Rockford Fosgate, a brand synonymous with Harley-Davidson amplifier, speaker and subwoofer upgrades, has just introduced its PMX-HD14 multimedia infotainment system. If you have a 2014 and newer Street Glide or Ultra, or 2015 and newer Road Glide, this might be the perfect way to make your entire stereo system sound better. Best of all, it’s got a unique trick up its sleeve. Let’s check it out.
Features of the Rockford Fosgate PMX-HD14 Radio
The PMX-HD14 is Rockford Fosgate’s second foray into the multimedia receiver market for Harley-Davidson. The radio is a direct drop-in upgrade for many of H-D’s touring bikes. This plug-and-play design works with the existing power and speaker wiring. It also features a 7-inch touchscreen that works even if the rider is wearing gloves. The screen and the trim around it are Element Ready, the term Rockford Fosgate gives to products that are sealed to keep out water and dust and can handle prolonged UV exposure and all the vibrations from applications like a big V-twin motorcycle.
In terms of the interface, there are four fixed buttons adjacent to the screen for Home, Settings, Information and Power control. A short press on the information button in the top right increases the radio volume, and a short press on the power button below it lowers the volume. Pressing and holding the information button brings up an odometer and distance-since-last-service display.
Rockford Fosgate is on top of the integration situation with the PMX-HD14. The radio is compatible with the factory-installed handlebar audio controls without the need for any additional parts. It works with wireless headsets and the OEM CB system when the WHIM and CB modules are present. And there’s no need to reflash the bike to maximize the radio’s performance. These features make the radio ideal for those who don’t want permanent modifications on their motorcycle.
Harley-Davidson Multimedia Radio Audio Sources
Of course, the PMX-HD14 has an AM/FM and Weather Band receiver, so you can tune in to your favorite local radio stations. An optional SXV300 tuner module will give you access to SiriusXM satellite radio for uninterrupted genre-specific programming from coast to coast. You can also play MP3, WMA or FLAC digital audio files from a USB memory stick. A Bluetooth receiver allows you to play music stored on a portable media player or stream audio from your smartphone.
The PMX-HD14 also includes Apple CarPlay. Connect your Apple iPhone and you can easily access entertainment, communication and navigational information. You can make phone calls or send text messages without taking your eyes off the road. If you’re on a cross-state or cross-country adventure, access to Apple Maps, Google Maps and Waze will help you reach your destination efficiently and safely. Of course, dedicated CarPlay streaming apps like Pandora, IHeartRadio, Pandora or Spotify make listening to almost anything you want quick and easy.
Take Your Party on the Road
Rockford Fosgate knows that an essential part of owning a Harley-Davidson motorcycle is the lifestyle and brotherhood with fellow riders. That awareness led them to create a feature called Street Party Mode. If your friends have a PMX-HD14 on their bikes, you can share whatever music you’re playing. They can connect their radios to yours using a proprietary Bluetooth 5.0 solution. The crew can enjoy the same music while cruising or hanging out.
Amazing Audio and Processing Features
The PMX-HD14 includes a built-in amplifier that can deliver 25 watts of clean power to four 4-ohm speakers or 50 watts to four 2-ohm speakers. The radio has six preamp outputs that provide up to 4 volts RMS to your amplifiers. A built-in 14-band graphic equalizer allows you or your installer to fine-tune the sound to your listening preferences. Rockford Fosgate invested a lot of time developing this radio, with innovations like audio presets – called Optimized Tunes – for the different Rockford Fosgate amplifier, speaker and subwoofer upgrade solutions available for your bike.
Transform Your Motorcycle Adventure with Rockford Fosgate
If high-quality sound, reliability and an easy-to-use interface are on your radio shopping list, drop by a local authorized Rockford Fosgate retailer and check out the Rockford Fosgate PMX-HD14. With a very detailed compatibility list on the product website, you can instantly see whether the radio is suitable for your touring bike. Follow Rockford Fosgate on Facebook and Instagram to keep up with their latest releases. Of course, their YouTube Channel has some of the coolest and most informative videos in the mobile audio industry.
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As we move toward the end of our discussion of car audio electrical theory, we need to talk about capacitance and inductance and how the characteristics of those phenomena interact with AC and DC signals. There’s no doubt that these are advanced concepts, but even a basic understanding of how capacitors and inductors work is fundamental to a thorough understanding of 
A capacitor is a two-terminal electronic component that stores energy. Capacitors are made of two metallic plates that are separated by an electrical insulator. When we apply a voltage to one terminal of the capacitor, the electrons on one plate will impose a force on the opposite plate to create an opposite charge. The result is that the plates have equal and opposite charges and thus, maintain an electric field. Because the plates in a capacitor are very close together, they can store a large amount of energy for their overall size.
Capacitors are, at their most basic function, a device that stores a microscopic magnetic field between its plates. When we apply a DC voltage to a discharged capacitor, it appears as a short circuit for an instant as the magnetic and electric fields start to form between its plates. As the capacitor starts to store energy, it increases in effective resistance, and the amount of current flowing through the device is reduced. Once the capacitor has equalized with the supply voltage, almost no current passes through the device.
In alternating current circuits, capacitors take on an interesting phenomenon of “virtual resistance.” As we know, capacitors don’t like to change voltage, yet an AC signal is one that is defined as ever-changing. Depending on the relationship between the capacitor value and the frequency of the AC signal, some amount of the current is allowed to pass through the cap.
In the simplest of terms, an inductor is a coil of wire that creates a magnetic field based on the amount of current flowing through it. Many inductors feature iron cores to increase the intensity of the magnetic field. Where a capacitor resists changes in voltage, an inductor resists changes in current flow. We know from our previous article on magnetism that current flowing through a conductor creates a magnetic field around that conductor. If we wrap the conductor in a loop, the proximity of the loops to one another intensifies the magnetic field.
In most applications, we don’t want inductors in a 12V DC circuit because they resist changes in current flow. For a variable load such as an amplifier, a large amount of inductance in the supply wiring would result in an unstable supply voltage as the current requirements change.