes. These come in many shapes and sizes and are designed for air intakes on snowmobiles and personal watercraft. The product is also used for speaker covers on some after market speaker options for Harley Saddle bags. That's how I first learned of the product when I was researching options for my Valkyrie.
Reply With Quote