Road Tunes On The Cheap

Shit happens when you get old. Like me wanting to put some tunes on my Heritage. I figured it might be nice to have something to listen to other than my co-pilot beating on my back a saying “I gotta’ piss”.

Now there are a lot of options out there to make this happen most of them just aren’t my options. The faring option? No way. To much smokes and coffee money. Speakers on the handlebars? Maybe. But you still gotta’ do something with the amp. Generally they get stashed in a windshield pouch or saddlebag. Both of which are not easily accessibly and lend to exposed wires. Plus I don’t really care for speakers on the bars. They stick out to far and screw up the flow lines.

So you’ve got this empty space between the bars and windshield that looked like something would fit there. Now to find it. There’s a lot of stuff out there on the www. Some cheap some way on the overkill side. I just wanted something to listen to Dean Martin on, not blast the paint off my tank with hippie music. I finally settled on a company out of Brooklyn, NY named Gooddeals18. They sell Shark Audio, which is a brand I’ve never heard of.

Judging by their pricing I guessed it would be poorly assembled crap from China. I was correct. I also knew I was going to disassemble every part. The speaker grills were painted to cover the ‘shark’ logo. Tabs were shaved down on the inside and fiber washers were added between the speaker and grill mounts. Never mistake a speaker with a mechanical vibration with a blown speaker. Two different things. The amp was striped and repainted. Again, to cover up the logo. Sorry folks over at Shark, but I don’t do advertising, just sarcasm.

The mount is 1/16 steel plate, 1” bar clamps, some welding, drilling and a project box mounted underneath to hide the wires. The amp plays my operas via a AUX input, USB or SD. Plus it has a FM tuner. The specs say its 250W. I doubt it, but don’t really care. Going down the road fast, of course, I can hear the tunes just fine at about 80% volume. The speakers shocked the shit out of me. The sound is excellent. The buttons on the amp are a little small, but at 3.25 inches across the front what do you expect. It doesn’t take long for your fingers to memorize what’s what. The only thing I really need is the volume control while moving. When I find a Glide that no longer needs its handlebar volume control and housing I’ll solder it into the amp.

All things considered, except for me being out about a hundred bucks, I think it’ll do what I want, for now. Other modifications are pending.