Whats your Motorcycle music setup, and what do you play

[GT_Hawk]

o until last night I had a 120 gig zune loaded with about 35 gigs of songs. I had it fitting into a small aqua box (small size). It fit perfect except it was to short to hook in the head phone jack on the end of the unit so had to trill a hole at the top of the box, so much for water tight. So zune and aqua box pictured below. To be honest the setup worked well and Iw as going to seal up the hole int he aqua box leaving a permanent connection lead out of the box for the headphone jack.




This was compleate and for bar harbor trip, but then 1 hr into the trip the player had crashed. GERRRRRR managed to get it going again crash, tried again and now shows no music. So no music for the trip. When I got home rebuilt the thing all music added, same thing happened time and again get stuck in a song and 10 min later it might start moving on its own or would require a hard power down idea. So Monday night icecream came up, it worked all the way there but 5 min on the return trip it died again, and nearly became a flying zune into the concrete barriers or the 401.

So took it back to futureshop, no receipt jsut print out of credit card statement showing the purchase, they after a bit of work tracking down the sku (its been discontinued) and matching the date on my statement to the sale of a unit they gave me in store credit. to be honest they where nice enough to do that so hey I am happy with that.

Now I turned around and bought a stiletto 2 for sirius radio, cost me 18$ more then the zune after they price matched and beat by 10% the bestbuy sale price this week (yes that was planned), mind you that still means needed the subscription which was taken care of last night by calling in. This unit has a built in antenna which proved itself working this morning, but also comes with the car kit with proper antenna and even headphones with a built in antenna for walking around. It also has 2 gigs of storage and upgradable with micro sd cards (8 gig costs 20$ these days) and can play mp3's. also has built in wifi so if in the house can hook into internet and play music from there if no signal from antenna. To be honest its a very compelate kit, don't have to buy anything for this to work in my car through the stereo and work off the bike which si a nice change.




It fit int he aqua box nicely tho its just as tall as the zune so the hole drilled was still needed, hat t do a 180 on the box but the hole was almost in the exact spot it needed so worked fine without more drilling. So hey now got satalite radio and a mp3 player piping into the helmet. I plan on improving the mounting system some how maybe adding power to unit from bike (antena chewes power so 5 hr battery on stock battery), we will see, thinking it over.

So this whole fun got me thinking, I know most had tunes playing for the bar harbor trip so wondering whats everyone's setup, Ie player, mounting method and headphone systems they use on there bikes. Be interesting to share and hey also means other can steel I mean borrow ideas :

O and for kicks and giggles what type of music do you lessen to. Me house/dance/rock(old and new)/some pop (ok so I lessen to a lady gaga song lol) would be the main stays in my helmet.


UPDATE: O ya forgot to mention I do have 1 small issue with the thing in the aqua box, it uses that dial think like the classic ipods, ie the thing spins can't do that through the aqua box rubber widnow. So need to open box to change radio station. Not sure about mp3 playback yet.

[catweasel67]

For riding where I need sat-nav, I use my Garmin Zumo 660 with a 4gb card added . You can see the unit attached to the left handlebar below. A pair of Shure carries the noise to me..

And, in the evening, or for those random rides, I drag my iPod out and stick it inside my jacket.

I don't bother with radio, it's all "foreign" anyway so kinda pointless...for me.

As for the tunes, my collection spans 60 years of music and I have it on shuffle so it's not than unusual for the music to shuffle from "Que Sera Sera" to "American Witch" with some "Funky Funky People" thrown in.

[swingset]

I listen to the .mp3 player on my GPS (TomTom720) when on the street with a 16gig SD card. On the dual-sport, I just put a cheapie $29 4-gig mp3 player in my coat....shockproof, cheap, easy to replace.

As for what I listen to, oodles and oodles of alt-rock. If it's too upbeat I ride fast, if it's too slow, I ride too slow.

[Madurbu]

I have a zune 80, which I like for the subscription model. I installed an aquabox on my handlebars and experienced the same problem you had. The unit has a hard drive and the vibration caused the device to 'crash'. I have been able to recover from two 'crashes' and don't dare try it again. I'm think of implementing additional vibration dampening, switching to a new Zune HD, or going with a satellite radio. The jury is still out, but I want to spend as little money as possible.

