I need some advice. After poring over all the audio threads on these forums, I think I'm "less informed." I'm, for sure, more confused.

Here's my situation: I have a 2003 Electra Classic with the stock RadioSound CD head unit. I have traditionally worn a helmet-mounted FRS radio that I can move from bike to bike when I'm on long trips, so I don't use CB. However, I ride with a club full of Ultras and Goldwings...all CB equipped. Consequently my winter project this year is to add the RS Ultra radio to get CB functionality.

I've spoken to RS Customer Service and have been acquiring the looms, switches and so forth as I find them on eBay. Here's my question, though...actually I have more than one, this is my PRIMARY question. The woman at RadioSound told me with the Ultra radio I **have** to have the rear speakers, that without them the "amp will break down over time." I know almost nothing about stereos and sound...but this seems flat wrong to me. What say you? I spend much of the summer without the Tour Pak installed and really don't think the rear speakers are going to add much to my ride quality. If I don't need to install the rear pods, I won't

I'm not installing speakers in the bags.

If I *must* install rear speakers, I might consider adding them front, lower. But since the Classic doesn't have lowers, I wonder if anyone has a clean method of installing in this position.

Lastly, would I benefit from adding an aftermarket amp? Except for having the four channel feature, is the Ultra amp any "bigger" than the radio that came stock on the Classic?

I really appreciate all the helpful people on here...just answer in plain English, cuz electronic engineering is not my strong suit.

 

the amp "needs" to see a resistive load ( 4 ohms on that one?)

if you are not running speakers, you could run a big resistor between the + and -

that way the amp will be happy, but a 4 ohm 40 watt resistor may be bulky and it needs room to shed heat.

maybe get some lowers, add speakers there.


Mike

 

Hey, thanks a lot for your input.

 

To be honest I do not know the RadioSound stuff but I did install car audio for over 15yrs so hopefully this will help a little. All radios are set to have a certain wattage output at a certain OHM rating ie, 35watts @ 4 ohms per channel and all speakers are a certain ohm rating 2, 4, and 8 while you can generally get away with putting an 8 ohm speaker on a radio that is rated for 4 ohms you will not use it to maximum performance and if you use a 2 ohm rated speaker on a 4 ohm radio the radios life will be extremely short if it even works however if you have a 4 channel radio not using 2 channels will not shorten the life of said radio or amp. And now a little more confusion for you. You can change the OHM rating on speakers if you tie 2 of them together and use them on the same channel. Lets say you have 2x 2ohm speakers if you tie the 2 positives together and the 2 negtives together and hook them up (also known as parallel) to said radio you now have 1ohm, however if you take the positive of one speaker and tie it to the negative of the other and then use the postive of one speaker and the negative of the other (also know as series) you now have 4 ohms on that said channel. sorry if the last part confused you at all and Iwould be happy to help out any other way if needed.

Tom

 

That's news to me, I don't believe it. In fact most 4 channel amps say if you do not use all four channels you can get more out of the two you do use. The new fosgate amps for example, 4 channels at 75 watts each OR two channels at 100 watts. I've never heard anything about burning out an amp if you don't use every channel. You might even want to just use one channel. There may be some amps that work that way, don't know if I would want one.

 

Generally most amps do in fact work like you state but you need to bridge the channels to get that output so you would use the positive of one channel and the negative of the other to basically double the amps power output.

 

Thanks, guys. I don't actually understand "why," but I appreciate your input!