| Author | Message | ||
     7873jake |
I just "won" (from a contest at work) a Sirius Stratus 6 + car kit. If I hard wire this thing into my bike, can I play it through my headphones in my helmet using the line out as though it were playing through the AUX in my car or home system? I only ask this because when I made the inquiry in the Sirius customer care system, the guy there said, "no, it has to be operated through a head unit in a car or one of our on-the-go portable units. If you want to play it in the house, you'll need a home docking system, sold separately." I said "but it says that it will play in my car using the cassette adapter?? Isn't that the same as a pair of headphones OUT!?!" He said "no". I said   Anybody with experience in this got a flashlight of truth they can lend me for a second? | ||
| Steelshoe |
I have used several XM car kits on many motorcyles. Presently I have a garmin 2720 I think is the number, with built in XM, I can move it from bike to bike in about 15 minutes.Have been using it for at least 3 yrs. I use Etymotic Research earbuds, they are about $75 on amazon. Other quality earbuds will work but the Ety's have a great soft gizmo that seals up your ear from wind noise. I have used this with several model XM radios and has always worked, I have about 50% hearing lose in both ears and it works great for me. There is a volume control in the audio section in the menu, I leave it on high. I will never leave home without it, fox news, 60's,70's,80's channels are all I listen to nation wide. GO FOR IT!! | ||
| 7873jake |
My gut said the "line out" on the unit would feed my headphones but I figured I'd ask out loud to make sure that Sirius or XM didn't make it some funky way that would prevent it from working as such. | ||
| Steelshoe |
O with the earbudsOPS, Also you should use a 12V power port with the unit because they don't require 12V and the plug is a voltage reducer. And, I don't use a helmet in summer here in Az and I can still hear fine. The made for helmet velcro in little speakers do not work for me. not enough volume. I need the sound injected directly into my head. | ||
| Johnnylunchbox |
I use headphones with my Sirius Starmate and it lacks a little in volume for freeway droning, but it's just right for backroads. An inline amp would be perfect though. Short answer though is "Yes" you can plug headphones in the line out. | ||
| Towpro |
I am pretty sure I have had my headphones plugged direct into my Sirius receiver. It sounds kind of flat because there is no EQ on the receiver. Go into the menu and there is a place you can turn up or down the volume. You can try it out with out subscribing. Just turn it on and it goes to a free advertisement channel. In fact you have to get it hooked up before you can subscribe. I use one at my Desk at work, hooked up to a little sony stereo. Then I bring home just the receiver and 12V power supply cable when I am doing a trip on the Uly. I plug it into my Autocom using the same jack I would plug my MP3 player into, and I know for sure I can plug my head phones into the MP3. In fact when I plug in the Sirius receiver, the volume is perfect, but when I plug in the MP3, I have to turn it up much louder then I would ever listen to it with ear buds. I mount the antenna with velcro on top of the master cylinder, and stick the extra cables in the handlebar bag. My Sirius unit goes in the top of my tank bag. | ||
| Two_buells |
try this motorcycle mounting kit http://www.tss-radio.com/professional-motorcycle-install-kit-sirpmk1-p-4430.html your only issue might be not having enough volume to drive your helmet speakers at hwy speeds. between my two buells and my ATV I have a Starmate, Stiletto 2, XMP3 and XM with my Garmin GPS 550 Zumo The Speakers that I use are Chatterbox, do a search for Chatterbox helmet speakers. Motorcycle Superstore has them for under 20 bucks. You also need a male to male audio cord; they sell a nice coiled one for 9.99. I did buy all of my speakers from Riders Warehouse but they stopped selling them, don’t know why. These speakers work real well with no-amp and just an iPod can drive enough audio at speed. The Best Satellite Radio to use for a Motorcycle is an old Starmate. It has an external volume control or a Stiletto 2 with a car dock will drive enough sound to make you deaf. With the Stiletto 100 or 2 you can adjust volume and/or hit pause at a stop light to talk to a fellow rider. I have played with a few amps also. The best I’ve found is an Iasus mobile amp. It has a Volume Control Machined from aluminum with precise control for volume settings, even with gloves on. Only draw back is the battery is internal and you must charge it every 20 hours. World's smallest high fidelity amplifier for iPod and other portable media devices http://www.iasus-concepts.com/nt/amp.htm ChatterBox Helmet Audio Headset - Street Bike - Motorcycle Superstore http://www.motorcycle-superstore.com/1/4/62/15618/ITEM/ChatterBox-Helmet-Audio-Headset.aspx?SiteID=CSE_GBase_062&WT.mc_ID=80003&zmam=88421133&zmas=1&zmac=45&zmap=15618    | ||
| Two_buells |
The antenna in the Motorcycle kit from TSS Radio has a 12" wire/coax, no need to wrap up 25' of extra wire. Look at the picture of the XMP3 on the right handlebar of my Uly, very short antenna wire. On the 1125R us can see the antennas under the windshield. | ||
| 7873jake |
Its like Christmas in late April... Ohhhhh yessssss! Thank you all for confirming for me! | ||
| Ratbuell |
