My adventures in F6B Audio Upgrade - Page 2
Page 2 of 5 FirstFirst 12345 LastLast
Results 11 to 20 of 178

Thread: My adventures in F6B Audio Upgrade

Hybrid View

Previous Post Previous Post   Next Post Next Post
  1. #1
    Senior Member Jimmytee's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Location
    Elizabethtown, Kentucky
    Posts
    2,296
    Quote Originally Posted by ths61 View Post
    Jimmytee, thanks for posting your findings and install. Will be helpful to a lot of people.
    You're welcome. It was a little frustrating that I had to go through the steps I did to accomplish the final outcome. That is why I tried to chronicle it. For me to do it again, would be sooo much easier as I would not waste anytime with doing it any other way. The only change I probably would make would be to have gone ahead with the MM6501s instead. However, with the sub, I doubt you would be able to perceive any differences really. Without the sub, I'm sure the 6.5s would have some low end advantage.

  2. #2
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Jul 2017
    Location
    Jonestown, Tx
    Posts
    3

    Question on amp installation

    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmytee View Post
    These speakers have sizable crossovers with them that required deciding where to put them. The stock speakers have small capacitor on the tweeter as a way to roll off the low frequencies and the woofer is just run full range. I chose to tuck the crossovers behind the windscreen in the fairing.
    Attachment 10647

    Attachment 10648



    The next decision was to how to mount the tweeters. I've been corresponding with another guy who is doing a similar upgrade. That's how I know that the 6.5" speakers can be made to fit. cooldude He has mounted the tweeters where the stock tweeters are located. He uncased the tweeters as they come, and they fit. This had not even occurred to me when I mounted mine as the tweeters are too large to fit as they come. The tweeters come with two options for mounting. Flush mounting and surface mounting. To flush mount them using the items as they come from Polk Audio, would have required some irreversible modifications to the dash/grill area. I wasn't too keen on that, so I chose to surface mount the tweeters. I had to drill two small holes in each speaker grill screen. This was to accommodate the speaker wire and the mounting screw/bolt. They come out fine IMHO, but I may choose to mount them the way this other guy did. I'm planning on ordering some custom painted screens with the CVMA logo painted on them, and may choose to change the mounting at that time.
    The advantage to the surface mounting is that the tweeters can be pivoted for aiming. Not a big deal, but it is a consideration that once they are mounted in the stock location, they are fixed.

    Attachment 10649


    This brings us to the amplifier and it's hook up. This was the most challenging part of the install. I did not think or plan on the difficulties experienced, but my learning process may help others.

    I chose a fairly new / unknown amplifier company named NVX. Their products seem to be mainly available through Sonic Electronix online. This is the amp I chose. I got it for Christmas. Remember theme?

    http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_...NVX-MVPA4.html

    It has great reviews and has been bench tested to outperform the manufacturer's specifications. It is also very small/compact. The amplifier was not what made the install difficult. The difficulty came in getting an audio signal for the amplifier to amplify. On the onset , it seemed it should be a pretty straight forward deal. The amplifier has both RCA inputs and speaker level inputs for when RCAs are not present. Sooooo, I initially hooked up the amplifier using the speaker wires from the factory system. I ran them to the speaker level inputs and then ran speaker wire from the amp to the crossovers of each speaker channel. Voila right? NO. It sounded like crap. However, I could hook my phone directly into the amp and it's RCA inputs and it sounded great. So the sound through the factory system was awful. I would put it all back to stock before living with that. It sounded like the input of the new amp was being over driven. So I bought some Low to High impedance adapter ( Speaker level to RCA adapter). The one I chose is supposed to be rated to 50 watts. Same situation. Now I'm beginning to wonder or suspect that the OEM electronics just suck that much. I had too options or thoughts. One, I could purchase another adapter rated to an even higher wattage input. Or two , I could tap into the OEM wiring harness and hijack the pre out signals before they go to the factory amp. Let me digress for a moment.

