Scala G4

[Malve]

My GF just bought be the Scala G4 for us. She thought it would be for two up riding and had no idea that it would also be for bike to bike comm since I bought her a Yammie FZ6R for X-mas.

Anyway, my Arai Quantum 2 is pretty loud and I typically ride with either ear plugs or inner ear speakers. What do you reccomend to take advantage of the G4's but limit noise? Regardless, I am excited as the Scala G4 looks lgreat and has received great reviews.

Thanks in advance.

-Malve

 

[Fontanaman]

A Schuberth C3 is a very quiet bucket.

 

[SkooterG]

Damn dude! You bought her a NEW BIKE?!?! She must be a keeper! Better marry her quick before I find her! :lol:

Hope to see some good ride reports from the two of you.

 

[Mr Martini]

I absolutely LOVE our Scala G4! My partner and I went on a 4,000 mile motorcycle trip in September and the G4 rocked! I was able to listen to music wirelessly through my iPod Touch, have it connected to my cell phone (for emergency use), and have bike-to-bike communications. You can actually link 3 together for three separate riders on a single full-duplex connection. You can do 4 on a full-duplex in a rider/passenger <-> rider/passenger type connection. My partner was able to use the G4 to talk to me, listen to music on the iPod Touch and voice directions from the Zumo 550. It has FM radio too. I don't use that a lot.

A weird feature it now has that I doubt I'd ever use is the ability to search for other G4 users within a mile radius to randomly connect to. It's supposed to be their answer to this whole "social networking" scene going on nowadays. I think it would be kind of strange talking to some other rider I don't know all of a sudden while riding. I don't know if I'll be enabling that feature anytime soon.

Congrat's on the G4! Enjoy.

Oh, I will say I've had issues getting it loud enough to even hear at first. I have an X-Lite X-402 helmet, which has ear pockets for speakers. It goes inside the helmet and is supposed to filter through little holes through the padding. Yeah.... um... no. I could barely hear a thing. You have to get those things mounted as close to your ears as possible. I used the velcro to put them directly on the outside of the padding so the speakers lightly touch my ears. I can still hear everything around me just fine and the volume of the G4 is now perfect. I have the volume somewhere around 3/4 of max.

 

[08FJR4ME]

Don't follow the directions in the book for mounting the ear speakers. You want to remove the liner and loop the longer speaker wire up over the top of the helmet for the FM reception. It improves somewhat but the FM is the only down side to this unit. There is plenty of speaker volume on these puppies. I have never use full volume with them yet. It will take some getting use to using the two units working harmoniously. Patiences is a virtue with all the buttons to push to activate different functions.

Edit: Mr Martini has it correct, It will take a few attempts to get the speakers perfectly lined up and you will need to get that sweet spot down. Remember you don't get a whole lot of volume when your not moving. they are speed sensitive. The faster you go the louder it gets.

Good luck

Dave

 

[FastJoyRide]

We've had our G4's for a season and a half now and they work well as an intercom. I was disappointed in the volume (lack of) as delivered, but it improved greatly after I downloaded the G4 firmware update last Winter. Now however, I have a lack of volume issue from my Zumo 550 that I can't find a fix for. I have increased the volume on the Zumo to max but it is still just a whisper though the headset.

I also am looking for an elegant way to pipe my Escort 8500's alerts through the G4.

Agree completely with Martini's comments about getting the helmet speakers mounted as close to your earholes as possible. I wear foam earplugs so the volume has to be loud for me to hear clearly.

 

[Malve]

1325198729[/url]' post='924135']Damn dude! You bought her a NEW BIKE?!?! She must be a keeper! Better marry her quick before I find her! :lol:

Hope to see some good ride reports from the two of you.

Slightly used Skoot...2009 with 2,800 miles. I told you that she has a sister in Phoenix (Peoria). You missed her latest single window.

 

[Malve]

Here is another Scala question...Can riders on two bikes (say a half mile away) listen to the same Bluetooth music source from one bike? Or do they each have to listen to independent sources?

 

[Mr Martini]

No, it's a one to one connection. Each G4 would need its own Bluetooth music source. I would think the Bluetooth music source would have to be able to connect to multiple "Bluetooth headsets" to be able to make that work. Not sure it's really an issue with the G4 itself.

FYI: The pop-up antenna is only for the bike-to-bike communications and is supposed to let you get a mile distance between G4 devices. You can connect a total of three G4 devices for full duplex communication. You can also link to Scala's older devices like the Q2 but the distance is limited by the Q2 capability, which is 1,640 feet. Connection to music devices, phone, GPS, etc, seems even shorter for me.

Hope this helps!

-Tim

 

[TwoWhldTerror]

There is a link I have from someone that will replace the helmet speakers with in-ear earbuds for a small price. I will see if I can dig it up.