"Line Out" is flat and quiet, but *will* drive headphones. Quietly. If you imagine volume on a scale of 1 to 10 (or eleven, depending on your movie choices LOL)...a line out is around a 2. There are items in amplifiers and mixing consoles called pre-amps, and they only have so much capacity before they start to overload and distort, so Line Level outputs are purposely low-level. You mention a cassette adapter - ever do a mix tape and try to make it a little too loud, and it got all crappy and distorted sounding? That was because you pushed the levels too high, and they overload the preamps. The main operational difference you'll notice on the Sirius is, no easy access to a volume control (as noted above, it's a menu step, not just a button). It is strictly a pre-amp setup, designed to run into a head unit (amp) with volume and tone controls for listening. I've been debating either getting one of the setups mentioned above so I can use one of our units on my Uly (we have a pair of Stratus dock-n-plays), or just swapping my Stratus for one of the "personal receivers" that are designed for headphone use. As far as programming and coverage, though? We're addicted to Sirius. We got a free year with a Dodge Magnum R/T we bought, and it worked...we got hooked. No commercials, and even if you're driving from one coast to the other...you never have to change the station if you don't want to. Cool stuff. | ||
| Steelshoe |
Use earbuds not headphones! | ||
| Ratbuell |
Same difference. Line Out isn't enough to drive "speakers" - as in, sound producing devices. The spec is to safely feed a signal to an amplifier, so the AMP can drive the "speaker". It's all about ohms, not watts. | ||
| Two_buells |
Over the last 5 years I’ve played with a lot of different Sirius and XM radios for my bikes. I also had a Stratus on my first Uly. It did have enough audio output to drive the chatterbox speakers that I have a link to in the above post. With the Stratus and many other Sirius radios they do not have an external volume control. You have to hit menu, scroll down to audio, adjust volume, set it, than menu back out. Or use the remote. The Sirius Stiletto 2 has an external volume control and has enough audio output while connected to the car dock to make you deaf. The Chatterbox speakers work ok. There are better helmet speakers out there. Some sound better but I found that most of the better helmet speakers need an amp to drive them. The mini amp I posted a link to in my above post has a nice big volume control that you can use with gloves on. I have my chatterbox helmet speakers mounted in two of my Arai helmets. They have a cheek pad without an ear pocket. In other words it is very close to your ear. I have me speakers mounted in the cheek pads right next to my ear. Some helmets have a deep area where your ears fit. If you mount your speakers in that pocket with space between your ears and the speakers it might be noisy due to the wind. I also have a set of older Harley headset helmet speakers. These have very good audio but need and amp or a radio with more audio output to use them. Some people like earbuds, I don’t because everytime I put my helmet on they fall out. | ||
| Billyo |
I have a Pioneer Inno2 XM mounted on the handlebar, an amp under the seat, volume knob (way too touchy-goes from about 10%-75% in about 5 degrees of turn) on the left switch cover, XM antenna on the trunk, and speakers in the tank bag. It's loud enough up to about 80mph. We use the new Scala Rider G4 communicators so I like to keep the music completely separate. I used to have speakers in my helmet. I took a nice pair of JVC headphones apart and put the speakers under the material in the ear pockets. Then i ran a Boosteroo to get the power up enough to hear at highway speeds. The wire that went from the MP3 or XM unit to the Boosteroo had a volume control in it. This worked pretty well also. You can buy the Boosteroo at Radio Shack for about $30 and the in-line volume control on eBay pretty cheap. If you put speakers in your helmet, get a descent pair that has a slim speaker. I liked the speakers better than ear buds because I could hear what was going on around me better. Even with the drummer exhaust I couldn't really even hear the bike running when the music was on really low volume with the buds. If you do a google search you can find how-to's and pictures of the speaker install. I have a nice set of amplified computer speakers with a subwoofer that would fit in the tank bag really good, but they are 115VAC transformed to 24VAC. If I could figure out how to run them off 12VDC they would sound awesome. I talked to a Bose dealer and he said he has had a bunch of people wanting to use their amplified speakers on a bike or boat but no one has figured out how to power them. It would waste too much power inverting to 115VAC. So, if anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them. | ||
| Billyo |
BTW As great as it is having tunes to ride by, sometimes it's nice to shut it off and listen to the sweet Buell tunes as I'm working the gears out on the back roads. | ||
| 7873jake |
I have a Nolan N-100 and can use earbuds w/o issue with this helmet. I haven't always had that luxury with previous helmets. Because I'm still on the road (day 20 of 22), I couldn't order the Iasus unit and get it in time for a couple of long distance days coming up but found a Boostaroo at the local Radio Shack for $20. I really like the Iasus unit though. The Boostaroo I found doesn't have a volume control, it simply 2x's the amplification. That plus a pair of headphones with a volume control will be my prelim set-up for now until I can get home and reevaluate the myriad of choices I've been given (and am thankful for). | ||
| Discochris |
I'm running XM through my Garmin 478 and a J&M 2003 CB/Audio system. This is the same system I had on my last bike, except I didn't have the 478 at the time, and was running an old Delphi XM Roady 2. I run J&M helmet speakers and always wear earplugs, and I can hear very clearly. |