    There was a third option. That involved using the headset signal as a pre-amp signal to the amplifier. There is an adapter that will adapt the 5 pin din plug to an 1/8" stereo plug. The one could use another adapter to then adapt the 1/8" stereo plug to a couple of RCAs. I tried this out. Not with buying any adapters, but I tapped into the harness for the headset and soldered op a couple of RCAs. It worked great, and if someone didn't want to do the soldering, they could use the mentioned adapters. I didn't have the patience to wait for ordering the 5 pin din adapter. There are a couple of caveats to going this route that might be obvious. One, the headset button has to be engaged for the stereo to then work. Two, if someone wants to have their headset fuction normally without the speakers playing too, this won't work. Plus, I use the fading feature of the stereo with my final set up. There is no fading with the headset option. Here is the harness after I tapped into it.
    Attachment 10650


    What I did end up doing.

    I chose to tap into the pre out signals. Now, at the time of doing this, I did not have the Honda Shop manual yet. I now have that. Got it from my dealer for $69. Pretty good deal considering the best I've seen the net was $10 more. The mechanic let me take some pictures of his manual and the wiring diagrams needed. He had to unwrap his manual as it was brand new. They are a very new dealer that opened up about 2 years ago I think . It's where I bought my F6B and they're just 2 miles or so down the road. cooldude I tried to get him to just give me his in exchange for the one I ordered, but he said he'd be in trouble if for some reason Honda were to find him without one on hand..
    I removed the tail end body work and removed the OEM amplifier. The amplifier resides in an enclosure by itself behind the rear wheel. I didn't have to remove the amplifier to tap into the signals, but my intention was to put the new amplifier in it's place. The audio signals that feed the amplifier come from the "Audio Unit" located under the passenger seat in a black enclosure. This would be equivalent to what would be called the head unit in car audio terms. The controls on the fairing left side are just that. Controls. I pulled out the amplifier and made the decision to cut the wiring harness in half. The amplifier has three bundles coming from the amp to a plug that plugs into the factory wiring harness. I cut the three bundles mid way and now I had the factory plug with the wires needed. If I ,for some reason, wanted to return the bike to stock, I will have to splice and solder all those wires back together. In those wires are the speaker wires for four speakers ( the bike is wired for all four speakers even though it only has the front speakers) , the wires for the pre out signals for all 4 channels and positive power and ground. I made up a harness, thinking I'd try to use all the factory wiring. This proved unsatisfactory and I ended up only using the pre out signals. Both the factory power leads and the factory speaker wiring degrade the sound substantially. Here is a pic of the harness i first made up.
    Attachment 10651



    Ultimately, the idea of putting the amp back where the OEM resided , was not going to work. Had I not just lost my patience, I may have been able to figure out a way to make it work, but I was back and forth whether that was where I really wanted it. The enclosure there has a drain for a reason, and I just was not sure how the new amp would survive. Did I mention it's behind the rear wheel underneath the rear fender? The issue was that the wiring harness I built was too long and required too much space and that the new amp had to sit vertically where the RCA jacks protruded above the plane of the enclosure leaving a hump that there was no room for. I could have got some right angle adapters for the RCAs and maybe resolved the issue by modifying my harness, but foooey.

    Here is a pic of the amp in the enclosure.
    Attachment 10652
    Have to split this up again.
    Hi, I'm new to the site and to Goldwings. I bought a new 2016 F6B and want to upgrade the audio. In order to install a powered sub in the saddlebag, where do you get the inputs from? I don't want to remove the stock amp yet as my budget won't allow me to spend that much money right now, but I do plan to add two 4" speakers in the fairing using the rear speaker outputs. Can I tap into the + of one channel and the - of the other before the factory amp for the sub? How would that work? Any assistance you can lend me is greatly appreciated.

