So after a lot of research, I decided to fork out the 800 beans to buy the Medallion radio. My stock HK Harley radio soft buttons stopped working. I'm betting its because some water or dust got in there but despite some compressed air and drying, they never started working again. The unit itself still worked fine but I was never happy with the sound, even though I'd previously installed a JM Cycles 250 watt amp and their matched speakers. This Medallion radio was described as complete "plug and play" plus came with a lot of power per channel itself, which I figured would boost my speaker output. It also comes with all of the wiring for rear speakers if you have them, plus USB port, Ipod port, etc. It also says it is "Sirius satellite ready". Bottom line is, be careful! The "plug and play" is true if you are ready to spend approximately 6 hours straight, from the time you begin to take the fairing off, through the time you put it back on. Taking out the stock radio was easy but then I found out that the JM Cycle bracket for the amplifier that sat on top of the stock radio doesn't quite fit on top of the Medallion. You need to do some bending of the amplifier bracket to get it to sit on top. Second, the Harley Sirius module I already had in my bike does not have the right connection to the "sirius ready" Medallion radio. You have to actually buy a Sirius car module and that will connect to the Medallion. However, make sure you cancel your old Sirius subscription and you need to sign up for a new one to go with the new module you just bought! Then you need to figure out where to mount this new module which is about the size of a hockey puck. I was able to screw it into one of the fairing speaker support braces but then, make sure you duct tape or electrical tape the antenna wire to the module, and the audio plug as well, then tape together the plug from the module to the Medallion connection or, as I found out the hard way, once you start routing the harnesses and zip tieing them, and push the fairing back on, you may have shaken loose those connections! Sirius radio worked perfectly with fairing off, once I negotiated getting the fairing back on, the wires came loose and I had to take the fairing off again, tape the connections, reroute and zip tie some more wiring, and got the fairing back on. There are a lot of cables that come with this radio and so routing and zip tieing the cables is quite a task! Once all of that was done, I can say the output from this radio plus the previous amplifier is phenomenal! At speeds of 80 mph on the highway, I can hear the music, low tones and high tones, perfectly. And the hand controls work perfectly with this radio. It is a marine-certified unit, actually made more for boats than motorcycles, so I don't have to worry about water any longer.
However, one remaining problem exists. Everything sounds great and works fine when my switch is in the Ignition setting. However, when I switch over to the Accessory position, every 20 seconds or so like clock work, I get a series of 3 very distorted beep-like sounds. It is so distorted in fact that it overpowers the sound and shakes the speaker cones to the point that it makes me nervous that these sounds good destroy my speakers.
So here's the last important point for you to keep in mind. The installation manual for this radio is crap. Troubleshooting is crap. I don't have much knowledge of audio frankly but I was able to install my amp, speakers and now this radio, but I don't have enough knowledge to figure out why these beeping sounds keep happening in Accessory switch position. So I called Medallion's technical support line - four times - had to leave a message - that was a month ago and have never received a call back. Then I called JM Cycle because that's who I bought the radio, amp and speakers from. Turns out, their technical support guru "wears many hats" and so was never in the office when I called. I tried three times, never got a call back from them either which is very disappointing given their brand. Anyway, have not resolved the problem yet but I just don't ever switch over to the Accessory position while the radio is on.
However, one remaining problem exists. Everything sounds great and works fine when my switch is in the Ignition setting. However, when I switch over to the Accessory position, every 20 seconds or so like clock work, I get a series of 3 very distorted beep-like sounds. It is so distorted in fact that it overpowers the sound and shakes the speaker cones to the point that it makes me nervous that these sounds good destroy my speakers.
So here's the last important point for you to keep in mind. The installation manual for this radio is crap. Troubleshooting is crap. I don't have much knowledge of audio frankly but I was able to install my amp, speakers and now this radio, but I don't have enough knowledge to figure out why these beeping sounds keep happening in Accessory switch position. So I called Medallion's technical support line - four times - had to leave a message - that was a month ago and have never received a call back. Then I called JM Cycle because that's who I bought the radio, amp and speakers from. Turns out, their technical support guru "wears many hats" and so was never in the office when I called. I tried three times, never got a call back from them either which is very disappointing given their brand. Anyway, have not resolved the problem yet but I just don't ever switch over to the Accessory position while the radio is on.
