Sound Issues - Sena Neotec 2

[GSSteve]

Hello, good to meet you.

I purchased my XT last week and love it as a SatNav but I do have one real big issue.

I ride a BMW GS with a TFT screen, and I've gone though all the different ways of linking my TFT, iPhone, Sena Neotec 2 helmet system and Zumo XT. Believe me there are many ways to do this, but I've followed YouTube demos and it all connects as I would expect it to. I've tried linking the Zumo to Sena as a phone, phone 2 and SatNav, no change is noticed.

The problem I have is if I listen to background music on my helmet Sena system while riding, or on the desk as a test without the bike's TFT involved, when an announcement comes through from the Zumo, its preceded by a very loud 'squawk' noise, followed by a few seconds silence, then the announcement. I also feel the announcement is distorted.

If I turn the music off its fine, no 'squawk' and no silent delay, even on my helmet speakers. If I listen to it on the Zumo speaker, to test it on my desk, its also fine.

This may sound trivial but I assure you its not, its making it impossible to use as I wanted to.

I've been in touch with Garmin, and I've sent them an audio file and they are looking into it. Has anyone else had this issue?

Thanks for reading my post!

Steve

[Hati]

I had the Schuberth version of the Sena unit you use, connected to an iPhone 11 and a 595. The clarity problem was the Sena unit. I had to change to a Cardo Freecom 4+ setup to get rid of that problem. The Sena is a 5 year old design, hence the compatibility issues. Good luck.

[Oop North John]

I have the XT with the Shoei Neotec 2 (and the Sena plug in setup) plus phone combination and use the XT for the music. I don't have any squawk like you say. Do you have any other Bluetooth speakers to see if it does it through them as well?

[GSSteve]

I have the XT with the Shoei Neotec 2 (and the Sena plug in setup) plus phone combination and use the XT for the music. I don't have any squawk like you say. Do you have any other Bluetooth speakers to see if it does it through them as well?

Hi John, yes I've tried suing a normal set of Bluetooth headphones and its doesn't have the squawk but does have a significant delay of silence before the announcement, which I could live with. I expected the system to lower the music volume and give the announcement over the music, not silence then a very poor audio quality announcement. But if that's all they can do that's OK, as long as they can stop the squawk in my helmet!

[roberto7654]

Hi

Any luck with resolving this issue? I have my XT from yesterday and I have similar problem with my helmet BT. Music from iPhone 11 is streamed in hi quality and next I have a second or two of a silence before announcement and next a very bad quality instructions followed by returning music stream from phone.

It’s my first ever motorcycle GPS and I was expecting to hear GPS directions over a streamed music.

[Oop North John]

It’s my first ever motorcycle GPS and I was expecting to hear GPS directions over a streamed music.

I've not had that with an Interphone or the present Sena system.

[DevonBiker]

I have similar issues

Sena SRL + Shei Neotec 2 + Garmin Zumo XT

Bluetooth
One thing I learned the other day is that you can bluetooth to the Sena in different ways. You need to go into the SRL Bluetooth pairing options and choose Sat Nav connection. This will allow you to hear music AND navigation instructions. I must have connected via another method because I could not get the navigation instructions to sound through my SRL.

Regarding the sound quality
Music plays "ok" not brilliant just "ok" but thats down to the limited volume and poor quality speakers from the Sena SRL that cannot handle full range audio frequencies like bass at higher volumes so it can sound quite broken which is terrible imo.

The spoken navigation audio is just TERRIBLE and I'm really surprised Garmin are still in business! The sound quality is like a low bit rate / overly compressed audio files which are no match for the quality of Google maps for an example which plays very well through my Sena. I have the long pauses before the voice says anything which completely dubs out your music. When the voice interrupts your music there is a minor squawk like sound interruption, then a1-2 second pause before you hear the voice announcement then another pause (I think) before it returns to the music. I've started playing around with other sat nav Apps. My KTM Sat Nav App voice is much better although not as good as Google. Calimoto looks interesting and the quality of the voice can be set to HFP or A2DP where A2DP is closer to Google quality and HFP sounds like something that's been ripped off an old fashion tape with a hint of hiss. Garmin sounds like HFP quality. Whilst there are better Sat Nav sounding Apps out there, Garmin has nailed it in terms of route planning via Basecamp. Calimoto has a web based planner via your computers browser but its not as good as Basecamp. That said, when you invest in a £400 Sat Nav its hard to move on to something else as it feels like youve wasted a lot of money and selling used, despite its condition, never yields a good return. So I feel stuck with this Garmin problem which I feel will not get fixed.

Lastly
A year ago I sold my BMW GSA and the Navigator 6. Previous to that I had the Navigator 5. Previous GSA I had the Navigator 3 which I also didnt like the voice announcements which seemed low quality audio bit rate connected to a wired Autocom unit. So Garmin have a track record of producing poor quality audio in their motorcycle sat navs. I think this might be the last Garmin sat nav I ever buy.

[Fourbears]

Just to jump on this thread I have just purchased a Neotec 2 with the Sena SRL Mesh and no matter what I do it will not overlay the sat nav directions. I have paired it as GPS, second phone, media selected and goodness knows what else plus reset at least 3 times, messed about with the app settings all to no avail. Sena Customer Service are not much help as they just got me to reset everything and ignored the question as to whether it is faulty. So it has gone back to the supplier so they can send it to Sena to see if it is faulty or not. I cant believe that you cannot set it up to overlay the sat nav as as it should do straight out of the box. So my question is has anyone solved this issue and how did you do it?

[Peobody]

When you say "overlay the satnav" do you mean mesh communication overriding voice navigation?
If so, I was never able to with my Cardozo Palktalk. I now ride with voice navigation turned off most of the time.

[Fourbears]

Yes you are meant to hear the sat nav guidance as well as music/phone call/ intercom. Except it doesn’t!