Need Help/Advice on Upgrading Audio System

Okay: I have a 2007 base cayman with a base sound system that I want to desperately upgrade. I have selected the double din unit I want to put in as well as the JL six channel amp. But what perplexes me are the speakers. Now I am not wedded to the porsche speaker set up and quite frankly I want to go to a composite speaker set in the doors with a dedicated subwoofer in the back compartment. That is what i am used to in my other cars (not porsches). But I am at a total lost regarding the whole matter and the more I research this on this forum and the other forums I get more confused with my head spinning. Can we start here. I want to upgrade my system with entirely new speakers. Will you guys throw out suggestions on a way for me to go because now i have confused myself so much I do not know what I am doing anymore. I know the focal speaker sets are out there that give me the three way speaker arrangements or setup that are currently in the door. But man they are some costly. So, I am open to ideas and directions at this point. So please help a confused forum member.

If you are looking for great sound and simplicity get the JL Audio CS-650x 6.5 inch coaxial speaker. I have a JL Audio stealthbox custom subwoffer for an 06 to 12 Cayman I want to sell for $775. I bought it for my 08 Cayman and never installed it. PM me if want pictures

How much do you want to spend? You didn't mention a price range. I bought Morel 3 way speakers ($1700) from Amazon for my Cayman. I have Morel 2 way speaker set ($700) in my Mercedes; much better sound than the JL 3 way for $900. There is a significant difference in the sound from a $700 set and a $1700 set; you get what you pay for in audio. I spent $1800 on parts (Head unit, Amp, Sub Woofer, Silver interconnects, Silver speaker wire, Speakers, etc) for the Mercedes and $4000 for parts for the Porsche.

Cars are not concert halls and let's face it a 2007 is not really that expensive so i would determine a realistic budget. If you are a real audiophile certainly start with amp/ speakers then HU. I had the Bose set up in my car and decided i wanted to upgrade to a more modern head unit and kept speakers and replaced amp. All in i spent about $750 and did the install myself

thanks everyone for the replies so far. I have decided on the double din head unit and the amp I want to put in the car, but I am stuck on the speakers. Man, the base cayman only has speaker grills in the door for one speaker. You cannot even put composites in the door. What kind of mess is that!!!

Here are a few pictures of install

If you look for good speakers, I would suggest the new Hertz Mille as a 2-way set Hertz Mile MPK 165.3 Pro (appr. $280) or 3-way set enhanced with an Midrange MP70.3 Pro MP 70.3 - Hertz Mille Pro car audio midrange speakers Another very interesting option is a German product Rainbow Germanium as 2-Way or 3-Way set (appr. $250-350). The Tweeter and midrange fit plug-and-play in the door and in the dashboard. I have used them in my Cayman. As a subwoofer you can use the Arc Audio ARC8 preaty affordable but very good and needs very small volumes Here you can see very detailed discription how to mount them ( text is in German, but fotos are selfexplanatory) just a photo

