Airheads Beemer Club - Tank bag Sound System

OK, I admit it. I'm a music nut. I get up to music, I drive to music, I work to music, and the last thing I hear each day is music. It all started back in the '70s with scratchy AM radio stations, quickly progressed to cheap stereos and vinyl records which were recorded on cassette tapes for home and car listening. When Sony came out with their walkman, I found it perfect for hikes and bicycling. But it didn't work worth a darn on a motorcycle because the wind noise drowned out the earbuds unless you turned up the volume loud enough to deafen yourself. Over the years I've tried lots of different earbuds, and even had two sets of custom molded earplugs made. Turns out my ear canals were distorted by my helmet, causing the plugs to leak air,

making more noise than no plugs at all. I'd all but given up hope of having music on a motorcycle until I ran into Rich on a Larry Grodsky Stan'n'Safe motorcycle training tour, and noticed these wires coming out of his ears. When I asked him what he was up to, he dug a pair of Etymotic 6i Isolator** earphones out of his ears, explaining that they featured enhanced base response that complimented his Apple iPod mp3 player. I asked about wind noise, and Rich replied that he can't hear anything but music. I asked about interference with his helmet, and getting the wires tangled up in the straps. "No problem," Rich replied. To say that I was excited was the understatement of the year. I'd already been playing with music on my Palm, using it for workouts and such, and it didn't take rocket science to realize that with the Etys, using it on the motorcycle was not only possible, it was just an internet order away. I got on line that night and a Google search found what I wanted at eTronics.com for a somewhat pricey $125. But in comparison with Etymotic ER4s I'd tried a few years ago (they fouled so badly that I almost ruptured an ear drum removing my helmet), which were priced at over $300, the 6i's were a bargain.

Later that week the plugs arrived and I was out on the bike in no time. The fit was snug, with the white rubber stoppers leaving my ears feeling very full, if not stretched out. But the sound isolation was incredible, greater than the foam earplugs I'd been wearing. There would be no danger of compromising my hearing to listen to music with these babies. Then I plugged them into the Palm, hit the play button and was instantly teleported into a concert hall featuring all my favorite rock'n'roll icons. Next trial was putting on the helmet, and it turned out to be no sweat. But the acid test was in getting the helmet off. I found that all I really had to do was make sure I didn't snag a wire when I grabbed the chin strap and lifted. Nirvana!

It was all systems go, and time for a road test. The Palm went into a breast pocket music adjusted to a comfortable volume, tunes set to shuffle play. I could still hear the motor running, but it was a distant K bike whirr. I couldn't help the ear-to-ear grin as the bike hit the street and I accelerated toward the nearest on ramp. Tunes. Not just a noisy echo of music, but quality headphone-in-the-house quality music. Eureka!

Yeah, it's illegal in California to pipe music into both your ears (one ear is apparently OK), but California also lets deaf people drive, and these folks can't hear anything. With regular earplugs I can't hear anything, even the motor, at any speed over about 45 mph anyway, so what's the difference?

But it didn't take long to find the flyspecks in the pepper. First problem was that I couldn't adjust the volume or change tunes, or pause the music because the Palm was buried deep in a pocket. Next issue was that the headphone wire kept catching on the Tank bag, jerking my head around at inopportune times. Finally, though I could still hear my radar detector beeps, they weren't as loud as I'd have liked them to be, and the volume control was pegged. I already had a dodge for the tangled cord, and knew all that was needed was to shorten the wire so it didn't flop around so much. But it took another Rich (Mr. Loving) to show me the answer for the control problem. It had the added advantage that I wouldn't have to swap out MemorySticks after a couple of hours of listening, but it carried a lofty price tag. Rich had been using an iPod on last year's Range of Light Gypsy tour, and I remembered seeing a shiny little remote control clipped to his 'stich. Didn't take long to figure out that I could clip it to the Tank bag in an easily accessed spot, and plug it in line between the iPod and the Ety earphones.

The last hurdle was to somehow mix the sounds from the iPod and radar detector, electronically so that they both came through the Etys. An Autocom was the obvious solution, but for some reason it isn't possible to use earphones with these systems unless you're into some major hacking. After a bit of Googling I stumbled across a company called TecStar that made an intercom system that they called the StarCom1. They were well regarded among the Iron Butt set, and offered multiple inputs and an earphone output. I put together an email to the company, located in England, detailing what I wanted to do and asking for a recommendation. A day later I had a parts list and a lead to California Sport Touring, a little hole-in-the-wall motorcycle accessory shop in Martinez. Their web site didn't offer a tech support email, and my first phone call landed with a counter person suffering the onslaught of the day-after-Thanksgiving Christmas rush. He bruskly confirmed that they carried TecStar stuff, but brushed me off when I tried to start through my parts list. I thanked him for his time, and endeavored to find another on line supplier. I was able to locate only one, CycleGadgets.com, and it didn't seem like they had all of the cables and adapters I'd need. I resolved to give it a week, then make the trip to Martinez with my Tank bag and iPod, V1, and Garmin GPS to see if they were any friendlier in person.

The next Saturday I rolled into Martinez about 10:30 AM and was guided to California Sport Touring by the Garmin 2610's voice prompts. I'd been using this little gem for a couple of weeks and found it very handy for finding my way around, especially when traveling in strange towns after dark. When I pulled up in front of the shop I couldn't tell if it was open or not because the interior was dark. Turns out that the power company had the electricity shut off, but they were still open for business. I met Kim Leong, owner, who seemed very well acquainted with the StarCom1, and we quickly had a pile of parts assembled to do the job. But that pile was a bit larger than what I was hoping for, since Kim was unwilling to make substitutions to the base line StarCom1 kit to adopt it to my use. This might sound like a little thing, but the leads and patch cords run $35 - $40 each, and I wouldn't be needing either the intercom lead or, as I later found out, the music cord that came in the kit. And it wasn't that obvious what was going on, as the power outage had left the computer/cash register non-operational, and the first hint I had of the exaggerated cost was when I checked my credit card balance a week or so later. In the dark and confusion, Kim had mistakenly charged me for two adaptors where I only needed one, which he was more than happy to correct by phone. But when I asked about the charges for the unneeded cords, I was told that they don't make substitutions. This was later confirmed by the TecStar rep in England. In hindsight, I could have saved significantly by ordering direct.

