Petersburg Client Goes Big With Road Glide Audio Upgrade

When it comes to audio system upgrades for Harley-Davidson motorcycles, the crew at Extreme Audio are the experts. We have clients from all over Virginia come to our Mechanicsville and Midlothian locations to transform their boring sound systems into something amazing. Recently, a client from Petersburg brought his 2015 Road Glide to us, looking for something far more impressive than the factory system could provide. We went through several product options and installation suggestions before coming up with a Road Glide audio system upgrade.

Power

The Arc Audio amplifier was mounted to a special adapter plate provided by Arc Audio specifically for this bike.

The amplifier tucks under the the brain for the factory entertainment system.

The client chose the Arc Audio Moto 600.4 amplifier for his system for many reasons. Primarily, it is an excellent-sounding amplifier. Secondly, it was designed to work with the Harley factory audio system and will fit inside the factory fairing. Finally, the Moto 600.4 is extremely efficient, so it doesn’t add a significant load to the bike’s electrical system. The amp is rated to produce 600 watts of power. That’s more than enough to keep up with wind and exhaust noise.

We installed the Moto 600.4 underneath the mounting plate for the factory entertainment system, using an Arc Audio RG15 adapter plate. This plate was designed specifically for the 2015 Road Glide and mounts the amplifier longitudinally instead of transversely.

Front Speakers

The Arc Audio Moto speakers fit perfectly in the factory locations.

The Arc Audio speakers are designed to allow the factory grills to be used. The fairing stays looking clean and OEM.

We installed a set of Arc Audio Moto 602 coaxial speakers in the factory locations in the fairing. These coaxial speakers are designed to drop right in place of the factory speakers. We love using the Moto series speakers because we know they will last. Unlike conventional car audio speakers, these have a flexible seal around the base of the tweeter post that ensures moisture and debris will not contaminate the voice coil. The factory speaker grille conceals everything for a stock look.

Rear Speakers

To make sure the holes were symmetrical we first made a template on paper of where they needed to be.

We were careful to make sure that the center hole lined up with the tweeter, so none of the high frequencies were blocked.

Our careful planning paid off with a great looking and sounding modification to the bags.

The massive Arc Audio speakers installed in the saddle bags really boost the audio output on this Road Glide!

The Frogskin mesh protects the speaker from water while still allowing all of the sound to play through it.

Our bag modifications still left plenty of usable space for the client to store things.

The client wanted this system to play loud. There’s no better way than to use larger speakers, so we agreed on a set of Moto 692 coaxials. The speakers share the same design features as the Moto 602 we used in the front. The client said that he wanted to bike to look completely stock. To honor that, we got creative with the rear speaker installation. We started by removing the saddlebags so we could take measurements. We created a paper template that allowed use to locate the speakers on the side of the bags that face the rear wheel. To let the sound out, we drilled 21 large holes in each bag.

To protect the speakers from road debris and dust, we created a grille using Frogzskin mesh as a barrier. Frogzskin in a unique material that has hydrophobic properties, but allows air to pass through. This means it blocks water, but not sound. The product is commonly used on snowmobile air intakes to keep snow out of the engine.

We attached the Frogzskin mesh to a 1/4″-inch thick 6×9 spacer and sandwiched it in between the side wall of the saddlebag and the speaker. We used stainless steel hardware to mount the speakers.

Critical Tuning

We wrapped up the project by working on the system tuning. We used our Term Lab system and its integrated RTA to analyze the frequency response of the system. Because the factory radio is tuned for wimpy front speakers only, there was a huge bump between 60 and 100 Hz that sounds completely un-natural once real speakers are installed.

Many clients come to us complaining that the new speakers they or their mechanic installed sound bad and, in many cases, customers have damaged the speakers because they didn’t take into account the factory equalization curve. We adjusted the crossover on the amplifier to compensate for the factory radio equalization curve and smooth out the response. The result is an audio system that sounds good and plays loud without the risk of damaging the speakers.

Road Glide Audio Upgrades Are A Huge Success!

When the client returned to pick up his bike, the first thing he did was hop on and have a listen. He was stunned at just how much better a properly designed and tuned audio system could sound. He proclaimed that it was like listening to his favorite music for the first time. We call that a huge success!

If you are interested in an upgrade to your motorcycle’s audio system, then drop by Extreme Audio today. We would be happy to have a look at your bike and determine what upgrades will give you the performance you want. For more information about any of our products or services, please contact us here.