I'm new to Porsche 's and I'm new to this forum and its given me a lot of great information so I wanted to give back. I wanted to share my experience with an extensive write up of an identical upgrade project on my Cayman 2007 Base model. I didn't have the Bose or the sound pro plus, I had just the absolute plain vanilla CDR-24 stereo and plain speakers. This is what I got done/installed. It took me one afternoon: Please note, my aim was to have "as absolutely simple and easy an installation as possible, without any additional heartbreak, sophisticated tools and I DID NOT want to change anything from factory installation to the point where I could easily reverse this entire process one day if I wanted to. I am NOT a fan of the idea of modding my car, but I live in the 21st century and a single CD player and ten year stereo won't allow me to enjoy my hard earned money used to purchase this car. 1. Removed CDR-24 stereo, replaced it with a double din, no GPS unit Pioneer AVH-X3800BHS (a little over $200, Walmart and Amazon have great prices on it) I got an adapter for it as well to color code the wires so it wasn't a production of splicing and dicing. 2. Replaced door speakers and dash tweeters with a pair of 6.5 inch budget friendly Rockford Fosgate speakers and tweeters (Rockford R165S R1 Prime 6.5-Inch 2-Way Component Speaker System - $65 for the lot, I'm not kidding) 3. To fit the pioneer unit I bought this kit from Crutchfield manufactured by "american international" for $30 this fits around the new stereo and makes it look like it was part of the car originally 404: Not Found A couple of quick things that I heard before I installed these items based on everything I found on the internet. Followed by the truth I learned post install line by line: a. Buy a $300+ kit for the dash to install the stereo so it looks like a factory install. FALSE. Plenty of sites out there are charging people as much as $350 just for the surrounding silver piece of plastic to go into your dash that goes around the new double din Pioneer stereo. The $30 one I purchased looks so authentic, that each time I ask people to inspect they say they cannot tell that the piece installed is different in shade, color, side, anything than the factory fitted panels around the dash. Don't get duped. More expensive doesn't mean better. b. You can simply color code with an adapter and replace your CDR-24 stock stereo with the Pioneer AVH-X3800BHS. FALSE. This installation was going great until it got time to color code match the existing wiring of the yellow and red wires that denote power. It turns out that there is no simple solution to having your Pioneer unit actually turn off with the ignition using the existing wiring. Not one that I or Crutchfield could figure out. Eventually, my industrial engineering degree came in handy. I had to run a very thin wire, basically excess speaker wire from fuse C4 in the fuse box next to the drivers side fuse box, to the stereo's power input to get it to sync with the ingition in terms of when the Pioneer unit turns on and off. Otherwise I would have had to manually turn off the unit each time (see my comment about life in the 21st century). Did this take me 3 hours to figure out? Yes. Will you fall for the same issue. I hope not. I really don't want anyone to have to go through that again. I'd seriously look into other units and get guarantees about how they will work with the ignition. c. Installing the 6.5 inch Fosgate speakers into the doors of the Porsche Cayman 2007 will require an additional plastic adapter/mount. FALSE. These speakers are brilliant in one respect. They have a TON of roles predrilled into them around the edges. You literally unsolder the ones currently in the doors from their cage and the Fosgate's slot right in, using the same screw holes. They drop RIGHT in. I was in shock as to how easy this part was. Especially after hearing nightmares online. I should mention that I initially bought JBL's that were more expensive but had separate two way converter boxes (so called component audio). These are small plastic relays or boxes the size of your fist or smaller. They require you to effectively your entire car to use them and I had to send back the fancy JBL's I bought and get the Fosgates. I discovered that 99% of new speakers from big name companies these days have these separate relay boxes for component audio and while I respect them to no end, the system just doesn't work in this particular Porsche Cayman 2007 because the door speakers and tweeters are in different locations that prevent you from being able to use those relays and wire them using the existing internal wiring. If you try to install the expensive speakers without those relay boxes, you will blow brand new speakers. The reason the Fosgates work is that the relay box is basically built into the speaker itself, it isn't a separate part. A few things I want to say here. I realize the thought of putting a $65 set of speakers into your Porsche makes you cringe. It made me re-think my life too but I had few alternatives to a simple no fuss install strategy I wanted. Was there a noticeable difference. YES there was a HUGE difference. The reason is that the stock speakers in a Porsche Cayman 2007 with no audio upgrades are paper cone speakers. You are reading this correctly...PAPER. They are 10 years old after all. The Fosgates sound infinitely better and produce a fair amount of base, the highs are clear, but are no subwoofer. I am sure there are some $550 super duper audiophile speakers out there that work better but I wanted to spend less than $150 on the speakers and these were the best fit I could find. I was skeptical of Fosgate never having used their brand and been a lifetime pioneer, JBL, Boston Acoustics guy, but I'm really happy with what I got. d. Installing the dash tweeters will require hot glue, silicone, and will involve pain and suffering, along with rethinking your life, generally. ABSOLUTELY FALSE. If you take the ring covers off these Fosgate tweeters, they actually fit perfectly and I mean like a glove in the existing tweeter plastic housing clips in the dash. The install took me less than 20 minutes for both and I was in shock because I had budgeted 3 hours for this part and a stiff drink after to rid me of the trauma. Crutchfield is absolutely wrong on this one. You just fish out the existing factory tweeters, connect the new ones and push them into the locks to secure them. These Fosgate tweeters fit like a charm. Do they sound better than stock, YOU BET. WAY better. e. The Center Dash Speaker Can't be Replaced Because No One manufactures that size I wasn't brave enough to test this claim. I will in future though. The center speaker I just left alone and it seems to be behaving just fine. Apparently it is an odd shape. If anyone finds a good way to replace it, let me know. f. Installing the 5 inch speakers in the back of your Porsche Cayman 2007 base isn't so tough, except for a particular nut having to be loosened Again, I wasn't brave enough to test this claim. I did find plenty of evidence online and in my car when I checked to backup the claim which is that Porsche has the speaker grilles in the rear of your Porsche Cayman base model but they are just empty waiting to be used. Once you upgrade the stereo, you can use those slots at the back of your Cayman because the CDR-24 stock stereo only has the ability to deal with one pair of speakers, the front ones. Your new stereo, literally no matter which one you install, will allow you to have multiple pairs of speakers installed. How hard is it? Look for articles discussing removing the covers. They talk about a nut that is particularly hard to get to that needs to be loosened, but other than that, you could use the same route you'll run wire to the backup cameras to install those two additional speakers in the back of your Cayman. Hard? No. Probably a 2 hour job at the most. Did I do it? No. Partially because I ran out of time. Also because after I heard the Fosgates in such a tiny space (it is a 2 door car with no backseat people) I didn't see how adding two more speakers was going to improve things. Especially ones tucked that far back. This is a matter of personal preference however. Backup Cameras We even installed a backup camera as well, but I won't get into that given its been covered extensively elsewhere. The only thing that might be complicating for you is the route the wire goes from back to front. My first caution is make sure to get a camera that has a very long, excessively long cord that goes from the camera to the stereo. Most sold on Amazon are simply not long enough. Others are only a video cord and don't have the attached required wire that plugs into your stereo on one end and into the reverse lights on the other so that the stereo will detect you backing up and automatically turn on the camera. Look carefully. The route you want to pull the wire is from the stereo along the door panel, under the engine carpet cover, along the side of the inside of the car then down from where the taillight is to behind the license plate. I hope that helps a lot of people out there looking for these answers, just as I was. If this helps you please let me know by posting below so that I can try to answer any additional questions. I am no expert, but I got the job done and it feels great to be done with this! I want you all to succeed in upgrading your system without having to pay thousands of dollars. I got my entire job done for under $300 ($350 with the backup camera) and you can too.