 

[rfulcher]

There are several post on adventure riders about converting the Scala G4 to earphones. Do a google search "Adventure riders Scala G4 mod" and you should find good info. The earphone mod is pretty easy. I use it with ER6i earphones and it works great. The mod probably hurts the FM reception but this sucks anyway and I never use/used the FM.

 

[RaYzerman19]

If you have a Rifle windshield and a different helmet you may not need full strength ear plugs. With my EXO-900 I hardly have to wear them, but keep looking for something around 15-22 db ones. Speaker placement is key, must be lined up with your ear, and it helps to have them closer to your ears. Ear buds would be best, custom ones even better.

Bike to bike range is line of sight, which is nigh on impossible to get the full range quoted, same for Q2's. From my experience, the flip up antenna is not of much improvement at all. FM - just forget it.

If you loaded the latest firmware, note at low speed there is a lower volume. Go into the settings a tweak some of the other settings that affect when VOX kicks in, etc. The defaults are on medium.

 

[08FJR4ME]

There is a link I have from someone that will replace the helmet speakers with in-ear earbuds for a small price. I will see if I can dig it up.

FYI,

If you decide to go the earphone route it will void you warranty.

Dave

 

[Mr Martini]

We've had our G4's for a season and a half now and they work well as an intercom. I was disappointed in the volume (lack of) as delivered, but it improved greatly after I downloaded the G4 firmware update last Winter. Now however, I have a lack of volume issue from my Zumo 550 that I can't find a fix for. I have increased the volume on the Zumo to max but it is still just a whisper though the headset.

I also am looking for an elegant way to pipe my Escort 8500's alerts through the G4.

Agree completely with Martini's comments about getting the helmet speakers mounted as close to your earholes as possible. I wear foam earplugs so the volume has to be loud for me to hear clearly.

FastJoyride, I'm about to make your day. The Scala G4 doesn't have a single volume level for everything you do. It remembers the volume level for bike-to-bike, phone, FM and GPS independently. Basically, each connected device can have its volume adjusted without affecting the level of all the other devices. So, here's how you fix the problem with the volume of your Zumo. Link the Zumo to the G4. Load up a route and get that lady talkin'. Adjust the volume on the G4 while she's talking and you can make it as loud as you want. I just found this issue today on mine. I noticed I could barely hear the Zumo while on the freeway although I had the main volume at max. As soon as she started talking I started pushing the volume up button and realized I had the volume on for the GPS connection all the way down.

Hope this helps!

 

[FastJoyRide]

We've had our G4's for a season and a half now and they work well as an intercom. I was disappointed in the volume (lack of) as delivered, but it improved greatly after I downloaded the G4 firmware update last Winter. Now however, I have a lack of volume issue from my Zumo 550 that I can't find a fix for. I have increased the volume on the Zumo to max but it is still just a whisper though the headset.

I also am looking for an elegant way to pipe my Escort 8500's alerts through the G4.

Agree completely with Martini's comments about getting the helmet speakers mounted as close to your earholes as possible. I wear foam earplugs so the volume has to be loud for me to hear clearly.

FastJoyride, I'm about to make your day. The Scala G4 doesn't have a single volume level for everything you do. It remembers the volume level for bike-to-bike, phone, FM and GPS independently. Basically, each connected device can have its volume adjusted without affecting the level of all the other devices. So, here's how you fix the problem with the volume of your Zumo. Link the Zumo to the G4. Load up a route and get that lady talkin'. Adjust the volume on the G4 while she's talking and you can make it as loud as you want. I just found this issue today on mine. I noticed I could barely hear the Zumo while on the freeway although I had the main volume at max. As soon as she started talking I started pushing the volume up button and realized I had the volume on for the GPS connection all the way down.

Hope this helps!

Happy New Year Mr Martini - you did indeed make my day! I guess that's a great feature (being able to set differing volume levels for different inputs) - if they told their customers about it instead of waiting for them to trip over it. I followed your suggestions and now Sheila (my Aussie Garmina) is talking to me loud and clear!

Now - do you have another solution to get my radar inputted into the mix too?

Is this a great place or what? You're the early leader in "most helpful advice of 2012"!

 

[Mr Martini]

Yeah, you would think they would do a better job of documenting the fact each connection has its own volume level. Would be good to know from the beginning.

Sorry, don't know about hooking up a radar. My current set up is: phone linked to Zumo. Zumo, iPod Touch and 2nd G4 linked to my G4. From what I've read the Scala G4 only has the channels to connect to two separate G4s, built-in FM radio and a single Bluetooth connection used mostly for cell phone connection or, like we're doing, for our Zumo GPS device. Then they added a dedicated audio channel that can connect to A2DP enabled audio devices like the iPod Touch. Unless your radar is A2DP, you won't be able to link it to the G4 along with the Zumo. If your radar has Bluetooth then I would think you could link it instead of the Zumo.

I'm so glad I was able to help you with the volume issue. Happy New Year!