I have the autocom active 7 unit. I'll probably get one of the new units and give this one to my wife as she is starting to ride and it'll be nice to continue to communicate on separate bikes.
overall the autocom is the best I've used. in the past I used chatterbox but as someone said i'd rather just ride without anything.
if you are just listening to music, just plug earbuds into the ipod or music source and you'll be fine.
I always use earbud speakers. I have the entymotic ER6i's. they do cancel a lot of the outside noise. I use them on planes, when travelling and on the bike (and when mowing the yard). there's a great review of them over on the sport touring forum website.
https://www.sport-touring.net/forums/showthread.php?t=63443
there are tricks that you will learn if you use the earbuds. Pull up on your ear when inserting the speakers. they go in easier. also before you put y our helmet on, wrap the cord up and over your ear (I do it from behind your ear to the front). then put the helmet on. this adds a bit of "strain relief" to the wiring and makes it to when the helmet pulls down on the cord it doesn't pull your earbuds out.
on the er6-i, there's a clip that I clip to my lapel of my shirt (collar) and that also keeps stress of the cords.
if i'm just listening to music, I plug straight into the ipod. I have the griffin RF remote on the bars so that will allow me to control the volume without having to touch the unit. I keep the ipod in my tank bag or inside pocket of my jacket.
if I want the phone, I connect it all to the autocom. I have connections for the radar, phone, and ipod for the autocom. Plus passenger headset. I don't like my GPS in the audio. I can see where I'm going and don't need someone yelling at me when I get off to get gas.
I do have the autocom adapter that lets me use the earbuds with the auto com. I don't like to ride without hearing protection and it just didn't make sense to put in my custom earplugs and then have to turn up the volume to hear the speakers. so I went with the noise reducing earbuds.