Using earbud type headset with HD intercom:

[trmn8r]

I like having the intercom and cb when I'm traveling but the speakers in them SUCK. Didn't want to pay the price for the J&M or other headset and besides the speakers are still to far from your ears for good sound still IMHO.

Wired it up so I now plug my earbuds into my HD setup. Sound great blocks out all outside noise if you turn it up just a little bit. Turn it down low and you can hear the bike, and your surroundings but its almost like wearing ear plugs, everything is muted a bit. Turn it up a little more and all you hear is the music you want to hear. A good song comes on and you can crank it up enough to make your ears blead with no distortion that my ole worn out ears could detect.

Started with just a standard HD headset:


This was the first time I had tried this and I wasn't sure how it would work out so I cut the wires to each speaker leaving enough on the speaker end that I could always hook up the old speakers if I had to. This made the lead coming off the headset shorter than I would have prefered. Not to short to be used with no problem, but just short enough that it make slipping the screw on cover for the stereo headphone jack up the wires while soldering difficult. Next time I will cut the wires right next to the shorter (left side) earphone, leaving them as long as possible.

All I used to do this is:


small soldering iron
silver soldler (acid flux core solder will cause the copper wires to corrode so I used this)
wire stripper that can strip down to 24 ga. wire. (small stuff)
a couple of different sizes of shrink tubing.
1/8" female stereo jack (radio shack calls it a 1/8" phone jack. make sure not to get the one labeled mono, they are kept together and I almost grabbed the wrong one

Strip the outside black insulation off each side exposing the two wires inside


Hoping to make it stronger and not want to come apart when tugged on in the future I put a piece of shrink tubing over where the wires now exit former outer insulation. Over that but not shown I put another piece of shrink tube to cover from this piece all the way up to the intercom body.


No pic of it but only strip about 1/4 off each wire, any more ends up just being extra in the way once you try to install the plugs outer screw on cover. Tin the exposed wires using silver solder, to keep the small tiny strands from fraying when you start trying to stick them through the holes in each terminal of the stereo jack. They are tiny and much bending of individual wires they will start breaking.

Slide over a piece of shrink tubing large enough to cover the back end of the stereo jack and both of the original wires ... the snugger it fits now the better it will grip it all together when shrunk down. Use as long of a piece as you have room for, still allowing you to slide on the cover for the stereo jack, so that when its all put together this piece will cover from the base of the jack back over the piece the runs back up to the intercom body that way the entire cord ends up covered in shrink wrap to keep out the elements.


Here are the two hot speaker wires. I couldn't tell you which one was originally left or right. I figure I'll never pay much attention to which earbud I put in which ear anyway.


I should have probably marked them before I cut them duh! because the stereo jack itself is always made a certain way

/ \
| | <---- Tip
\ /
*===*
| | <---- Ring
|===|
| |
| | <---- Sleeve
| |
*=====*
|XXXXX|
|XXXXX|
|XXXXX|
|XXXXX|


Stereo:
Tip = Left Channel Positive
Ring = Right Channel Positive
Sleeve = Ground


Tie the two ground (white) wires together and solder to the ground strap which is attached to the body of the jack itself.


Once the stereo jack is screwed on as shown a couple of pictures up, slide the last large piece of shrinkwrap down over the back of stereo jack plug and shrink it in place


Installed back on the helmet and ready for a test ride.


The sound from this is so much better than the crappy speakers that come with the headset its truly amazing to me. HD should make them with a jack for this built into the part that clamps to your helmet. It could be done so when you plug in a set of I-pod type headphones it automatically cuts out the crappy speakers they use. Then if you wanted to switch back and forth you could.

nvsteve pointed out this adapter that can be plugged directly into the 7 pin jack on the bike allowing you to use headphones without the mic if you're not interested in the intercom/cb use. I ordered a couple of them to use when I'm not wearing my helmet will keep them thrown in the tourpack organizer along with a plug in cb mic for times when I want to use just the cb but not be burdened with the helmet or intercom.

Wish I had of thought of doing this last year when I first got the HD headset, I hated using it till now.

[Dirty Dan]

Nice piece of engineering. Thanks.

[Dirty Dan]

I was thinking about picking up a second headset and giving this a try. After looking at the one that came with the bike, I thought to myself, "Hey, it might be worth 50 bucks to try this...."



...$189.95.


For this...


Imagine my surprise.

[trmn8r]

ebay or the classified section at vtwin forum or hdforum. I picked up a second one for $50 at hdforum.com

that $189 is what bugs me... $189 for a head set that sounds like crap IMHO

Great idea... thanks for taking the time to put it up...