  3. #3
    Senior Member Jimmytee's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Location
    Elizabethtown, Kentucky
    Posts
    2,296
    Quote Originally Posted by cdtessmer View Post
    Hi, I'm new to the site and to Goldwings. I bought a new 2016 F6B and want to upgrade the audio. In order to install a powered sub in the saddlebag, where do you get the inputs from? I don't want to remove the stock amp yet as my budget won't allow me to spend that much money right now, but I do plan to add two 4" speakers in the fairing using the rear speaker outputs. Can I tap into the + of one channel and the - of the other before the factory amp for the sub? How would that work? Any assistance you can lend me is greatly appreciated.
    I'd hold out a bit. There is someone that is going to be offering some audio stuff for the F6B and Gold Wing. Among the items are some speaker pods for the fairing that would replace the left side pocket and the lid on the right side. These pods will accommodate 6.5" speakers. As far as a sub, it is going to need to be amplified, whether by an on board amp or a separate amp. As far as getting a signal from the stock system to another amp, that is a mixed bag of nuts. I had little success in a satisfactory outcome trying to use the speaker level outputs of the OEM system. I originally ended up , as detailed in this post, finding the pre out signals from the OEM head unit. Some others have done it, but my experience wasn't positive with the high level outputs. Now, I no longer have any of the factory system on my B.
    "Go sell crazy somewhere else, we're all stocked up"

  4. #4
    Senior Member CoCoKola's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2013
    Posts
    290
    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmytee View Post
    I'd hold out a bit. There is someone that is going to be offering some audio stuff for the F6B and Gold Wing. Among the items are some speaker pods for the fairing that would replace the left side pocket and the lid on the right side. These pods will accommodate 6.5" speakers. As far as a sub, it is going to need to be amplified, whether by an on board amp or a separate amp. As far as getting a signal from the stock system to another amp, that is a mixed bag of nuts. I had little success in a satisfactory outcome trying to use the speaker level outputs of the OEM system. I originally ended up , as detailed in this post, finding the pre out signals from the OEM head unit. Some others have done it, but my experience wasn't positive with the high level outputs. Now, I no longer have any of the factory system on my B.
    Jimmyt, I think you missed that he is asking about tapping pre factory amp, not post. And as I have pointed out previously, my experience with tapping post amp was favorable.

    cdtessmer,
    Search for my post on audio upgrade for details on what to tap. I have schematics showing what you need.

  5. #5
    Senior Member Jimmytee's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Location
    Elizabethtown, Kentucky
    Posts
    2,296
    Quote Originally Posted by CoCoKola View Post
    Jimmyt, I think you missed that he is asking about tapping pre factory amp, not post. And as I have pointed out previously, my experience with tapping post amp was favorable.

    cdtessmer,
    Search for my post on audio upgrade for details on what to tap. I have schematics showing what you need.
    I think you should re read my post. I specifically mentioned hooking it up from the pre outs. I detailed it greatly in this thread. Pictures are no longer there because of the deal with Photobucket screwing everyone over. He also mentioned not having a lot to spend right now, but yeah he should buy that Audison Prima.
    "Go sell crazy somewhere else, we're all stocked up"

  6. #6
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Jul 2017
    Location
    Jonestown, Tx
    Posts
    3

    Nice job!

    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmytee View Post
    These speakers have sizable crossovers with them that required deciding where to put them. The stock speakers have small capacitor on the tweeter as a way to roll off the low frequencies and the woofer is just run full range. I chose to tuck the crossovers behind the windscreen in the fairing.



    The next decision was to how to mount the tweeters. I've been corresponding with another guy who is doing a similar upgrade. That's how I know that the 6.5" speakers can be made to fit. cooldude He has mounted the tweeters where the stock tweeters are located. He uncased the tweeters as they come, and they fit. This had not even occurred to me when I mounted mine as the tweeters are too large to fit as they come. The tweeters come with two options for mounting. Flush mounting and surface mounting. To flush mount them using the items as they come from Polk Audio, would have required some irreversible modifications to the dash/grill area. I wasn't too keen on that, so I chose to surface mount the tweeters. I had to drill two small holes in each speaker grill screen. This was to accommodate the speaker wire and the mounting screw/bolt. They come out fine IMHO, but I may choose to mount them the way this other guy did. I'm planning on ordering some custom painted screens with the CVMA logo painted on them, and may choose to change the mounting at that time.
    The advantage to the surface mounting is that the tweeters can be pivoted for aiming. Not a big deal, but it is a consideration that once they are mounted in the stock location, they


    This brings us to the amplifier and it's hook up. This was the most challenging part of the install. I did not think or plan on the difficulties experienced, but my learning process may help others.

