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View Full Version : Happy Tunes - Connecting J&M helmet Speakers to SENA SMH 10



gnirtsnod
05-19-2013, 10:48 AM
I'm planning to leave on my "next level" trip next weekend with my son-in-law and three others. It will cover six states and 2,300+ miles. I knew the key to getting all of them on board with abandoning their CBs and communicating via bluetooth connection was to buy the SENA unit for my son-in-law and let him convince the others. It worked.

Getting all of the heads together brought about an unintended benefit that should greatly enhance the many miles of riding - connecting up the SENA base to J&M helmet speakers. SENA could not answer whether the base would drive the speakers, so one of the guys set about to prove or disprove the idea. After about an hour of effort, he connected the J&M speakers to the BT base and it worked. SENA quality transmission with J&M quality sound. Now we have one week to get the remaining helmet units modified. Fortunately, I had two J&M headsets from which to scavenge the speakers. ...Gnirtsnod

P.S. It takes electronics level skills to make these changes.

ingramsail
05-19-2013, 02:03 PM
What are using for micophone and can you tranmit with the BC and bluetooth intercom.

gnirtsnod
05-20-2013, 11:55 AM
What are using for micophone and can you tranmit with the BC and bluetooth intercom.

We replaced the helmet speakers by relieving the solder joint at the SENA speakers and soldering in their place the J&M speakers. Everything else is the same, i.e. SENA base and microphone. Mine is not modified as yet and I cannot say definitively that there are no problems as a result of the mods. I did connect up the test unit and the sound was great, so BT signal between my Garmin GPS to the base and on into the helmet speakers (J&M) worked like a champ and sounded terrific. I don't anticipate any sending problems from the base via the microphone to others in our group, but I wll let you know. (I had nobody to talk with yesterday when trying out the speakers.) The only potential problem that I envision is power consumption because I will be driving speakers that I believe will have a greater drain on the base's battery charge. Is that two hours vs all day, 7 1/2 hours vs 8, neglible - I don't know now, but will let you know when I return from the trip?