I went for a day-ride just short of 400 miles a few weeks ago. Living in the Texas hill country offers a ton of backroads and small towns to explore. Anyway, during a good portion of the ride I was headed into a pretty fierce headwind. The trike handled it well but I couldn’t hear the HD Boom “audio” system. Even with the volume cranked all the way up all I could hear head was when the wind noise and trike exhaust. How am I supposed to sing along with Ferlin Young or Skeeter Davis via SiriusXM when I can’t hear ‘em?
So, I did some research on the net and talked to a lot of people. Looked into the JM Rokker, Biketronics, Rockford-Fosgate, HD Boom stage II/III as well as a combination of a number of other makes and manufacturers. Going into this there were two caveats. First, I always wear either a ¾ or full-face helmet. Second, I always wear ear-plugs. My hearing is bad enough without hurting it more without a bit of protection.
All the systems and components I looked at had both positive and negative reviews. Ultimately, the system I had installed the other day came from Soundz Baggers. I just got the 4 speaker system with Iron 65s in the front and Iron 61s in the rear pods. The reason I chose the 61s for the back is I generally don’t hear much from the rear speakers anyway and rarely travel with a passenger.
The first system test came Friday night when I went cruising into the local Sonic with “Wooly-Bully” blasting away. One of the cute car-hops came over grinning and said, “That was really loud!” The ultimate test was Saturday when I got on TX 130. TX 130 is a toll road east of Austin with a speed limit of 80. If you’re not doing at least 85 you might get run over. So, I set the cruise on 85 and cranked up the tunes. For the first time in four years I could finally hear the audio traveling at speed.
So, I did some research on the net and talked to a lot of people. Looked into the JM Rokker, Biketronics, Rockford-Fosgate, HD Boom stage II/III as well as a combination of a number of other makes and manufacturers. Going into this there were two caveats. First, I always wear either a ¾ or full-face helmet. Second, I always wear ear-plugs. My hearing is bad enough without hurting it more without a bit of protection.
All the systems and components I looked at had both positive and negative reviews. Ultimately, the system I had installed the other day came from Soundz Baggers. I just got the 4 speaker system with Iron 65s in the front and Iron 61s in the rear pods. The reason I chose the 61s for the back is I generally don’t hear much from the rear speakers anyway and rarely travel with a passenger.
The first system test came Friday night when I went cruising into the local Sonic with “Wooly-Bully” blasting away. One of the cute car-hops came over grinning and said, “That was really loud!” The ultimate test was Saturday when I got on TX 130. TX 130 is a toll road east of Austin with a speed limit of 80. If you’re not doing at least 85 you might get run over. So, I set the cruise on 85 and cranked up the tunes. For the first time in four years I could finally hear the audio traveling at speed.
