I am a newer owner of a 996 cab, and brand new to 6speedonline. The stock radio I have is the CDR 210 with Haes amp and speakers 2 dash, 2 door and 2 rear. I was debating whether to just upgrade the head unit or do head unit, amp, and speakers. Any opinions if upgrading just the head unit to something like an alpine CDE-164BT makes much of a difference than what is in there now, or should I bite the bullet and do the amp and speakers as well. Any thoughts or opinions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

I am new to the thread so I am late to this party but I have some input if you'd like. I just did the head unit upgrade and used the factory amp and speakers which a local shop told me (lied) wouldn't work. The stereo sounds ten times better and it was super easy to do. I got all the parts for under $450 and one afternoon of labor (yours truly lol) Here are the results...

 

Nicely done, Horsepower! What was the original system in the car? What wire harness did you use? Links? Thanks!

 

Everything came from Crutchfield, their techs build the harness for the car. It was pretty damn simple. I could probably upload all the components I Bought. I didn't have the Bose system, but I did have dash speakers, door speaker, rear speakers and an amp. It was the HIFI system, here is an original picture of it...

 

Ahhh... looks like the system I have with the exception of the audio EQ processor - CDR-220 analog "hifi" system.

That's a good thing because IMHO the analog systems are more aftermarket friendly versus the MOST fiber optic based systems.

My last Carrera was a MOST based system and basically had to remove both the HU and frunk amp and go with a complete aftermarket replacement. A lot cheaper than having Porsche service the MOST system. Unfortunately, since the HU and amp was MOST, basically all I could reuse was the speakers and amp bracket. haha! Installed a nice Blaupunkt setup, but found myself never using it much. I'd rather just drive and listen to the motor. I know, I'm weird.

This time around, I'm just keeping it stock. If I upgrade, I would love to go double din with a nice Nav unit. I've been researching the use of Porsche's Harmann/Becker PCM units, but because the newer use MOST with those quirky digital handshakes (verification), I'm not sure it will be easy integrating it just to keep the car "all Porsche". Anyway, be thankful your system is analog, cause you don't have to deal with all the digital configuration nightmares.

 

Yes if it were a FO system I would have had to replace the whole thing, amp, speakers, wires etc but I was lucky. This was easy