Cardo PackTalk Bold - Not a favorable opinion

Cardo PackTalk Bold Review - Not a favorable opinion

I was using Sena SMH10's for the past 6 years or so and was fairly happy with them but was spending more time with a pillion and wanted to be able to have an open intercom while sharing music which the Sena did not do. I had also recently added a Garmin to the mix and found it interrupted our Intercom conversation. After doing extensive research I found the Packtalk bold would do all of these, or so Cardo says in the advertising. The Packtalk Bold is a very nice system for groups of riders, without Pillions. When adding a pillion the system fails completely.
- The system is supposed to share music while intercom is active and available in DMC mode. This was done as an update so it is not in the manual however Cardo has a video on it. This does not work because of back ground noise activating the intercom which cuts the sound level of music and adds some not nice crackling noises. Cardo support has been of no help with this issue, they stated to set background music to 100% via the app which was already done on both units. Mic Sensitivity is also set to the lowest setting and we have tried both "intelligent" noise cancelling on and off, its better with is on. I have ordered some larger wind socks from Cardo but have not had a chance to try them yet. But they do look and taste awful as they are so large one cannot get them away from the face inside the helmets. I think the issue with this is how quiet our helmets are so the slightest exterior sound or wind noise activates the intercom. We are using the Schuberth C3 Pro and AGV Carbon along with being behind a Quiet ride screen on R1200RT so its pretty quiet which seems so confuse the Cardo Units. I think if there was constant background noise the system would be less inclined to think we were trying to talk every time it hears a little noise. You can share music while in Bluetooth mode instead of DMC however not while intercom is open.
- The GPS always interrupts intercom. The manual and app say you can set priorities so that the intercom will be higher than the GPS this is completely untrue and has been stated by Cardo tech support to be untrue. GPS is always the 1st priority and cannot be heard at same time as any other inputs, this is regardless of pairing as GPS or just another Bluetooth device. This would not be so bad if the Pillion knew no one was listening to them or if the system didn't take so long to go back to intercom but there is a good 4 seconds of silence between spoken directions from GPS and reactivation of the intercom. The system also beeps when reconnecting, this would be great if it did it when interrupting but doing it upon reconnecting is useless if passenger had no idea they had been muted.
- When reading up on this system it sounded like it was capable of having intercom open while sharing music and being able to have GPS not interrupt but give directions at the same time with channel open to all three inputs (Bluetooth mixing). It does not do that.
I have been disconnecting the Garmin Bluetooth when a have a passenger and relying on visual which of course is dangerous to look at thee GPS while underway so as not to be completely frustrated every time the Garmin tells me 4 times to take the next right or my favorite continue on route interrupting conversation and music and beeping away. I wouldn't think that emulating being in a car having music playing while talking while GPS is announcing directions would be all that hard.
In the end I have spent $423.99 for the same exact system I already had that was paid for years ago, albeit with better bass and sound quality, due to the amount of time it took to try these systems tried out and get in touch with Cardo Tech support the return window has long since passed. I am writing this to help prevent others from falling for the same false advertising as I did. It is a very nice system and has very good sound quality however not nearly worth the $$ it touted a lot of claims that it simply is not capable of and what it does do it does not do well. If you want a system to ride in a group without a pillion this is great however if you have a passenger keep looking.
After spending an additional $27.00 for shipping, Cardo sent replacements, these I was able to share music with a old Android however not a newer model or Iphone XS or Garmin 595 at that point I gave up and returned to retailer, I would stay away from the Cardo lineup if trying to do more than just integrate with a phone or talk over intercom, none of the other features work or if they do they do not work well. Cardo tech support is awful they never answer the phone and take days to answer an email with little to no substance, all of their responses can be found in the manual.

My pillion has her own music to listen to, either bluetoothed to an mp3 or their phone. Comms between the two helmets are as expected while they listen to their own music choices and I listen to mine.

btw, I've been using PTB's coming into my 3rd season with them. I've looked at their new "edge" unit as an upgrade, for the added features, not interested over the system in play now. Easy to pair devices with the PTB, where Sena's can be difficult at times [ taking several tries sometimes ].

Cardo and Sena have always over extended their range between riders. Neither the Sena 20s nor the PTB reach a mile, even in a straight line of sight situation. More like 1/2 mile at best, which is fine, but not as either tout in their literature.

and I don't want the Nav unit to talk to me, nor want the phone answering feature while riding. All features I could care less to use. The units are waterproof where the Sena isn't [ but my 20s has been through some torrential rain days and never failed ].

Why would you want the intercom active all the time? That would be a serious battery drain. On my freecom 4+ I say call intercom and the intercom turns on usually we say what we have to say and manually turn it off. Or the intercom turns itself off after silence. As far as music share; we both have our own phones.

I do find the gps instruction thing you mentioned annoying. However, I mostly have voice instructions off unless where needed. I wish it wouldn't take so long to turn itercom back on and give notice to the passenger that gps is on! My wife just keeps talking lol.

