My adventures in F6B Audio Upgrade - Page 18
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Thread: My adventures in F6B Audio Upgrade

  1. #171
    Senior Member Dirtstiff's F6B's Avatar
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    Jimmie
    I pulled my seat to refresh my memory.

    Thanks for the input.

    Thank you also, Pilot for your Hertz help.

    Jim
    Last edited by Dirtstiff's F6B; 03-25-2018 at 01:23 PM.
    4 Wheels Move the Body
    2 Wheels Move the Soul
    In Loving Memory of My Brother
    "Death Waits In The Dark"

    2013 F6B Deluxe

  2. #172
    Junior Member velvethammer's Avatar
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    Any chance Jimmy can repost the attachments in an active format. ...This is a very important thread and I would love to see your process with pictures.

    thanks

  3. #173
    Senior Member Dirtstiff's F6B's Avatar
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    I've since added the new Polk DB652 6.5" speakers to the front, a new Polk PAD 4000.4 Amp and Infinity 3 way 6x9s in the saddle bags.
    I think I can finally say I've found a combination I like.
    20180520_170944_resized.jpg
    20180407_104503_resized.jpg
    Last edited by Dirtstiff's F6B; 05-26-2018 at 10:50 AM. Reason: Correct text
    4 Wheels Move the Body
    2 Wheels Move the Soul
    In Loving Memory of My Brother
    "Death Waits In The Dark"

    2013 F6B Deluxe

  4. #174
    Senior Member F6Pilot's Avatar
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    Hey Jim, how are those 6x9 working in the bags? Did you cut any ports in the bags?

  5. #175
    Senior Member Dirtstiff's F6B's Avatar
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    I added boom mats to the 6x9's which holds them in place and works as a speaker box for resonance.

    With the bags open, the system sounds incredible.
    Very clear at high volume - 15 is crazy loud and clear.
    20-22 is deafening, yet still clean and clear.

    Both the Polk and Infinity are designed for 125 -150 watts RMS each, so they love the amp.
    And the 6x9 add a bit more bass and low frequency to balance the system.
    They are also a 3 way with mid and high frequency tweeters, +/- 3 db.

    I wired them so they can be un plugged and easily removed if we need the room.

    To your question Pilot; no vents - ports cut yet.

    I'm a little undecided about cutting into the bags.
    I know that's what needs to happen to really hear the 6x9's going down the road.

    I'm sleeping on port location, size, covers or if I mount them face against the wheel, face down on the floor.

    A custom lid like Harley would be the ticket but I don't have that fab time right now.

    For now, its fun to park at the local.. open up the bags and let em blast.
    Jim
    Last edited by Dirtstiff's F6B; 05-26-2018 at 10:52 AM.
    4 Wheels Move the Body
    2 Wheels Move the Soul
    In Loving Memory of My Brother
    "Death Waits In The Dark"

    2013 F6B Deluxe

  6. #176
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    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. #177
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    My adventures because of your adventures

    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmytee View Post
    Here is more detail. I spent a fair amount of time deciding on which components to upgrade my stereo system on the F6B. My Valkyrie rocks and I wanted as good or better on the F6B. The sound system on the F6B is not actually all that bad stock. After 2006, Honda upgraded the audio in the Gold Wing line with more power and larger component speakers. Getting on my F6B after riding my Valkyrie though, it was pretty obvious where some upgrades were going to come. My reasons for upgrading the audio have as much to do with pure fun as it does with necessity .

    The speaker in the F6B and Gold Wing line are an odd size. I wanted to put 6.5" speaker in, but didn't think they would fit so I chose a set of 5.25" component speakers. Since then, others have been successful in installing 6.5" speakers by trimming down the frame on the speakers to make them fit. I may or may not upgrade to 6.5" in the future, but I'm pretty content at the moment. Well, my wallet is pretty content. After reading reviews, and scanning many specifications , I chose the Polk Audio MM series 5.25" components. http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_...io-MM5251.html
    We got them for $189 on Amazon. Birthday present. There is a theme here. Wait for it.

    Here are the speakers.
    I chose these speakers for their low frequency extension. They are rated down to 50 hz. I also chose them because of their reviews and their 2.7 ohm impedance.
    Attachment 10644Attachment 10645

    Here is a comparison of the woofers.
    Stock speaker on the right.

    Attachment 10643
    The 5.25" speakers are not a bolt on fit. They required some adaptation. I accomplished this with the use of some flat pieces of ABS plastic that I cut into shape as adapter plates.

    Here is one of the speakers mounted.

    Attachment 10646

    I have to split this up as there is a limit on photos per post.

    Hey Jimmy, I’ve followed your posts and decided to dive in head first. I bought a Nemesis Audio micro 500w 4 channel amp, Polk Audio 5.25” component speakers for the lower dash and replaced the factory tweeters with the Polks by hot gluing them into the stock locations. I bought a set of 6.5” Sony 140w coaxial marine speakers which I trimmed the outside rim off of to fit in the dash. Had to use self tapping screws but it works. Fit right in. They look cool because they’re white like my bike but I just bought a set of Polk 652’s to replace them. I also dove in further and bought the same JLAudio sub enclosure you did and a different amp. It’s a Power Acoustik 2500w 5 channel amp. I got the Frogzskins and im all ready to add the thump, just really hot here right now. Anyway, between you and others, I’ve learned a lot. Thanks man.

  8. #178
    Senior Member Jimmytee's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cdtessmer View Post
    Hey Jimmy, I’ve followed your posts and decided to dive in head first. I bought a Nemesis Audio micro 500w 4 channel amp, Polk Audio 5.25” component speakers for the lower dash and replaced the factory tweeters with the Polks by hot gluing them into the stock locations. I bought a set of 6.5” Sony 140w coaxial marine speakers which I trimmed the outside rim off of to fit in the dash. Had to use self tapping screws but it works. Fit right in. They look cool because they’re white like my bike but I just bought a set of Polk 652’s to replace them. I also dove in further and bought the same JLAudio sub enclosure you did and a different amp. It’s a Power Acoustik 2500w 5 channel amp. I got the Frogzskins and im all ready to add the thump, just really hot here right now. Anyway, between you and others, I’ve learned a lot. Thanks man.

    i have not been on here very frequently as of late. My summers are extremely busy. I originally tapped the pre outs from the OEM "Audio Unit". That , of course , is before the factory amp. I got good volume and it sounded pretty darn good. I could never get any satisfactory result trying to use the speaker level outputs of the factory amplifier.

    All was good , and then one day my Audio Unit just quit. Don't know, One day ot was fine, the next day just a slight static noise if you turned it up. My whole system is aftermarket now, with Rockford Fosgate filling in the head unit/processor duties, a JL Audio 5 channel amplifier, Hertz 5.25 component speakers in the factory location and Hertz 6.5" coaxials in the lowers. And of course a JL Audio sub. I'm pretty happy with my system. It rocks and is way louder than I need it to be while riding 80 plus mph . Plus I have usable bass that I can feel and hear. I'm at 50 k miles. Will probably be riding this bike for awhile yet. Actually was seriously in the market for a new bike a coupe months ago, with the new Wing orBMW K1600 in my crosshairs. Before I got the chance to ride the DCT, I decided I'd ride mine for while longer and bought a new truck instead. Couple weeks ago, I got a chance to ride the DCT and had that happened a couple months ago, I'd probably be riding one now. Game changer. but I digress.
    "Go sell crazy somewhere else, we're all stocked up"

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