[catweasel67]

anyone happen to know how to move tunes from iPod to Zumo without having to have a PC in the middle?

[GT_Hawk]

Originally Posted by catweasel67

anyone happen to know how to move tunes from iPod to Zumo without having to have a PC in the middle?

all I can say is good luck. I don't think you can without soem kind of middle ware thing ie a pc

[Jeff d]

For commuting, running around town and even going to semi remote places I usually use Pandora on my Blackberry. That way I don't have to pick out music and it's free. I've bee blown away with how far I can get into the country and still be listening to an audio stream over the internet.

I have some music on an SD card in case I get into an area with poor Verizon data coverage.

[Giuseppe]

iPod Classic 120 GB in the jacket's inside chest pocket, set on shuffle. Etymotic Research ER-6 isolator headphones under the helmet. iPod wireless remote zip-tied to the left handlebar for really long trips. I don't selects songs, but it's nice to be able to adjust the volume, pause the music in traffic, or skip tunes.

[V-rock]

XM radio (inside an Otter Box to keep it waterproof) mostly 70's music via Autocom Active Plus. Bluetooth for cell phone to Autocom, also can play music from phone through Bluetooth

[SnowMule]

THinking of picking up one of the tiny iPod nano/shuffle/whatthefuckever they call the tiny ones now. My dad has one and it is tiny; small enough to velcro-stick to the side/bottom of the helmet.

My 7-year-old 2nd-gen iPod still works fine, it's just big.

[catweasel67]

Originally Posted by SnowMule

THinking of picking up one of the tiny iPod nano/shuffle/whatthefuckever they call the tiny ones now. My dad has one and it is tiny; small enough to velcro-stick to the side/bottom of the helmet.

My 7-year-old 2nd-gen iPod still works fine, it's just big.

the small ones put me off because I'd have to constantly change the songs on it. I've a 80gb one that holds all of my music plus a few ibooks and fits into my jacket pocket. I tend to be away a lot though, for days at a time, and like variety.

[jmanz6]

I use a $28 refurb MP3 player I got at Microcenter one day on a whim. It's a Sandisk Sansa with a small video screen and 4Gb of space. I made an adapter to plug into my intercom plug so I can use the speakers already in my helmet. Doesn't work if I ride 2 up, but then I have my wife talking in my ear the whole time so who has time for music... Only thing I don't like about my setup is that the sound is mono because the Midland Radio helmet set is not stereo, and the sound can be a bit too quiet. The amp in the player is a bit weak. I have thought of making a simple transistor amp to boost it but I'm too lazy. I have another prototype I'm working on to make gadget life easier for us riders.
As far as music I listen mostly to alt rock. In the morning on the way into work when I not feeling the music I do listen to NPR once in a while. Depends on my mood.

[ownst1100]

Have alway's been a BIG fan of XMradio. Been with them from the start. On the GSA this setup goes back over 3 years.



Wired into the bike for power, Radio Shack in-line volume control, and for that extra boost of power 2 Boostaroo's hooked up in series. In the helmet (Arai XD) Sony V150 studio headphones.

[SingleTrackMind]

iPhone bluetoothed to Zumo 550, and Sony bluetooth earbuds. No wires, no fuss. The Zumo seems to be a great integrated audio panel.

I just read last week that Sony released a new bluetooth module with a headphone jack, which will allow you to use any earbuds. This is what I was originally looking for and could not find. Literally the day after I bought the BT earbuds, they came out with the stand alone BT module. Grrr.

[Aberdeen]

I use a Zune 30gb with Earfuze molded earplugs. Works great! Used to use the zune with etymotics, but the buds would be painful after a while.

The earfuze plugs don't move and are very comfortable.

I also put the zune in it's sleeve as well as wrap it in a microfiber rag. Keeps the vibration down so it doesn't reset.

I listen to old alt-rock, old industrial, etc.


Cheers!