My 2008 Cayman has the basic 4-speaker stereo, which I find very unsatisfactory, mainly because of no rear speakers. There are numerous posts on here inquiring about the same kind of upgrade, but I never saw anyone who actually did this. I did find some posts by people who completely upgraded their whole system, but that's not what I want or need. I am not an audiophile and don't expect a super stereo -- any improvement over what I have would probably be sufficient.
I know nothing about car stereos, but I sought out a local shop that was recommended by several local Porsche owners. I asked only for rear speakers, but when the shop opened it up, they discovered there is no wiring in the openings. Moreover, they say it would be required to add an amplifier and this-and-that-and-the-other to make the rear speakers work, and it would be an all day job costing about $1000.
They also advised that if I was spending that much, I might as well go for the full upgrade, involving all-new speakers to replace the old ones in the doors and dash, in addition to adding the rear speakers, and a 4-channel 500W amp and the rest of the electronics mumbo jumbo. I figured it would be $1500 or so, but instead the price jumped up to 2 days of labor and $2300. I questioned this and the answer was that they have to rewire everything, and this requires disassembling everything and making new frames for the speakers, etc. etc. I can't decide if this is a fair price for the upgrade or BS, or if it's fair but way more than I need or want.
Suneet had mentioned in another post, "Even if you don't want to change headunits though, it's pretty easy to reamplify the basic system 4 speaker; add a basic 2- channel amplifier with line-level inputs and splice it into the speaker cables leaving the headunit so it flattens and then re-amplifies the signal before it hits the speakers." Has anyone actually done this? What was involved and how much $$$ was involved?
I started from the "sound system plus" which had the rear speakers and
"re-amplified" it with an equalizer before the new amps. It made a HUGE
improvement. I think you could do the same thing with 2 channels and
have good results. On the "sound system plus" the sound could not be
improved without an equalizer, so I suspect you have the same problem.
You could try the Fosgate 3sixty.1 and a new 2 channel amp, leave your
wiring as-is and probably make a 100% improvement. A side benefit is
that this also gets you an AUX input you can use for an mp3 player.
If you shop, the equalizer and amp will probably cost you $400-$500.
