Increase Power Handling Of Your Harley Fairing Speakers

THERE IS A SIMPLE THING THAT CAN BE DONE TO INCREASE THE POWER HANDLING AND EFFICIENCY OF YOUR FAIRING SPEAKERS.

The speaker gasket used in this article is a gasket that we have made just for our products. If you need some of this gasket, you can find it here.

Power handling of your fairing speakers on all '14 & up Harley baggers can be significantly improved by sealing the speakers into the factory enclosures. This increases the stiffness of the speakers mechanical suspension. Which in turn increases the volume that the speaker can be pushed to before reaching it's cone excursion limitations. 

Take the speaker pods apart and seal them. The factory pods are specifically designed to not be water/air tight. This is bad for speaker performance. The good news is that the enclosure can be disassembled, gasketed, and reassembled easily. Also make sure that you seal the water drain hole at the bottom. You will notice a jump in output afterwards. The enclosure must be totally air tight for this to work. When you are all done press on the cone. You should not be able to detect any leaks. The cone speaker suspension should be much stiffer. This can be done on both Road Glides as well as Street Glides as shown. 

Be sure to get a good seal on all of the corners. The 1/4" neoprene gasket shown here is available free of charge with any of the speakers we offer if you request it. Or you can buy it separately here. You can also find weather strip at your local hardware store. 1/4" width is a bit difficult to find, but 3/8" is pretty common.

Be sure to pay attention to the power port hole on Street Glides. That part needs to be sealed as well.

Also gasket the speaker

Now when you put everything back together be careful not to over tighten the screws that hold the enclosures together. If over tightened the plastic of the enclosure can crack and create a new air leak. You want the two enclosure halves to be tight enough to compress the gasket but not to tight that you put undue stress on the enclosure plastic. 

With everything back together you should press in on the speaker cone to create air pressure inside the enclosure. Be careful to press the cone straight in and not to press just one side of the cone. You don't want to cause the voice coil to scrape the magnet inside the speaker. The speaker cone suspension should be stiffer now and you should not be able to hear any air leaking out of the enclosure. Hold it up close to your ear and listen closely for hissing air. Listen to each screw point where the enclosure is held together and listen around the entire gasketed area. 

Once you get your sound system up and running, be sure that your high pass crossovers are set correctly for your fairing speakers. 

ENJOY THE NEW & IMPROVED POWER HANDLING!