Hey faf680, thanks for the nice write-up! Not sure what your wiring issue was, but there is a switched 12V line going to the CDR 24 (I think it is white?) which I used to wire up my Tranzit Blu box. Don't recall the other articles on replacing the CDR24 with a Pioneer unit mentioning the need for an additional wire from the fuse box.

I think I may have been wrong with the above comment. There was another thread which agreed that there is no switched 12V line going to the CDR24 . Apparently the CDR24 gets turned on via the CAN bus and has a switched 12V output (not input), which is apparently what I used to power my TranzitBlu. I was just following someone's installation instructions, so didn't realize the source of the switched 12V.

Hi Far680, I've just fitted the same speakers in my 2008 Cayman . I desoldered the original connections for the door woofers then resolderd to the new speakers. For the dash mounted tweeters I cut the connectors off the original tweeter wire and connected the Fosgate wires to the stock wiring. To be honest I'm not that impressed with the initial results. Did you take a different approach to the wiring? Thanks, Andy

faf680! You, Sir, R O C K! I am poised to do EXACTLY what you just did. I agree with you completely about NOT wanting to spend a huge amount of money on a sound system in a car that is small and has an loud engine just feet away from my ears. So I'm looking for a simple Pioneer , Alpine, or Sony double DIN. Don't need Airplay. Don't need GPS, Don't need big wattage. All I need is bluetooth, SiriusXM-ready, and a less-is-more look. I am definitely taking your advice with the speakers. I'm also going to check out the head unit you bought. Thank you again for sharing your advice, insight and experience. Cheers!

My fault the speakers sounded awful... I hadn't realised that Porsche put a stripe down the negative speaker wire, where most put the strip down the positive. Switched the connections over and the sound is now a vast improvement over the originals and as you say very easy to install. Looking forward to putting the new Pioneer CarPlay head unit at the weekend!

Hi MCRW, can you tell me where you found the ' Porsche ' decal that you have on the double din bezel please? I have recently bought the bezel from Loi and when I fit it I would love to have a similar decal but have been unable to find anything like this. thanks

I bought a kit that had the bezel and a harness and other components from a vendor on Amazon .com. it had the decal on it already.

For the door woofers another option is Rockford Fosgate R1675-S (6-3/4" size) which is currently only $51 at Amazon and is cheaper than the more commonly used 6-1/2" sized R165-S. This weekend I installed these along with 4" R14X2's (~$40) and I must say it's a huge improvement over the stock speakers. In order to adapt the speakers to the stock 200mm housing I used an Ebay vendor soundmekanixcustoms to make custom sized adapters. He was very responsive and delivered on schedule.