    I chose a fairly new / unknown amplifier company named NVX. Their products seem to be mainly available through Sonic Electronix online. This is the amp I chose. I got it for Christmas. Remember theme

    It has great reviews and has been bench tested to outperform the manufacturer's specifications. It is also very small/compact. The amplifier was not what made the install difficult. The difficulty came in getting an audio signal for the amplifier to amplify. On the onset , it seemed it should be a pretty straight forward deal. The amplifier has both RCA inputs and speaker level inputs for when RCAs are not present. Sooooo, I initially hooked up the amplifier using the speaker wires from the factory system. I ran them to the speaker level inputs and then ran speaker wire from the amp to the crossovers of each speaker channel. Voila right? NO. It sounded like crap. However, I could hook my phone directly into the amp and it's RCA inputs and it sounded great. So the sound through the factory system was awful. I would put it all back to stock before living with that. It sounded like the input of the new amp was being over driven. So I bought some Low to High impedance adapter ( Speaker level to RCA adapter). The one I chose is supposed to be rated to 50 watts. Same situation. Now I'm beginning to wonder or suspect that the OEM electronics just suck that much. I had too options or thoughts. One, I could purchase another adapter rated to an even higher wattage input. Or two , I could tap into the OEM wiring harness and hijack the pre out signals before they go to the factory amp. Let me digress for a moment.

    There was a third option. That involved using the headset signal as a pre-amp signal to the amplifier. There is an adapter that will adapt the 5 pin din plug to an 1/8" stereo plug. The one could use another adapter to then adapt the 1/8" stereo plug to a couple of RCAs. I tried this out. Not with buying any adapters, but I tapped into the harness for the headset and soldered op a couple of RCAs. It worked great, and if someone didn't want to do the soldering, they could use the mentioned adapters. I didn't have the patience to wait for ordering the 5 pin din adapter. There are a couple of caveats to going this route that might be obvious. One, the headset button has to be engaged for the stereo to then work. Two, if someone wants to have their headset fuction normally without the speakers playing too, this won't work. Plus, I use the fading feature of the stereo with my final set up. There is no fading with the headset option. Here is the harness after I tapped into it.



    What I did end up doing.

    I chose to tap into the pre out signals. Now, at the time of doing this, I did not have the Honda Shop manual yet. I now have that. Got it from my dealer for $69. Pretty good deal considering the best I've seen the net was $10 more. The mechanic let me take some pictures of his manual and the wiring diagrams needed. He had to unwrap his manual as it was brand new. They are a very new dealer that opened up about 2 years ago I think . It's where I bought my F6B and they're just 2 miles or so down the road. cooldude I tried to get him to just give me his in exchange for the one I ordered, but he said he'd be in trouble if for some reason Honda were to find him without one on hand..
    I removed the tail end body work and removed the OEM amplifier. The amplifier resides in an enclosure by itself behind the rear wheel. I didn't have to remove the amplifier to tap into the signals, but my intention was to put the new amplifier in it's place. The audio signals that feed the amplifier come from the "Audio Unit" located under the passenger seat in a black enclosure. This would be equivalent to what would be called the head unit in car audio terms. The controls on the fairing left side are just that. Controls. I pulled out the amplifier and made the decision to cut the wiring harness in half. The amplifier has three bundles coming from the amp to a plug that plugs into the factory wiring harness. I cut the three bundles mid way and now I had the factory plug with the wires needed. If I ,for some reason, wanted to return the bike to stock, I will have to splice and solder all those wires back together. In those wires are the speaker wires for four speakers ( the bike is wired for all four speakers even though it only has the front speakers) , the wires for the pre out signals for all 4 channels and positive power and ground. I made up a harness, thinking I'd try to use all the factory wiring. This proved unsatisfactory and I ended up only using the pre out signals. Both the factory power leads and the factory speaker wiring degrade the sound substantially. Here is a pic of the harness i first made up.




    Ultimately, the idea of putting the amp back where the OEM resided , was not going to work. Had I not just lost my patience, I may have been able to figure out a way to make it work, but I was back and forth whether that was where I really wanted it. The enclosure there has a drain for a reason, and I just was not sure how the new amp would survive. Did I mention it's behind the rear wheel underneath the rear fender? The issue was that the wiring harness I built was too long and required too much space and that the new amp had to sit vertically where the RCA jacks protruded above the plane of the enclosure leaving a hump that there was no room for. I could have got some right angle adapters for the RCAs and maybe resolved the issue by modifying my harness, but foooey.

