Went a different route with my Vaquero's audio system

[RACNRAY]

The OEM audio system was fine untill i added a loud exhaust and my BAK. I found that at the higher speeds and/or traveling into the wind or ridin in gusty conditions the system just could not punch thru the all the noise no matter how high I had the volume turned up to.

So, my first mod was to change the speakers. Hog Tunes came out with direct replacement speakers for the Vulcans. The claim was 20% more sound. On my skoot I experienced a LOSS of sound volume. At those times where I could not hear the OEM system good enuff I would just turn it off. The night I rode with the HT speakers I was disappointed in the loss of volume that I rode with the system off most of the night. Now I know that some peeps were happy with the HT speakers, unfortunately my skoot and my ears were not happy. They were removed the next day and put away.

Many know of the members that upgraded to the Rockford/Fosgate amps and how much of an improvement it made, and I followed those threads and learned alot. I am grateful to those who made the upgrades and posted the results. My own problem, and it's all mine is the amount of work involved in the install, which really is not alot. But workin on skoots all day then trying to find the gumption to install the amp and do all the wiring had me procrastinating big time.

Afew weeks ago we installed a handlebar mounted audio system with amplified speakers on a customers skoot that connected to her i-pod. The sound was great and the volume was good also. That got me thinking and I did a search for "5 1/4"amplified speakers" and came up with Cycle Sounds m/c audio specialists. COOL!! Their site showed the amplified speakers with what they call "Power Pucks". What they also had were the pPwer Puck amplifiers available seperately to use with my speakers. Since I already had the HT speakers that was supposed to be better than stock speakers I inquired about the power pucks.

I spoke to a lady (I think here name was Valerie) who was EXTREMELY helpful in answering my lame brained questions. We did get to the point where my questions exceeded her knowledge, I was then put in touch with Bill. He was so helpful in "teaching" me stuff about audio ,uh, stuff. Vey helpful people with the kind of customer service that puts a big smile on my face.

We decided that I would order the Power Puck amplifiers to use with the HT speakers. So couple of weeks ago I recieved the amps. The install was exactly what this lazy guy wanted. All i had to remove was the speakers, the speaker housings and the headlite. The amps required a switched 12 volt supply and a ground, both of which are found in the inside of the fairing on the upper left side. EASY AS PIE!! Just what this lazy dude wanted!

The amps have 4 different adjustments that we went thru to get the sound right. I was kinda disappointed when I really cranked up the gain, the speakers distorted, so we just tuned for the best sound quality.

Out on the road there was a deffinate boost in sound volume with a bit better sound quality. I still wanted more volume than what i tuned it for, but even with that tuning the clarity was,um, not what I wanted.

Last week a Vaquero owner brought his skoot in for baseline dyno runs on his stock skoot b4 he did his mods. He had installed the Rockford amp with Infinity speakers. I was impressed with the fullness of the sound. He had sent me a link to buy those Infinity speakers, which i did, and today did the install one speaker at a time.

First was to install the right side speaker with no adjustment to the amp. Both my mechanic and myself could tell a HUGE inmprovement in sound quality, and even putting my head close to the HT speaker I could hear the Infinity speaker drowning the HT speaker out. Cranking up the volume we could tell a noticeable iprovement in the sound clearity as the words in the song were perfectly clear coming from the Infinity speaker. I replaced the other HT speaker and WOW, what an even bigger improvement. I will take the skoot out tonite for a ride to hear what the improvements are on the road.

PICS OF THE POWER PUCKS...







THE INFINITY SPEAKER...





So, this is kinda the lazy man's way of improving the sound, and at this point
I really look forward to what I hear on the road. If it's more gooder ( as my dad used to say) then I'll open up the amps and do some more tuning.

Thanx to Barry for his speaker recommendation, and thanx to the fine peeps at Cycle Sounds.

I'll let u'all know after tonite's ride.

RACNRAY