Sent from my SM-N975U1 using Tapatalk

oscs said:

Why would you want the intercom active all the time? That would be a serious battery drain. On my freecom 4+ I say call intercom and the intercom turns on usually we say what we have to say and manually turn it off. Or the intercom turns itself off after silence. As far as music share; we both have our own phones.

I do find the gps instruction thing you mentioned annoying. However, I mostly have voice instructions off unless where needed. I wish it wouldn't take so long to turn itercom back on and give notice to the passenger that gps is on! My wife just keeps talking lol.

Sent from my SM-N975U1 using Tapatalk

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In DMC mode while sharing music the Intercom is always active, no button pushing required just speak and it realizes you are talking and opens the channel whereas the Sena was either Intercom or Music sharing couldn't have both at the same time. In DMC mode the intercom is always active unless you mute the mic. We like to chat as we ride talk about what we see or communicate a turn etc. which it does quite well so long as you are not sharing music or getting GPS instructions. There is a slight delay using DMC due to the open channel system, if you use the intercom where you can see each other its like watching Chinese theater. Also at a stop with modular helmets open when you can hear voice and intercom there is a very odd echo effect from this delay.

jsd said:

In DMC mode while sharing music the Intercom is always active, no button pushing required just speak and it realizes you are talking and opens the channel whereas the Sena was either Intercom or Music sharing couldn't have both at the same time. In DMC mode the intercom is always active unless you mute the mic. We like to chat as we ride talk about what we see or communicate a turn etc. which it does quite well so long as you are not sharing music or getting GPS instructions. There is a slight delay using DMC due to the open channel system, if you use the intercom where you can see each other its like watching Chinese theater. Also at a stop with modular helmets open when you can hear voice and intercom there is a very odd echo effect from this delay.

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Gotcha sorry, I didn't catch dmc part! That's weird on the "Chinese Theater" thing. The freecom 4+ intercom doesn't have a delay! You would think the intercoms would be the same between the different models.

oscs said:

Gotcha sorry, I didn't catch dmc part! That's weird on the "Chinese Theater" thing. The freecom 4+ intercom doesn't have a delay! You would think the intercoms would be the same between the different models.

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Are you in DMC or Bluetooth mode? I have not tried it in Bluetooth to see if its the same delay but I assume its a DMC thing.

Dealer refunded

After an exhausting 2 months of reading the internet, communicating with Cardo (not very well as their tech support does not respond for days and never answers the phone ) I spoke to the dealer (Honda House here in Richmond, VA) who kindly refunded me well after the return period . They had also reached out to the local sales rep for Cardo who was very quick to respond and tried to be as helpful as possible.
After my 1st trip to the local dealer and speaking to the Cardo rep I was able to send the units back to Cardo for replacement, using my $$$ as they do not pay for shipping. The new units shipped out 5 days later and I received a total of 10 days after sending Cardo my tracking numbers on the outgoing. Upon receiving I promptly ran the updater and paired them together in both DMC and Bluetooth. Played some music on unit 1, worked perfectly. Pressed the share music button and upon connection with the other helmet the music started skipping and stuttering and fast forwarding. Ok perhaps my phone is the issue (IPhone XS) disconnect the Bluetooth and try the wife's Brand new Motorola, same issue. OK try another old Samsung I had in a drawer from 7 years ago. Music sharing worked fine no skipping no stuttering. Seems is a phone issue, until i checked the volume. Whenever music sharing the music volume is dimmed. Seems the Cardo does not play the music at full volume while sharing in DMC mode regardless of volume settings in the app (Music volume also does not adjust music volume in sharing mode, intercom volume actually adjusts music volume ). Now this is sitting at my desk, no wind noise complete silence. So I mute the unit 1 microphone music suddenly starts blaring out of the helmet at a volume I did not think the unit could produce (very glad I was not wearing it). I un-mute the mic on unit 1 and the music goes back to its lowered volume. I try muting the mic on unit 2, this causes the music to lower even further. At this point I decide to give up, these are so full of bugs and glitches nothing works the way it should. Bluetooth audio mixing also never worked, GPS would always interrupt intercom regardless of settings or pairing type.
As stated earlier these units are great for a single rider that does not use separate GPS or wants to share music however there are all kinds of less expensive options (like the 3 year old Sena SMH10 I was using and just wanted to be able to talk while listening to music and get GPS instruction). The really odd thing is when sharing FM music these perform flawless (well GPS still cuts out intercom rather then mixing)
Guess I am off to research something that hopefully will work for the situation or reinstall my old units and go back to either having intercom or Music not both at once.

I have the Cardo Palktalks and gave up on the DMC mods. I will admit I find Cardo's advertising a bit misleading. They make claims what the intercoms will do, but if you want to do one thing, it will not do another and so on. We bought them as it was advertised that is was simple to add and remove yourself or others from your group easily, well, it wasn't that simple. Also the music sharing made me crazy!

