There are a lot of mixed reviews on the Shark audio systems, but I wanted some music, just something for the long trips, but didn't want it bad enough to pay the huge prices of a lot of the systems. So I dropped $140 on a Shark 600 watt.
Mounted the amp under the seat, removed the toolbox (plenty of room in my saddlebag for the tools) and put a small piece of wood flooring (leftover from a project), which is thin and sturdy, across the battery bolted in where the toolbox was, and I used heavy-duty velcro to velcro the amp down (doing that instead of bolts gives it a bit of cushion and vibration dampening).
I'm a bit worried about heat, when electronics run hotter, they don't last as long, but I can't think of anywhere else I could have put it that would have been any cooler AND kept it out of the rain.
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Mounted the speakers to the handlebars using the supplied mounts (shown before I ran the wires; under the tank)
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Sounds decent. FM radio isn't that great even though the 600W version has an external antenna. I run mine along the seat. Granted, I live 50 miles or so from most of the radio stations, so I am a bit on the edge of the range.
First part of the video is my mp3 player, then you hear me flipping through FM stations (after pressing the mode button a million times to get to the radio, it was really bright I kept accidentally skipping over the FM radio, hard to see those LED's in bright sunlight!)
It's cheap, but it sounds pretty good. Going down the highway at 70 with my feet on the highway pegs I can hear the stereo just fine, and that's exactly what I wanted!
It has a USB port but it does not work with the iPhone or modern iPods (it doesn't work with the new .AAC format, only .mp3), and the USB port reads a little slowly, you'll hear in the video what sounds like 'popping' or 'clipping', and it's actually the music skipping just a little because it can't keep up (running 192kbps .mp3)
Works good! No, it's not actually 600 watt. People knock shark alot for this, but almost any audio equipment you buy is going to be this way. They advertise PMPO (Peak Music Power Output), which is a synthetic, absolute, just for a split second peak power output. RMS rating is what's in the manual, and that's more of what you could expect the other 99.999% of the time. PMPO is 600 watts on this unit, with RMS I believe around 140 (I'd have to look again)
Also, it's much louder than shown in the video, but I didn't want to bug my neighbors. I'll see if I can get my wife to take a video 'on-board' sometime riding down the road to give you guys an idea if anyone is interested.
All in all, I'd recommend it. It's a good system, it sounds good, and it gives me some tunes. Has an SD card slot (4GB max), a USB port (works with my 8GB mp3 player I got as a door prize a while back), a line-in port (have it run up to my iPhone mount, will work good for GPS turn by turn), and an FM radio that is decent, but isn't very strong in the reception world (you suburban and urban guys shouldn't have any problem with it though).
Don't expect to be blown away by it, but it does what I want it to do, I've got music on the bike! I'm quite happy with it. I'd buy it all over again in a heartbeat. When the wife gets a bike we'll put one on hers.
Final thought, I think the amp is actually excellent (sans the slow USB read), so later on I may purchase some decent speakers and have a really nice system. I suspect the speakers are the same cheap 10 or so watt speakers you get in an iPod dock at wal mart.
Mounted the amp under the seat, removed the toolbox (plenty of room in my saddlebag for the tools) and put a small piece of wood flooring (leftover from a project), which is thin and sturdy, across the battery bolted in where the toolbox was, and I used heavy-duty velcro to velcro the amp down (doing that instead of bolts gives it a bit of cushion and vibration dampening).
I'm a bit worried about heat, when electronics run hotter, they don't last as long, but I can't think of anywhere else I could have put it that would have been any cooler AND kept it out of the rain.
Mounted the speakers to the handlebars using the supplied mounts (shown before I ran the wires; under the tank)
Sounds decent. FM radio isn't that great even though the 600W version has an external antenna. I run mine along the seat. Granted, I live 50 miles or so from most of the radio stations, so I am a bit on the edge of the range.
First part of the video is my mp3 player, then you hear me flipping through FM stations (after pressing the mode button a million times to get to the radio, it was really bright I kept accidentally skipping over the FM radio, hard to see those LED's in bright sunlight!)
It's cheap, but it sounds pretty good. Going down the highway at 70 with my feet on the highway pegs I can hear the stereo just fine, and that's exactly what I wanted!
It has a USB port but it does not work with the iPhone or modern iPods (it doesn't work with the new .AAC format, only .mp3), and the USB port reads a little slowly, you'll hear in the video what sounds like 'popping' or 'clipping', and it's actually the music skipping just a little because it can't keep up (running 192kbps .mp3)
Works good! No, it's not actually 600 watt. People knock shark alot for this, but almost any audio equipment you buy is going to be this way. They advertise PMPO (Peak Music Power Output), which is a synthetic, absolute, just for a split second peak power output. RMS rating is what's in the manual, and that's more of what you could expect the other 99.999% of the time. PMPO is 600 watts on this unit, with RMS I believe around 140 (I'd have to look again)
Also, it's much louder than shown in the video, but I didn't want to bug my neighbors. I'll see if I can get my wife to take a video 'on-board' sometime riding down the road to give you guys an idea if anyone is interested.
All in all, I'd recommend it. It's a good system, it sounds good, and it gives me some tunes. Has an SD card slot (4GB max), a USB port (works with my 8GB mp3 player I got as a door prize a while back), a line-in port (have it run up to my iPhone mount, will work good for GPS turn by turn), and an FM radio that is decent, but isn't very strong in the reception world (you suburban and urban guys shouldn't have any problem with it though).
Don't expect to be blown away by it, but it does what I want it to do, I've got music on the bike! I'm quite happy with it. I'd buy it all over again in a heartbeat. When the wife gets a bike we'll put one on hers.
Final thought, I think the amp is actually excellent (sans the slow USB read), so later on I may purchase some decent speakers and have a really nice system. I suspect the speakers are the same cheap 10 or so watt speakers you get in an iPod dock at wal mart.
