Got back from vacation and received my radio back from Iron Cross Audio with the Pre-Amp outputs (Front and Rear) and Bluetooth mods. It took them about 4 days to turn the radio around and get it back to me. I shipped it on a Monday, they got it late on Wednesday, and on the following Tuesday they shipped it back out.. so about 9 business days total with shipping included. So be prepared to be without your radio for a bit.

Overall the quality of the work seems good and clean. Other than the cables coming out the back of the unit for the Pre-Amp output it looks OEM.. didn't open it up to look at the bluetooth stuff.

Paired it up with my new Biketronics 4180 amp from the group buy. The first thing I noticed is with the Pre-Amp outputs you better have a good amp.. Because you are going to need the power to drive the speakers to the volume you want. I don't think my RF PBR300x2 would have been up to the task to bring the volume to an acceptable level and push my BT 7.1's and Kappa's.

My distortion problems are gone, I don't get any distortion until I get up to about 3 ticks on the volume scale from max.. and then it still depends on the source as well. I think that is about as well as you are going to do with the stock HU. Before the Pre-Amp mod I could get distortion at 50% or less in some cases while playing music from my Android phone.. (Amp in the phone, amp in the radio, amp in the fairing = distortion).

So overall I would say I am pleased with the Pre-amp output mod. It allowed me to keep my stock HU (Which was the goal) and eliminate most of the distortion from the crappy amp circuitry.

I also had them do the Bluetooth mod.. which I was kind of torn on doing. I wasn't sure if the sound quality would be the same as going through the aux port and I didn't know how well it would integrate/pair with my phone.. but I gave it a shot. I was EXTREMELY pleased here.. The pairing worked flawlessly, and the sound quality was awesome.. The devices sync back up after powering the bike off and on without a hitch. They even found a way to use one of the buttons on the front of the radio to switch tracks.

The only downside here is you really don't have much control using your stock controls, but considering this is basically a hack I am more than happy.

Overall I would recommend these mods for those looking to keep the stock HU. Iron Cross has a great reputation here and I think they lived up to it. If I had one complaint it would just be that they are kind of hard to get a hold of on the phone. However, when you do get someone on the they will spend the time to answer your questions.. I probably spent 20 minutes on the phone before purchasing with one of their tech folks (Tony perhaps?) and asked him everything I could think of.. If they give every customer that level of attention then I am OK with it taking a while to get someone on the phone.

It cost $270 for the mods with return shipping costs included in that.. I think it was $115 for the pre-amp outputs, $140 for the bluetooth, and $15 for shipping. So these mods are NOT cheap. If you aren't set on keeping the stock HU you will probably find better value in purchasing a third party head unit.

One last bit of kudos I had posted about my antenna cable getting stuck in my HU.. they were able to remove it and didn't charge me anything for it. I had to purchase a new cable from Harley and re-run it but I appreciate them taking care of it free of charge.

 

good info and review, I have a few buddies looking to do add the pre outs on the stock unit.

 

Well done & congrats. Happy customer.

 

Question for those with Ultra's: If I'm only going to use a BT2180 to power fairing speakers and do the ICA pre-amps for the stock CVO HK head unit, should I only do the front channel? I'm currently powering my rear pods from the CVO amp mounted under the tour pak and will probably stick with this setup. Can the HK handle front channel RCA's with the rear channel line outs; and how does it affect the fader/balance of the sound coming out of the amp?

 

ICA is just tapping the input pins on the internal amp, and then adding RCA plugs. The speaker wires are still active in your harness, so there's no affect on fader use- I'm using front and rear RCA's to power my upper/lower faring speakers, and the speaker-level connections to power my tourpak pods for the time being. Get front and rears done. It's not much more in the pricing, and futureproofs you should you decide to one day upgrade the rears.

 

Thanks Crimson for the write up helps in the decision process.
Big L

 

I'd agree with the front and rear comment.. get them both done.. you will want to do it eventually.. I thought I wouldn't, I was wrong.. As far as the fader controls you are right, they still work.. even on the RCA outputs.