Thanks guys, this a great thread! I don't think I have seen such a neat and tidy install like steve's. It just makes perfect sense. As I was saying, it seems plausible that the mids and bass drivers are not constrained by crossovers. Some audiophiles in the home audio world select drivers with nice 6 dB/octave rolloffs on both ends of the frequency spectrum (or 12db/octave in sealed enclosures). So long as you are very careful matching the drivers, you can get a very pure sound. I am just surprised that porsche can get that to work in a near-field environment. i would imagine the path-length differences would cause all kinds of phase issues. Either way, if there is just a cap on the tweeter, it makes our lives easier, since we just get full range on the amp channels. It would be nice to get an EQ inline with the amp too, but I am pretty happy that steve has had no grounding problems. Adding a signal processor can sometimes start a ground loop.....

 

You guys are really cutting my work out for me here. If you're finding these posts useful, give me your rep points!

Here's the back of a CDR/PCM unit. Notice the dimpled aluminum backpiece which is the heatsink for the internal amp. If you have this, you have an internal amp and can drive your new amp off the speaker outputs - the red connector shown below. On my unit, I installed panel mount female RCA plugs on the black plastic backplate shown below, and ran some twisted pair cat5 wire from there and soldered it to the speaker out spades under the red connector:



Here is the full removal and install guide for a CDR/PCM on the Cayman Club/planetporsche.net forums:
http://www.planetporsche.net/reviews...ate=1219656811

That unit looks like your amplifier. Here's the description from your p/n:
http://www.pelicanparts.com/cgi-bin/...%20SOUND%20SYS

It almost looks like you have the room to stick the JL amp there.

I don't think any additional signal processing is necessary. The stock speakers are very cheap, but running a spectrum analysis show they play pretty flat and appear to be acoustically designed to match the car's door and interior. The tweeters appear to be a silk soft dome tweeter and seem to extend well to 20khz. They are designed to be super efficient and make the most sound out of as little watts as possible. Come to think of it, I don't think the amp in the head unit puts out more than 7 watts/ch. When I connected a regular speaker to it, I could barely hear any sound come out of it.

 

If you want to keep the car looking 100% stock, Morell 9" drivers will fit in the doors and we have been using Focal K2p's which fit into the OE locations remaining for the mid tweet. It's really important to sound deaden the door and the panels the result is amazing bass - it's really good, and no rattles.
While there are lots of amps that will interface with the OE head, Zapco's work really well hide nicely.
It all fits under plastic and you have 100% of your car.
I also deadened the rear of the car, wheel wells and panels and more and interior noise is much lower - and the car feels tighter - really nice. We have done this for 3 cars just recently and everyone really likes it. Adds about 20 pounds overall to the car.

Chris

 

Steve, Yes I think it's very helpful and has given me a kinds of ideas. I appreciated trying to find info on my stock Porsche amp, unfortunately it doesn't provide any information on what each cable color is attached to. I can always use a tester, but a schematic would be so easy. Anyone have information on the pin-out of this stock amp? Also I just added rep points for you.

hifimonkey - thanks for the speaker info!

 

Steve, thanks a bunch! I appreciate the thread. I don't know what 'rep points' are! I got to look and see if there is a faq on 6speedonline! The pics of the head unit are very useful. Would you happen to know how the center channel is derived?

 

Thanks guys! I think there is only a center channel if your car has a Bose system, and I assume the Bose amp is what does the processing, so I don't think anyone really knows. I don't think you really need it. I tried to mock up a center channel with the same 2.5" speaker that the Bose system uses (p/n 997.645.035.00) by pulling a mono signal from the left and right channel, and it didn't really make things better. It was overpowered and drowned out by the door speakers and I don't think it improved the imaging in any way. I have heard that Reus Audio inserts a pair of tweeters inside the back of the rear view mirror, but I'm pretty happy with the way it is now.

Note I have a GT3 with the stiffer chassis of the 4wd C4S and Turbos, so what applies to me may not to you, at least in the trunk/gas tank area. Looks like the C2s have more room in the gas tank area.

 

You are probably right about the center channel being redundant. Believe it or not, the 997.2 sound plus package (9 speakers) has the center channel speaker without the optional Bose upgrade. I just can't figure out how porsche runs the whole system. Usually, you would need a signal processor to make a decent center channel. When I get my PCM out, I have to see how many speaker channels are coming out, and that might tell us something. It also seems that porsche has many different builds of their system, because all of the threads show pics and specs of the same system, but they are all slightly different! Anyway, I ditched my JL cleansweep and will order that class-d amp you had in your pics. I picked up the fiberglass mat to make the sealed enclosure. I might try a smaller sub than 8" and see what happens!

 

In my 3.2 I used a 4" ADS midrange in the center console, and an Audio Control Model 11 center channel processor and that setup made a difference. That processor, by variable control removed left and right info from the center signal, and by the spacial control, also removed center info from the left and right speakers, so when you turned it on, it seemed as if the speakers lifted and expanded past the outside of the doors and you were in a larger space, with rear surround speakers, even though I have none, and a hole in the middle of the dash was filled. The 997 with the tweeters in the dash corners seem to image quite a bit better than the older 911s. I am 100% sure there is no center channel output in the PCM. On sound package plus, just follow the center channel wires back to your amp, and see if it's just a derivation of the left and right, or if there's a dedicated output.

 

I feel old! Back in the day, I used the audio control ESP-3 in all my center channel installs. That was way back in 1992! I am going to check and see what porsche did for the center. If anything it is probably a L/R summed signal. I doubt that they extracted all the mono info out of the side channels and sent them to the center like the signal processors do. The imaging is pretty crappy in the car now, I can't fathom what it would be like without some center channel information. Anyway, I just have to find some time to take the cars apart. I wonder if I can get a friendly porsche technician to solve the riddle for us. I am going to ask around......

 

Whatever you find, or finally install, let us know.

Have you tried with the stock system just turning on the loudness, and giving it about +3 on the bass? I found it made the stock system a lot more acceptable.

 

You are right about that steve! That is exactly what I did. I put the loudness on and let the speakers "burn in" a little. It started sounding much better to my ears. My biggest complaint is that the amp starts clipping rather early and there is a strident "ringing" around 10K hertz that is painful as the volume ramps up. It could also be that they angled the tweeters off the windshield too. That is not the greatest idea for sound quality. Anyway, I thought of putting a small strip of felt in different spots inside the tweeter grill and see if it made a difference by changing the dispersion of the tweeter.
The only thing is that a lot of folks were saying it is just the amp that sucks and is 15 Watts RMS. It just can't handle the load if the sunroof is open and the music gets turned up a tad. What killed me is that I had spent a lot of time cross shopping the E93 M3, and it has a hell of a system with 8 inch subs in the floor under the front seats. the system sounds and images great. Well, that kind of thing pisses me off, since the 997 is so darn close to perfect!!!

 

I heard the Enhanced Sound for the E9X M3 and it sounded incredible and the speakers weren't even broken in yet.

Dave

 

I had the a E60 545i before the Porsche with the 8" subs under the seats, by far the best stock car system I've heard, which is why I'm annoyed at the Porsche stereo and want it to sound better. I actually heard the Bose and I feel that sounded worse then this system, at least I'm finding out there are some options with the non-bose system.

 

Can you let me know what model number Morel 9" drivers you used in the doors? Thanks -Paul

 

The sound system in my wifes 08 328i blows my 997S Bose system away. So much cleaner and much better imaging.

Dave