[Dirty Dan]

Originally Posted by trmn8r

ebay or the classified section at vtwin forum or hdforum. I picked up a second one for $50 at hdforum.com

that $189 is what bugs me... $189 for a head set that sounds like crap IMHO

Yea, that's the thing. I'm looking at what came in the white box thinking I really don't want to cut these up so I'll but another set...how much can this cost.

200 friggin' bones...

That's how much. I couldn't believe it.

I saw a couple on eBay. Not a lot cheaper. But I'll keep watching. Auctions seem to be going for 100 to 150 and buy it now about 170 or so.

Now I gotta wonder, how much better can those J&B headsets be. You know, the $230 ones? I'd hate to order those and find they're no better than the HD ones.

[trmn8r]

I'm not buying that they are that much better myself. Thats why I went with this. I thought about it a day or two before I went to cutting. Wasn't sure exactly how headphones were wired so was kind of scared that there was no way a hot and a ground could be inside those tiny wires running to the earbuds but there must be... just had to be. Just wire the left and right to the to small terminals on the female plug, ground to the body body of the plug and it'll work. Somebody should be making this and selling them... its that good.

8-ball, glad to. I cant contribute much of real benefit, so when I find something worthwhile I try to.

[Infidel!]

I was thinking about the J&M headsets until I saw this. I had never really thought about it before, but it's a great idea. The nice thing is you can get sound-isolating earbuds that will provide some hearing protection as well as sounding better.

[hogdvr]

Originally Posted by trmn8r

I like having the intercom and cb when I'm traveling but the speakers in them SUCK. Didn't want to pay the price for the J&M or other headset and besides the speakers are still to far from your ears for good sound still IMHO.

Wired it up so I now plug my earbuds into my HD setup. Sound great blocks out all outside noise if you turn it up just a little bit. Turn it down low and you can hear the bike, and your surroundings but its almost like wearing ear plugs, everything is muted a bit. Turn it up a little more and all you hear is the music you want to hear. A good song comes on and you can crank it up enough to make your ears blead with no distortion that my ole worn out ears could detect.

Started with just a standard HD headset:


This was the first time I had tried this and I wasn't sure how it would work out so I cut the wires to each speaker leaving enough on the speaker end that I could always hook up the old speakers if I had to. This made the lead coming off the headset shorter than I would have prefered. Not to short to be used with no problem, but just short enough that it make slipping the screw on cover for the stereo headphone jack up the wires while soldering difficult. Next time I will cut the wires right next to the shorter (left side) earphone, leaving them as long as possible.

All I used to do this is:


small soldering iron
silver soldler (acid flux core solder will cause the copper wires to corrode so I used this)
wire stripper that can strip down to 24 ga. wire. (small stuff)
a couple of different sizes of shrink tubing.
1/8" female stereo jack (radio shack calls it a 1/8" phone jack. make sure not to get the one labeled mono, they are kept together and I almost grabbed the wrong one

Strip the outside black insulation off each side exposing the two wires inside


Hoping to make it stronger and not want to come apart when tugged on in the future I put a piece of shrink tubing over where the wires now exit former outer insulation. Over that but not shown I put another piece of shrink tube to cover from this piece all the way up to the intercom body.


No pic of it but only strip about 1/4 off each wire, any more ends up just being extra in the way once you try to install the plugs outer screw on cover. Tin the exposed wires using silver solder, to keep the small tiny strands from fraying when you start trying to stick them through the holes in each terminal of the stereo jack. They are tiny and much bending of individual wires they will start breaking.

Slide over a piece of shrink tubing large enough to cover the back end of the stereo jack and both of the original wires ... the snugger it fits now the better it will grip it all together when shrunk down. Use as long of a piece as you have room for, still allowing you to slide on the cover for the stereo jack, so that when its all put together this piece will cover from the base of the jack back over the piece the runs back up to the intercom body that way the entire cord ends up covered in shrink wrap to keep out the elements.


Here are the two hot speaker wires. I couldn't tell you which one was originally left or right. I figure I'll never pay much attention to which earbud I put in which ear anyway.


I should have probably marked them before I cut them duh! because the stereo jack itself is always made a certain way

/ \
| | <---- Tip
\ /
*===*
| | <---- Ring
|===|
| |
| | <---- Sleeve
| |
*=====*
|XXXXX|
|XXXXX|
|XXXXX|
|XXXXX|


Stereo:
Tip = Left Channel Positive
Ring = Right Channel Positive
Sleeve = Ground


Tie the two ground (white) wires together and solder to the ground strap which is attached to the body of the jack itself.


Once the stereo jack is screwed on as shown a couple of pictures up, slide the last large piece of shrinkwrap down over the back of stereo jack plug and shrink it in place


Installed back on the helmet and ready for a test ride.


