The Sound of Music

I want to have plenty of music for my long summer rides. Furthermore, I want a quality sound. The few Bluetooth headsets I've listened to sound horrible. The factory speakers on my '16 RT are okay, but can't put up a fight with the wind at highway speeds. I have SiriusXM and Nav V on the bike, as well. So far, I can't find anything better than plugging swimmers' earbuds into my phone or iPod. I could get a bunch of music on a portable hard drive to plug into the bike's USB port, but is there any way to control that with the wonder wheel? Is it true that music can be played through the Nav V system? Other than spending hundreds on BOSE Bluetooth earbuds, does anyone have suggestions?

Ear plugs directly into phone or ipod is better than all Bluetooth that Ive experienced on the bike. My RT has all the radio stuff including the USB plug. In order of best sound for me...YMMV

1. direct earplugs to anything.

2. Sena on helmet with flash drive plugged into USB device. Yes you can control from wonder wheel.

3, Sirius through Sena

4. BMW radio through Sena.

Others have added a 3mm plug into the system and some use other devices...but direct ER6i's (which aren't available anymore) are hard to beat.... I do use Bluetooth most of the time even though quality is marginal because it's easy and no cords to mess with.

I have a 2016 RT with the factory music system. Also have a Shoei GT Air with the built in Sena system. I never got any quality sound from Sirius so I dropped the subscription. Best sound is from the USB stick. The wonder wheel works great for this. If I'm not having a lot of wind or road noise I can hear well up to 60 or even 70 mph. If I'm doing high mile an hour work I cut the music and put in ear plugs. I never use the built in speakers. I don't receive phone calls, and don't try to run music thru the GPS. I'm out to ride, phone calls can come later.

I use custom molded ear speakers from Ear Inc. They are not cheap, but work beautifully. I have the 3.5 mm plug in version that I route directly into my Sena S20. I stream Bluetooth from my phone (Samsung S7 for now) using Amazon prime to the Sena and the sound quality of this system is pretty damned good. It keeps all of the wind and helmet noise out while still allowing me to hear emergency vehicles, horns and other things I need to hear to operate my bike safely.

I know that Ear Inc offers a Bluetooth option, but I have not found a need to try it as of yet.

YMMV.

Shawn

Dre Beats ear buds into the Sena. Clear, good sound.

I have some experience with the things you comment on.

First of all there is an inherent conflict between great audio quality and riding a motorcycle. Starting with that understanding you have some options but none of them will overcome the fundamentals.

My solution is to use the USB Port and Thumb drive approach. I have a huge capacity of tunes. I D/L audio from many sources to iTunes and do all of them in mp3 format. The USB port goes directly to the bike audio system which will display the tune's title on the dashboard, and can be controlled via the Wonder wheel.

The Wonder wheel can advance and re-play tunes... just a thumb-press to the right to advance or pull and you can go backwards through the playlist. There is some ability to modify the audio on the Audio menu- but will never overcome the physics. You can also of course choose your source- USB or Sirius or Weather band etc.

Getting the sound to your head offers many choices and the latest Sena is likely to be most frequently used path. I wear custom ear plugs and they are very effective. I can hear the tunes/Sirius well enough even with the ear plugs to not be a major issue. My set-up is the now-getting old SMH-10. There are newer models that apparently do a better job. Even the old SMH-10 produces enough volume to be easily heard at highway speeds even wearing the Helmet and Ear Plugs.

I attended a club gathering in upper Wisconsin- from Colorado a couple of years ago. I had all my USB tunes and Sirius radio for the entire trip. Everything worked. Battery life was never an issues. Music all day long. I did an Iron Butt-style ride of 1050 miles in 18 hours and listened to Sirius/USB tunes all the way.

