Greetings - long time lurker - first time poster...
I am part way into and upgrade of the stock sound systems in my 07
Cayman S
. Have done a lot of searching both within the P9 community as well as on the web as a whole and have failed to find a decent article on replacement of the door speakers / rear speakers beyond simple recommendations for speaker brands and sizes. My main concern was that not every 4 inch speaker is cased the same, has the same depth or mounts the same way in terms of mounting hole locations etc (especially when replacing the european 100mm size speakers). So I was going to offer to document both what I have done already as well as what I am about to do (replace the 4 100m mids - 2 in door and 2 in rear) this weekend. Especially the "fit of the new speakers in the stock locations and any mods I need to do to make them work.
I have already had great success replacing my head unit with a Clarion VX401 DD unit, and replacing the stock amp with a Clarion XR2210. Additionally I installed last year, 2 CDT M6 Gold 6.5" mid/subs with fantastic results in terms of both the install and sound. Installed with two MDF rings and they fit great. I am so impressed with the CDT's that I am installing 4 CDT ES-4's this weekend to now replace the factory 100mm's.
Anyway - happy to document and share if it is of interest OR if there is good documentation aready on speaker installs in the doors and rear, please share a link to where i can find it as I haven't been able to locate much betond instruction on how to access door and rear speaker locations.
Mike
The more you can talk about what you're doing, the better. I've got an 07 factory sound system, and it's really unlistenable. I don't want to derail your thread, but would love to know how you selected what you selected with regard to the head unit, amp, etc.
In hindsight I did it a little backward. I originally changed the head unit (clarion Vx401) to get more options such as Bluetooth for phone,
iPod
connection etc. At the time I did the change the factory amp was fried ( common in these cars ) so I had no sound at all coming from the larger 200mm door speakers. I replaced the amp ( clarion xr2210) and got measurable improvement ( more low bass) immediately, now that the doors were working again.
But then I started to get a buzz from the speakers about a week later ( not distortion ). When I went inside the doors I found the speaker rubbers were ripped right from their housings. Maybe the new amp helped? I couldn't find wattage ratings for the factory speakers so possibly the were overpowered but also the amp was fed by the sub output on the head unit and therefore playing frequencies below the large door speakers tolerance. Likely to much speaker travel tore them.
So then I went out in search of a door speaker replacement that would be small enough for the factory spots. Through a lot of research online I learned about the CDT M6 Gold which were described as a mid /sub producing great low bass from a 6.5" cone. I had to make Mdf rings to install them but they fit great. The rated frequency response is 10 to 4000 Hz. They turned out to be fantastic. It feels like I have a sub in the car.
Now with speakers that could handle what my amp was feeding them, I was playing at higher volumes again and that's when the horrible sound quality from the mids became more obvious. Based on more research and how happy I was with the CDT M6, I decided to get 4 CDT ES-04's for the doors and rear. They are rated at 50watts and a frequency range of 50-10000hz. Since my head unit puts out 4x60watts they seemed to also be a good match. I was able to install them in factory locations and only had to stemmed off a small tab in the factory mount location. Pics below. Still breaking in but sound is sooooo much better.
Door:
Rear:
I neglected to mention that, because I did this backwards in the sense that I installed a head unit and amp (b/c factory amp was pooched) to drive the factory speakers, and didn't realize until after how poor they still sounded - I am now upgrading my amp to a JL XD800/8v2 (75w PC) to drive the upgraded CDT speakers. I am having an installer do this work as it's more time than I have on my hands (I am going to re wire each speaker completely and give each speaker it's own channel from the amp).