The sound from this is so much better than the crappy speakers that come with the headset its truly amazing to me. HD should make them with a jack for this built into the part that clamps to your helmet. It could be done so when you plug in a set of I-pod type headphones it automatically cuts out the crappy speakers they use. Then if you wanted to switch back and forth you could.

nvsteve pointed out this adapter that can be plugged directly into the 7 pin jack on the bike allowing you to use headphones without the mic if you're not interested in the intercom/cb use. I ordered a couple of them to use when I'm not wearing my helmet will keep them thrown in the tourpack organizer along with a plug in cb mic for times when I want to use just the cb but not be burdened with the helmet or intercom.

Wish I had of thought of doing this last year when I first got the HD headset, I hated using it till now.

Great post. I was at the local Radio Shack yesterday buying the parts to do exactly what you did. The manager told me before doing this to think it over because I could do severe damage to the main system on the bike by changing the resistance, ohms, impedance, etc., when changing out the speakers to new ear buds. That the system is all matched right from the box throughout to the wires, speakers, headsets, etc.

Question: Did you or will I damage my on board system by simply plugging ear buds into a jack like you did and doing away with the soft speakers that came attached as original equipment? Thanks.

[Seminolebagger]

In Florida it is illegal to use ear buds while riding.


Just sayin..........



SB

[dynageno]

Nice job trmn8r, thanx

[trmn8r]

Originally Posted by hogdvr

Great post. I was at the local Radio Shack yesterday buying the parts to do exactly what you did. The manager told me before doing this to think it over because I could do severe damage to the main system on the bike by changing the resistance, ohms, impedance, etc., when changing out the speakers to new ear buds. That the system is all matched right from the box throughout to the wires, speakers, headsets, etc.

Question: Did you or will I damage my on board system by simply plugging ear buds into a jack like you did and doing away with the soft speakers that came attached as original equipment? Thanks.

It didn't hurt anything at all. With the in dash speakers you have to stay with the same ohm/impedence speakers for sound quality/volume issues. The '06 and up systems use 2 ohm speakers. My understanding is you can run 4 ohm speakers (much more standard, though more and more newer systems are going to 2 ohm) but there may be some sound quality issues, and there will be volume issues. The system is set up to drive speakers with 2 ohm resistance and if you use 4 ohm speakers it just doesn't have enough a$$ to drive the higher resistance coils. If you go the other way and run 2 ohm speakers on a 4 ohm system ??? I dont know, might play louder for a few minutes till the speakers fry.
As far as with the stock harley headset/J&M/earbuds I do not think it matters. I could find no data showing that some headphones/earbuds were 2 ohm or 4 ohm etc. I can only surmise that they are all standard... what that standard is I have no clue.
Still very happy with my setup, usually only use it when I'm traveling, not much around town.
The only change I have made from my original post is to take some black silicone and use that to glue the 1/8" female jack into the little recessed area of the headset just above where the main headset jack plugs in.
My first one I didn't do that too, just left it hanging. I thought I was being carefull when I unplugged it so as to not pull wires loose inside but guess I was not being carefull enough. On my first trip about 3/4 of the way home it started acting up. Turns out inside the piece that clamps onto your helmet those wires connect to a tiny circuit board that handles the noise canelation for the mic and I had pulled it loose from that board. Had to get another headset ($75 second hand from another ultra owner that never used his) and redo it all over again.
All the pics from this write up were done on the first one I did. On the second and now the third (due to the wire breakage ont the first) I now just drop it off at a electronics shop (CB shop actually) paid the guy $15 and he did it for me. He has a lot more experience soldering on those TINY TINY TINY wires going to the stock headset speakers. They are not so much wires as threads with some type of a conductive coating. If you do your own, be careful with that part... damn things are so small they almost melt easier than the solder.

[hogdvr]

Originally Posted by Seminolebagger

In Florida it is illegal to use ear buds while riding.


Just sayin..........



SB

Thanks for that! What I was really trying to do here is get my stock headsets that my wife and I use to work on our 1/2 helmets. I was thinking only in terms of 1 ear bud each for intercom and occasional CB use. I prefer listening to the stereo through the open speakers and hearing ambient noise while riding. Traffic, horns, etc. I think this solution would work real well for the hearing part.

The other problem I haven't solved is that our helmets have the inner styrofoam liner right up to the edge of the helmet rim (HD part # 98250-06V). There is nowhere to fasten the stock screw on clip. The rim is just too wide to clip it anywhere on the bottom of the helmet rim. So far I haven't figured out this part of the problem.

[FinalBags]

Thanks for the tip, Les.
Great idea!

[FinalBags]

Thanks again, Les.
I did mine and I love it!
If anyone does it, be careful not to burn those little wires into with the soldering gun.
12 bucks well spent at Radio Shack.
Shrink wrap, silver solder and the connectors.(2 to a package)