Setting up the Sena bluetooth pairings can be a little bit fiddly but once you break the code it just works. Bluetooth headset to bike is good once it is set up you will not have to re-pair very often. My set has been operating on the original pairing for several years. Just figure out the pairing and power on/ff sequence and it just works. The volume control on the headset is handy and effective- but you ARE on a Motorcycle, head in the wind enclosed in a big plastic bucket, with earplug jammed into your ear-sockets, and the engine humming. My choice was that tunes is better than no tunes...

Be aware that here in MN if you're caught with earbuds in, you may receive a ticket, or have a extra-special award added to whatever other infractions you've been stopped for.

I wear foam earplugs, my brain fills in the added tones that are missing from my Sena blue-tooth setup. I generally listen to podcasts rather than music anyway, so sound quality is a moot point.

For the few times I want to listen to music, I use my Nav VI as the hub to play the 4,000+ songs stored on my iPhone. I access the music by way of the Media Player app on my Nav, and then it is sent, via Bluetooth, to my Sena 10S, which I listen to with custom-molded earplugs (I did not install the Sena helmet speakers). You cannot do that with the Nav V, but you can load music onto the Nav V, though it must be in MP3 format.

There's are several solutions, mine is a Scala G9 Bluetoothed to my IPhone with several playlists. The G9 is several years old by now I'm sure they have stuff even better .

The battery lasts at least a full day.

Mainly, it's helmet choice and the headset installation.

Some (not all) of the Sena products and others are only Mono .

Scala squirts the music to you in Stereo.

Even wearing a 3/4 helmet (Shoei) on my RT with no faceshield, just a peak, I get the separation.

BUT the install has to be done in a helmet where the speaker pockets are actually in the vicinity of ones ears.

I've installed dozens and dozens of headsets from Autocom , BMW , Scala, and a few Sena's and some helmets are better than others at receiving speakers.

You can also make speaker "shims" using Velcro 1.5" circles back to back to back to move the speaker closer to your ear opening. And at times you have to trim or enlarge the factory pocket to "move" the speaker to where YOUR ear is as we are all built differently .

Many riders do fine with ear buds but just as many (myself included) find them torturous as they pop out when you put the helmet on, the cords pull, etc etc.

Thank you, everyone, for your words of wisdom. I truly appreciate your insight.

Rob

I went to the trouble of wiring a 3.5 mm female receiver plug into the rear speaker wiring so I could plug my ER6i's in and control my ipod with the wonder wheel. It worked, but the sound wasn't the same. Spoke to some audio specialists who said it needed something to bring up the something, can't remember exactly what, I have it written down somewhere. But I was tired of messing with it, so I just go right from iphone to the ear buds. Not as convenient as the wonder wheel, but sounds great.

I went to the trouble of wiring a 3.5 mm female receiver plug into the rear speaker wiring so I could plug my ER6i's in and control my ipod with the wonder wheel. It worked, but the sound wasn't the same. Spoke to some audio specialists who said it needed something to bring up the something, can't remember exactly what, I have it written down somewhere. But I was tired of messing with it, so I just go right from iphone to the ear buds. Not as convenient as the wonder wheel, but sounds great.

You needed a Motochello speaker bridge. I've got that piping bike audio (including my iPod, which is controlled via the wonder wheel) into a Sena SM-10 along with audio from my V-1 so I can hear both via Bluetooth to my Sena 20S headset (GPS is paired to Sena as well).

What is and how do you install the speaker bridge?

What is and how do you install the speaker bridge?

Product info here (link). Scroll down for a link to the installation instructions. The short version is that you tap into the speaker wires. I did it at the control unit under the seat. Others have done it behind the dash. It all depends on where you want to mount it. If you want the ability to switch the speakers off and on, you do have to cut a couple of wires. I bought mine from Rocket Moto, who also sell a handy harness for getting bike power to the Sena SM10, but at the moment their web site is not responding, so maybe they've gone out of business. I can't find any news to that effect, though, so maybe it's just a server issue or holiday issue.

There are several threads on this topic in the Wetheads subforum, by the way.