    Here is a pic of the amp in
    Have to split this up again.

    Instead of cutting the three bundles of wires coming from the stock amplifier enclosure, I unpinned the wires from the grey connector and soldered the speaker wires to the pin terminals in order to preserve the factory wiring, then used heat shrink and electrical tape. I’ve hooked it up using the stock amplifier with my aftermarket amp and without, and i’ve tried a line input converter, etc, and it still doesn’t sound good turned up. I’ve adjusted the gains properly with and without a multimeter. I have installed 140w Sony 6.5 marine speakers in the dash, 5.25 Polk components in the lowers and put the new tweeters where the stock ones were located. I just ordered Polk 652’s for the dash to see if that will help, but it’s hard to fix a trash signal without a processor. Just wish the stock receiver didn’t sound so horrible when listening to fm radio. I connected a JL Audio bluetooth module to the aux in connector and the stereo sounds great when using my phone, but when I put it back on fm radio, the amp is horribly underdriven. I’m sure it has something to do with the auto volume control, even when it’s off, and I wish there wasn’t such a huge difference in volume between the fm input and bluetooth input. I want to put an aftermarket receiver in it to replace the junky factory one but don’t know where I’d mount it and still keep my hazard switch, etc. Honda really boned us on this audio system.

  7. #7
    Member Hdnvn's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2015
    Location
    Manassas Virginia
    Posts
    61
    Hey Jimmy, I imagine you read this guys posts at one time. Whatr your thoughts?

    http://gl1800riders.com/forums/showt.../338866?page=1

  8. #8
    Senior Member Jimmytee's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Location
    Elizabethtown, Kentucky
    Posts
    2,296
    Quote Originally Posted by Hdnvn View Post
    Hey Jimmy, I imagine you read this guys posts at one time. Whatr your thoughts?

    http://gl1800riders.com/forums/showt.../338866?page=1
    Yes I read that thread before. If you've read my posting then you'll know that my first attempts with the NVX amp was with trying to use the speaker outputs from the factory system. That would have been the simplest and less invasive way to accomplish what i wanted. I tried using the speaker level inputs of the amp and using an external set of high to low level adapters. Both results were the same. Unsatisfactory. So much so, that I would have left the sound system stock before settling with that.

    By all means, try that way My experience is mine( a couple of others as well) Maybe with a higher end adapter or converter the results would be different or with a different amp, I don't know.
    "Go sell crazy somewhere else, we're all stocked up"

  9. #9
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Location
    Sydney, Australia
    Posts
    7

    Jimmy did you 'unmount' the tweeters in the end?

    Hey Jimmy, thanks for your guidance in this space. Installed a set of the new J&Ms (tried cutting down a set of Polks, but failed miserably). Have built a box and mounted a 8" Rockford sub in the left bag, powering everything off a a Focal amp. I was looking at adding Polk tweeters and was wondering if you had any luck unmounting them and installing in the stock location?

  10. #10
    Senior Member Jimmytee's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Location
    Elizabethtown, Kentucky
    Posts
    2,296
    Quote Originally Posted by BruceN View Post
    Hey Jimmy, thanks for your guidance in this space. Installed a set of the new J&Ms (tried cutting down a set of Polks, but failed miserably). Have built a box and mounted a 8" Rockford sub in the left bag, powering everything off a a Focal amp. I was looking at adding Polk tweeters and was wondering if you had any luck unmounting them and installing in the stock location?

    You need to share some details and pics.

    My tweeters are the Polk Audio ones that came with the MM series component speaker set. http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_...io-MM6501.html
    I have them surface mounted over the same spot that the factory tweeters used to be. I was on the fence which way I wanted to go, but chose to surface mount them allowing me to have a little more flexibility in aiming the tweeters. The surface mounting allows them to swivel a little bit in their mounting cups.

    Someone else chose to un-case the tweeters and mounted the tweeters in the factory location. So yes it can be done that way.
    "Go sell crazy somewhere else, we're all stocked up"

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •