Baehr vs. Autocom

[jslarson]

I have been looking at both systems and other then the price they seem to be about the same. The Baehr is made in Germany and the Autocom in England. Has anyone had any hands on experience with both?

Thanks

 

[Ken]

You'll get lots of kudos on the Autocom. It's a great unit and lots of people here have had nothing but really good experience with it. Baehr also makes the IMC MIT-100 which is another pretty popular comm system among the members here. I've used the MIT unit and it's great. You can't go wrong with either one.

 

[Bora20]

I have a Starcom1 Advance. It works perfectly and I have installed the bulkhead connectors to give it a factory look. Check out some of my comments and pics here:

https://www.st-owners.com/forums/showpost.php?p=166000&postcount=53

 

[RTETR]

I fully agree with dan. I also have the Starcom unit and it excellent. I run my Garmin, IPod, cell and bike2bike radios through it and it's clear, solid sound even with earplugs.

 

[STumpy]

Sink and I installed the IMC MIT-100. Unfortunately we have had nothing but problems. In fact we have sent them back 2x now and they still do not work right. One time I can hear him and he cant hear me, and a few minutes later it is just the opposite. Finally both units just stopped working for everything.

They are inexpensive compared to the other options, but IMO they are not worth it.

 

[crazykz]

Sink and I installed the IMC MIT-100. Unfortunately we have had nothing but problems. In fact we have sent them back 2x now and they still do not work right. One time I can hear him and he cant hear me, and a few minutes later it is just the opposite. Finally both units just stopped working for everything.

They are inexpensive compared to the other options, but IMO they are not worth it.

Wow! This is the worst expierence that I've heard with that setup but I know you guys were trying some different things with different adaptors etc. Sorry to hear it back fired on you guys. That blows.

Curt

 

[STumpy]

Wow! This is the worst expierence that I've heard with that setup but I know you guys were trying some different things with different adaptors etc. Sorry to hear it back fired on you guys. That blows.

Curt

We are totally STumped ! We have tried all sorts of variations to pinpoint the problem. It just seams to act up at random. Very frustrating.

But I read a post by Killtimer that he had to place a 1mm spacer on one of the radio jacks. The spacer allowed the jack to make a solid contact with the radio. That may very well be the problem for our system. We will give it a try and hopefully it will correct the problem.

 

[Highrider]

RTER
Don't you find the auto-volume gives you problems while using earplugs?
Mine constantly had the volume running away to extremely painful levels. I had Tecstar modify a unit for me where the auto-volume feature was diabled. Now it works great and everyones happy.

 

[Sink]

Wow! This is the worst expierence that I've heard with that setup but I know you guys were trying some different things with different adaptors etc. Sorry to hear it back fired on you guys. That blows.

Curt

We used all stock cables, STumpy has the mixit2 also with stock cables. Mine ended up with lots of noise and the PTT not working by the end of the day. mp3 works very well for a while then gets very noisy. Very frustrating. Sierra says send them back and they will fix them. (again)
Any ideas about what is happening? We were looking for cables to hook up high end midland radios where the pins were farther apart than the cheaper ones. That didn't work so we used the cables that came with the MIT-100's and the cheaper radios. STumpy tried using the radio by itself and I rode off with the one hooked up to my bike. That worked. Just won't work with both radio's on the bikes. We have them sitting upright. Don't know where to go from here. I also tried some different midland radios and it did the same thing. That takes the radios out of the problem. We also switched the wires that we could. No difference. Hard to believe that we have 2 bad systems..... And they can't fix them.

 

[RTETR]

Hi Dave,

I've had to sample the volumes from each device until I found what worked for my hearing with ear plugs in while in motion. I found that I adjusted the volume on my Garmin to 7 and my IPod to75% against that of my cell phone at full volume, then I blended those three to a volume level through the Starcom unit that's about 80% of full. This gives me almost constant hearing regardless of the device I am listening to. (If using the rider2rider radio I usually set my Motorolla volume at about 70%.)

I usually always ride with ear plugs in and if not then I turn down the Starcom a few notches.

Works great for me and aside from very quiet tunes I hear everything at an acceptable level and even then can easily turn any of devices up or down if needed.

The Starcom1 has been an excellent choice for sure.

 

[STay froSTy]

I have an older Pro M1 Autocom that has been ok. The passenger mic has given problems with wind noise and at Westoc my mic was not working. I believe it was not hookedup correctly. Aside from my install issue running the system off of the 9v batteries can be frustrating. The autocom will burn up the batteries quick if you are listening to music (~7 hours). If you install the bike power cord (~$65 extra) make sure it is with isolation you will get a engine whine without it. I have no experience with the Baehr unit.

 

[nm6r]

My Autocom Active-7-Smart works flawlessly from bike power with no additional power line isolation. I tried many of the others and found the Autocom to be unsurpassed in many ways without the shortcomings that most of the other units have.

Ray