There's a * next to the Music Cable price because I purchased this direct from TecStar in England. Service was quite prompt, with the cable arriving a little over a week after I placed the on line order. It turns out that the music cable included in the kit creates a ground loop between the StarCom1 and the iPod when the iPod is being powered by the motorcycle. The ground loop acts like an antenna, sucking in ignition noise and piping it into the earphones. California Sport Touring didn't carry the cable, but did know of the problem when I checked with them later. Somehow this wasn't mentioned in the original recommendation from TecStar, and I only discovered it when I powered everything up for the first test ride.

Just one loose end remained to be resolved: How was I going to get power to all these new goodies in the Tank bag? The previous iteration of Tank bag electrics used a little project box and phono connectors for power, but I'd found the connectors to be flimsy and prone to failure. And instead of three outlets, I'd need at least four, and it would be nice to have a spare. I briefly considered making another project box based strip with locking BNC connectors, but on reflecting how easy it was to fabricate custom cables for the V1 using modular phone connectors, decided to see if RadioShack had something already made up. Browsing the pegboards turned up part number 279-433, a 5-Outlet Modular Adapter for about twelve bucks. It would easily handle the low current draw of the electronics I had in mind, and it didn't need to be waterproof since the Tank bag would keep it dry. And the crimp tool I'd already purchased to make ethernet cables would also crimp the phone connectors, and I had an ample supply of those as well. The only catch is that the modular connectors accomodate four wires, and I only needed two. So I picked red for the positive lead, black for ground, and left green and yellow unused.

With all parts in hand, I sat down at the kitchen table with a soldering iron, wire strippers, diagonal cutters, heat gun, shrink tube, and electrical tape and began to make the installations. First up was the DC power, and I decided I wanted everything running off the phone plug come power strip to be switched by the box on the outside of the Tank bag And I wanted the power to the radar detector to be switched separately. This was easily accomplished by re-routing the existing wires from those switches. Next I needed to graft phone connectors onto the power leads for each unit. Turns out that the phone connectors only work with flat phone wire, so I had to splice the power leads to the phone cord using solder and shrink tube. But that let me taylor the length of the cords and eliminate a lot of extra cable. I also had to be careful to keep the orientation of the flat cable in the phone connector consistent, so that polarity would be preserved.

Next up was the StarCom1 which would serve as the audio hub. It would take the audio outputs from the GPS, V1, and iPod and feed them to the Etys. Power was easy thanks to the simple zip cord construction of the StarCom1 power lead. But I was reluctant to shorten those expensive audio cables, instead using cable ties to gather the extra wires into neat bundles.

The only trick was getting the iPod's remote into an easily accessible location on the outside of the Tank bag I wanted the StarCom1's earbud adapter jack on the top right of the Tank bag where it would be easy to hit with the earphone plug, but the iPod remote had to end up at the front right to be easily accessible. The plastic stiffener on the inside of the Tank bag turned out to be a handy keeper for the extra wire bundles, and it was a straight shot from the StarCom1 to the jack location. All that was needed were a few cable ties to secure the jack in place. The iPod remote was a bit more involved. It ran from the iPod, forward to the front exterior of the Tank bag where it met with the MUS-04 cable that fed the music back to the StarCom1. The sound jack for V1 radar detector hides in the auxiliary adapter unit in the bottom of the Tank bag, so access was pretty easy there. I purchased a Motorcycle Mounting Kit for the Garmin GPS, which featured both easily accessible power leads and a mono cellphone style socket. Both CAB-35 cables came with stereo 3.5mm to mono 2.0mm adaptors that fit the Garmin and Valentine sockets perfectly. All that was needed was to fish the business end of the GPS cable up into the map pocket where it could reach the GPS unit itself.

The finished product is shown in the lead photo above. The iPod remote sits up front cable tied to a strap at the top of the Tank bag, just a few inches from the headphone socket. Both the GPS and V1 remote display live in the map window pocket, and it only takes a minute to undo the velcro on the flap to remove or install the GPS.

The photo directly above shows the explosion in a spaghetti factory inside floor of the Tank bag It's a tight fit with all the boxes and cables, but velcro and cable ties keep things in place. A piece of neoprene, held in place with more velcro, fits over the top of the electronics, giving them some protection from the junk in the Tank bag

After all this, you're probably wondering how well it works. I have to admit to being somewhat disappointed with the music sound quality that comes from the StarCom1, as it significantly reduces both high frequency and bass response below that which is available directly from the iPod.This could be due to the electronics in the StarCom1 unit itself, which was designed primarily as an intercom system, with the relatively low frequency response demands of voice communication. It could also be due to the isolated audio cables made necessary by the electrical interference from the ignition system. The iPod does offer equalization settings which partially compensate, but the best I've managed is barely FM radio quality music. The beeps and buzzes from the V1 are loud and clear, as is the velvety voice from the Garmin GPS. So yes, I've realized my goal of a mobile sound system for motorcycling, one that provides access not only to music, but to all the audio prompts found in a modern cockpit. In the bargain I've got expandability that will support rider/passenger communications, rider to rider communications via radio, and cell phone communications as well (though it'll be a cold day in Hell before I let a cell phone interrupt my riding).