Well as of yesterday morning, I can vouch for the water-resistant-ness of the Jensen JHD 3620. I got caught in a torrential down-pour with hurricane like winds that were blowing me all over the highway. It lightened up a little bit by the time I got to the first overpass to hide under, and since I was on my way to work and only 5 minutes away from a dry garage, I kept going. I shut the radio off during the storm. When I got to work, I spent a few minutes drying off the chrome and such, then sent my uniform through the clothes-dryer. This morning on my way home, the radio worked perfectly fine, and on the first sharp left hand turn, almost a cup of water came pouring out from under the radio caddy! LOL!

I'm not too impressed by that Clarion. No weather band(which I actually use) and no front input jacks(which I also use). The inputs are all in rear. That means you would have to run an extension cable out of the fairing somewhere to plug anything into it unless you plan on sticking with the blue tooth link. I'm not a fan of bluetooth for audio playback, especially for MP3's. MP3's are compressed to fit a lot of the music into a small digital file and it does this by removing parts of the recording that you aren't supposed to be able to hear anyways, then blue tooth compresses this even more to be able to stream as smoothly as it does. The end result can be maddening to any true audiofile...

 

Thanks for the feedback!! I think I'll try using my Samsung Galaxy S3 to stream music via bluetooth on someone else's radio before I consider buying the Clairon. I've never owned a head unit with this function but it really sounds like something I could use. I listen to I-heart radio and Pandora every day and I have hundreds of songs on my phone. It would be nice to put my phone in the RAM mount on my handlebars and never have to plug anything in. I figured I would end up running the usb jack somewhere on my fairing and fix mounting it as well. The Jensen radio looks like a basic, user friendly, and very rugged unit with easy access to everything (which can be critical while operating a bike.)

Oh well......I'm gonna have to just pick one and order it....theres always eBay to pawn off my bad choices to someone else if I dont like one or the other. By the way....here is the Polk DB401's for less than $50!!! I'll definately be ordering these.....no 4" marine speaker is rated better...by far!!

 

This is my new head unit, it's an entry level, loaded JVC Digital Media Player KDX50BT. Got mine for $100 @ Best Buy back at the start of this summer.



I replaced a Kenwood model that had a CD player that wouldn't work on the road, and had a removable face plate that started making intermittent contact because of the high vibration rate of our bikes.

The load time on the JVC is as bad as mentioned above, several seconds each time the ignition is switched on, just prior to riding. I haven't found this to be too much of an issue. I prefer using the rear input USB cable and tucked it into my left fairing compartment for out of the way connecting and access.

What I do like is it's simple to use, operate and understand remote. The Kenwood's was very complex and you had to take several pushes to get to the usable modes which sucked as you rode. The JVC is easily controlled remotely.

The bluetooth is for phone calls and to stream Pandora from anything bluetooth, but not specifically your own music library ... unless it's on an "I" device which it's setup nicely for, even recharges those devices along with accessing it's stored music.

It's not marine, doesn't have weather (which I admit would be nice) and because it's not water resistant I have the cover we talked about at the beginning of this thread.

Because the remote has a choice of "EQ" presets it's nice to directly adjust tone because from song to song it may need re-adjusting for optimum sound.

It does not interconnect to handle bar controls. My remote is velcro'ed to my dash on the filler cover of my tank, I don't like clutter all over the handlebars.

Stock it plays well with the speakers I showed earlier in this thread too.

I have more volume than I need without amps. Of course amps will give you the boost to run the main unit at a lower volume with less distortion and will give you cleaner BIG sound.

It's not bad at all with 4" speakers. Let's face it the bike puts out a lot of noise, and then add wind noise. We don't have the luxury of a noise dampened passenger compartment so a mix of the road and the music will always have outside issues to contend with.

Oh and the pause is nice for the times you need to hear something, or just to run quiet, like at stop lights, etc. I prefer a button that gives you a preset volume drop, but I haven't seen that feature in a long time even on TVs.

 

I put 1 of theses in a 1986 flhtc works great I`ll get some pics.http://www.retrosoundusa.com/products/category/id/1

 

No cutting ,you can no longer use hand controls ,but, does have remote.Can put in with factory weather shield.still working on pics.It has usb card reader I put over 70 cds on 1 usb and actually its behind head light no need to get to it.

 

http://this is with weather cover open

 

This is weather cover closed I put remote in zipper on left handlebar

 

Anybody seen these???? Alpine is claiming that their universal control interface will work with Harleys but it doesn't state any year model ranges.

Opinions??

Here's the site I found it on: http://www.gooddeals18.com/product/S...nterface.html#

The SWI-ALP is so universal that you only need one SKU# to cover over 95% of the vehicles made from 1986 to current. Assign the buttons on the steering wheel to any of the 8 specific Alpine functions. Volume Up, Volume Down, Mute, Track Up, Track Down, Preset Up, Preset Down and Band The SWI-ALP has non-volatile memory which keeps all programming in memory even if the vehicle battery is disconnected. Great for convertables. Unlike the SWI-X, the SWI-ALP does not get affected by sunlight. The SWI-ALP not only covers Ford, GM or Chrysler/Dodge but also it covers Acura, Audi, BMW, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Chysler, GMC, Honda, Hummer, Infiniti, Isuzu, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lincoln, Mazda, Mercury, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Saab, Toyota and Volkswagan. Oh, did we also say it covers Harley Davidson motorcycles?

 

The write up on the Alpine states for vehicles 1986 and older. This is only a dedicated Alpine interface device and is only matched to the Alpine unit.

With the 1986 Harley you have to replace the control on the handlebars with an updated version. 1986 and older used an actual volume control of a specific resistance for the handlebar control of the OEM radio. The later models have the push, momentary contact switch for volume up / down features.

 

The SWI-ALP is so universal that you only need one SKU# to cover over 95% of the vehicles made from 1986 to current.[/QUOTE]

It sounded more like it's compatible with vehicles from 1986 and newer (1986 to current.) It doesn't state what year model Harleys it's compatible with. From my experience with car stereos, Alpine usually makes one of the best head units. I would be happy to get an Alpine marine unit if anybody knows how to set this stuff up on a 1992 FLHTC???

You think it's worth calling tech support or cust service? I don't know a whole lot about handlebar / steering wheel control interface. Sounds like you have some experience