DSR1 Installation Connections

First thing you want to do is sort through the DSR1 power/input harness. Decide which connections you will need to use.

A typical installation will only require that the front RCA inputs are used. Heat shrink or tape off the ends of the remaining RCAs (Digital in, Aux, & Rear Input). We recommend that you use bullet-type connectors on the remaining 4 wires. The industry standard for all connectors is that a circuit supplying power or signal uses a female connector and a circuit that receives power or signal uses a male connector. This is to avoid electrical shorts when the connectors are not together.

1. Put a female connector on the Blue/White wire. This wire is the remote output. This wire goes to 12 volts when the DSR1 is powered up and supplies that 12V signal to your amplifier(s) in order to switch on the amplifier(s) when the DSR1 is powered up and to also switch the amplifiers off when the DSR1 powers down. Never connect your amplifier’s remote turn-on directly to the radio or an accessory source. Always use the Blue/White from the DSR1.

2. Put male connectors on the 3 remaining wires (Blue (no stripe), Yellow, Black)Make your power connections. You will need to supply your DSR1 with a ground and battery connection. There are only two good places to make these connections in the fairing of the bike.

1. Connect directly to the power terminals of your fairing-mounted power amplifier. We oftentimes include a fuse holder with DSR1s when we ship them out. Never connect the DSR1 directly to a high amperage source (the amplifier power terminal) without a fuse between the DSR1 and the power source.

2. Use our optional CB circuit harness to provide the DSR1 with power and ground. This is the easiest way and it already has a fuse holder built-in.

Above shows how to connect a standard fuse holder. Below shows how to connect our optional CB circuit harness.

If using the CB harness, on the bike you will find the matching 12 pin plug behind the radio to your left side. The harness will have a rubber plug in it and it will be the only harness on the fairing that will fit.

Remote/Accessory Input (Blue wire with no stripe). Do Not ConnectOn ‘14 & up Harleys this wire is not typically used. This wire in other applications would be routed to an accessory circuit on the bike or in the case of an aftermarket radio it would be connected to the remote output of the aftermarket radio. On ‘14 & up Harleys though the factory radios make a pop sound when they power up. This pop sound is then passed to the amplifier and then the speakers if the Blue wire of the DSR1 is connected. A great solution to this issue is to not use the blue wire at all. The DSR1 has a feature called “DC detect”. We enable DC detect on every DSR1 that we sell. The DC detect will listen for music signal at the factory radio outputs and turn the DSR1 on automatically. Doing it this way delays the turn on of the DSR1 and consequently the amplifier(s) just enough that it avoids the pop sound from the factory radio altogether. Problem solved. And one less wire to connect. Put a female bullet connector on the male connector that you crimped onto the blue wire earlier and tie it back out of the way so that you don’t mix it up with the Blue/White wire later on.

Connecting the Signal Input to the DSR1 from the Factory Radio

Locate the front signal plug and play harness. This harness has 2-Two pin black Molex connectors on one end and RCA connectors on the other end. Connect the RCAs to the White and Grey RCAs on the DSR1.

In the next few steps the connections are shown with the components outside of the bike for clarity sake.

Signal Out from the DSR1 to the Amplifier(s)In the picture below male-male RCA connectors are shown but on a bike you should always use short length RCA patch cables. The male-male connectors like to come loose with vibration. Even when taped up.

• Connect the front output from the DSR1 to the front input of the amplifier.

• Connect the rear output from the DSR1 to the rear input on the amplifier.

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About the 8 DSR1 RCA outputs.

The DSR1 has many more outputs than are required for many installations. The outputs are clearly labeled but the one that confuses people the most is the Front Spare outputs. These are not used unless you require all 8 channels of the DSR1. All 8 of the RCA outputs can actually be used for any speaker that you want in the system. All 8 channels have the same abilities and can be configured the same. It is wise however to use front for front, rear for rear .etc. because in the DSR1 app that you will be using later on you will want to easily keep track of what's what.

Amplifier Output Connections to the Amplifier.

If using a Diamond Audio amplifier like the one pictured, be aware that the RCA input plugs have the same 4 pin connector on the amplifier as the speaker output harnesses. It is easy to mix them up. The RCAs though go on the dial side of the amplifier and the speaker outputs go on the power connection side of the amplifier.

Use the harnesses that came with your plug and play signal harness labeled “Speaker Pod Harnesses”. On amplifiers that have wired speaker outputs these harnesses you will need to do wire to wire connections.

The female Molex connectors will plug directly into your speaker pods in the fairing. It doesn’t get much easier than that!

That's it! The DSR1 is Now Connected.

Additional notes: 

• For a bike that is a ‘14 through ‘18 year and only came with 2 speakers from the factory, the DSR1 is already programmed for you. You don’t need to plug it into a computer and you don’t have any adjustments that you need to make. It’s ready to go. Unless you want to launch the app and take the time to learn how to make more adjustments with the DSR1

• For a bike that is a ‘19 we have a different configuration file that you need to load for your bike. You still do not need to connect your DSR1 to a computer! The new file is loaded using the DSR1 app (Perfect Tune). It’s quick and easy to load. Check out How to Load DSR1 Setup Files, then check out DSR1 Setup File Downloads to get the correct file for your bike.

• For bikes that came with more than 2 speakers from the factory and for all bikes that came with an amplifier from the factory. The frequency curve of your radio is not the same as the bikes that came with only 2 speakers and no amplifier. You have 2 good options for great sound. 1. Use the DSR1 the way it was designed to be used. Use the EQ to adjust the sound so that the factory radios weird EQ curve is countered by the DSR1 adjustments that you make. This is how our pre-programmed files work. 2. Have your bike flashed by a competent shop for 2 amplifiers and 8 speakers. Your best bet will be to find a shop that has the flashing system from Techno Research. Rockford Fosgate dealers are offered a program from Rockford where they supply the dealership with the Techno Research hardware and training. So a Rockford dealer is a good place to start. Learn more about this and find your nearest dealer here.

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About our Harley DSR1 Compensation Files

Our files do two things.

1. They compensate for the horrible frequency response of the factory radio. Our files get your radio accurate to within a single dB (really accurate and great sounding).

2. The files configure the input and output settings for you. There is no need to go through the setup wizard in the DSR1 app.

What the Files Don’t Do

Our files do not have crossover settings. The crossovers built into the DSR1 are spectacular. However, you should instead use the crossovers built into your amplifier(s) unless you are an installer that is familiar with how to properly set crossovers that are as complex as the awesome ones built into the DSR1.

Speakers on a bike should always have High pass crossovers turned on and set properly. For all speakers.

Setting Amplifier Gains

We get asked a lot if the gains should be set within the DSR1. The answer is no. The DSR1 has trim levels for each channel as well as a master volume control. These are intended to be used by an advanced user. All trim levels in the DSR1 should be turned all of the way up and gain settings should be done at the amplifier(s). Learn more about Setting Amplifier Gains When Retaining a Factory Harley Radio here.