I am considering a fairing for my 04 RK. I have narrowed it down to deadcenter cycles and dragonfly. Both seem to have received fairly good reviews. Any concerns on either? Has anyone purchased the stereo and speakers that dead center is offering? If so, how do they sound at road speeds? If I go with the dragonfly I will not go with their Kenwood stereo becuase I want a unit that is XM compatible rather than Sirius. Any suggestions on a good marine unit and speakers to install in the fairing? Can anyone advise the price on the dead center without the radio and speakers?

Thanx,

Paul

 

anything that makes it look like a glide is a good thing!!!

 

I just dropped my hoppe quadzilla off for paint ,will post pics soon!!!I bought it on ebay 1300. and some change!

 

Paul - you asked about the price of a Dead Center Fairing without stereo and speakers. It's $1299 configured that way, which includes the retractable stereo cover. The price with the full stereo setup is $1699, which includes the wiring harness for the bike.

You also asked for recommendations regarding stereos. After evaluating a number of different models I settled on the Sony CDX-R30M as the standard unit in the Dead Center Fairing. We have had positive feedback from customers since offering this system and I personally really like it. My goals for the stereo head unit were as follows, in rough priority order:

* It must be true marine grade with coated circuit board (for longevity in wet/humid outdoor environment)
* it must sound good and have plenty of power for the speakers it will be matched with
* CD skipping should be very rare, if ever
* it should be satellite compatible
* it should have the capability to play CD's burned with the MP3 format (you can fit 6+ albums on one CD this way)
* the buttons should be workable with gloves (small ***** not as good as large buttons), particularly those used often such as volume and up/down stations/tracks
* it should have inputs for MP3 players, especially IPOD
* if you can control the MP3 player/IPOD from the deck this is a plus
* ATT (attenuate) feature is a plus (with the push of a button the volume is cut to maybe 10% or 20% - I use this when I come to a stop light so as not to blow away the guy in the cage next to me with his window rolled down)
* price must be affordable
* ideal if the face is black
* ideal if you have the option to control the unit using EG handlebar mount thumb controls

The Sony we settled on meets most of these (it's not black and an adaptor is required to control your IPOD, it's XM ready but not Sirrus - but you can't have both in that case, I don't think). All the current Sonys (I think) are compatible with the biketronics (www.biketron.com) "retro radio" system, which is a bit spendy but gives you the capability to use EG handlebar mount thumb controls to control the stereo. I have had customers that use it and really like it.

If your priorities are different, they might lead you to a different deck. The Sony decks have a CD drive they call "drive S" which works really well in regard to not skipping on a motorcycle. One of the things that surprised me when evaluating stereos for our fairing was how many of them skipped when mounted on a bike. With this Sony you can get it to skip, but it takes a pretty big bump and this unit is much better than any other I evaluated in this regard. Other Sony's worth considering (check out the marine section of www.crutchfield.com if you want to see them) are the CDX-F50M and CDX-GT10M. Both are marine grade, the F50M is a step up from the 30 and the GT10M is a step down.

The GT10M doesn't play CD's burned in MP3 format and isn't satellite-ready, so if you don't care about those things you could save money with it plus it has something the others don't - an aux input on the front faceplate for MP3 player etc. input so you don't need an additional adaptor. (It's odd to me that the lowest priced deck is the only one with this feature.)

The F50M has a fold-down style faceplate and some sound-stage kinds of controls which the others don't, plus everything that the X30M has. It's the highest priced one but to me these additional features aren't useful on a motorcycle.

Both the GT10M and the F50M have the drawback (to me) of a **** style volume control.
I went into stereo shops wearing my motorcycle gloves and found these types of units difficult to operate. I also tried several of this style in our fairing on the road and found it worse - you get ahold of the **** to adjust volume, hit a little bump or whatever and get something different than you wanted. You need to be able to steady your hand. With the button style you can steady y

 

Pics of my hoppe fairing