I wanted the ability of my wife and I to listen to the same music, but again it only worked in DMC mode and I did not like how it worked. (I honestly can not say why as it has been a couple years) I also wanted it to link up with the Bluetooth on my 2018 R1200rt. Well the BMW software will link to one headset, but it will not link up to two aftermarket headsets. You need the BMW communicator to do that. I wasn't going to spend that much coin, plus I can't wear the helmet required to fit the BMW communicator. I find it extremely uncomfortable, like immediate pain.

I wanted to make this work and found a two channel Bluetooth transmitter, it takes one input and sends out two Bluetooth signals. I wired a low level convertor, into the bike speakers, ran that output to the Bluetooth transmitter and connected both Packtalks to it. We run it in "normal" Bluetooth mode. We can talk to each other, listen to the same music from the bike stereo, and link to our phones or another Bluetooth device, a Garmin GPS perhaps. We gave up on the group connection and I ride with one other person often. We use our cell phones for bike to bike communication, but of course that only works if you have service.

The battery life is good, I will give them credit for that. My wife and I went for a ride the other day and we were gone from 10 AM to 6 PM and did make a couple stops, but put on about 300 miles and never had to recharge our intercoms.

Should check these out - I have found them easy to use, haven't tested the music sharing as I don't normally ride with others, and none that share my music preferences when riding.

https://lexin-moto.com/collections/...ound-and-music-sharing?variant=36140145803420

PoorUB said:

I have the Cardo Palktalks and gave up on the DMC mods. I will admit I find Cardo's advertising a bit misleading. They make claims what the intercoms will do, but if you want to do one thing, it will not do another and so on. We bought them as it was advertised that is was simple to add and remove yourself or others from your group easily, well, it wasn't that simple. Also the music sharing made me crazy!

I wanted the ability of my wife and I to listen to the same music, but again it only worked in DMC mode and I did not like how it worked. (I honestly can not say why as it has been a couple years) I also wanted it to link up with the Bluetooth on my 2018 R1200rt. Well the BMW software will link to one headset, but it will not link up to two aftermarket headsets. You need the BMW communicator to do that. I wasn't going to spend that much coin, plus I can't wear the helmet required to fit the BMW communicator. I find it extremely uncomfortable, like immediate pain.

I wanted to make this work and found a two channel Bluetooth transmitter, it takes one input and sends out two Bluetooth signals. I wired a low level convertor, into the bike speakers, ran that output to the Bluetooth transmitter and connected both Packtalks to it. We run it in "normal" Bluetooth mode. We can talk to each other, listen to the same music from the bike stereo, and link to our phones or another Bluetooth device, a Garmin GPS perhaps. We gave up on the group connection and I ride with one other person often. We use our cell phones for bike to bike communication, but of course that only works if you have service.

The battery life is good, I will give them credit for that. My wife and I went for a ride the other day and we were gone from 10 AM to 6 PM and did make a couple stops, but put on about 300 miles and never had to recharge our intercoms.

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Wow you are far more gracious than myself. I would never have gone thru so much trouble or cost to work around Cardo's failings. We were using Sena SMH10 for years and just wanted to upgrade to be able have intercoms open and share music at the same time along with getting GPS prompts in the background. This I would think would be a common requirement for many motorcyclist so I was just baffled that Cardo or anyone's flagship intercom would not do something so simple.

r0ckrat said:

Should check these out - I have found them easy to use, haven't tested the music sharing as I don't normally ride with others, and none that share my music preferences when riding.

https://lexin-moto.com/collections/...ound-and-music-sharing?variant=36140145803420

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Looks interesting I will do some research into them. Thanks

For the last three years I have had a cardo on one helmet and a sena on the other.
Both are hugh pains in the you know what.

fmdualexhaust said:

For the last three years I have had a cardo on one helmet and a sena on the other.
Both are hugh pains in the you know what.

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Depends on what you're asking of them. I run a sena 20s on one helmet I use when riding by myself [ for music only from my mp3 player ], and the other two helmets have the cardo ptb's and they run my mp3 players as well. I use the ptb helmet when I'm on a trip with my brother, he's got two helmets with ptb's as well.

We synced up and they have worked flawlessly for coms and music for both of us. I don't want the units to connect to a phone, the tft screen, gps etc. I use a garmin gps on both beemers and watch the screen, no need to have it yackin at me all the time.

fmdualexhaust said:

For the last three years I have had a cardo on one helmet and a sena on the other.
Both are hugh pains in the you know what.

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I just finished the install of 2 Sena 50S's I have very low expectations so hopefully I wont be disappointed . Yeah I fully expect them to be a PIA but if they actually do what I am asking 80% of the time I will be impressed. Otherwise I guess its back to the SMH10's and I will figure out how to wire the Garmin into the bike speakers I never use anyways.