To Sub or not to Sub?

Finally got my car back rms leak fixed, apparently the new seal that ends in pat number 41 is no good, they fitted the previous seal part number 40 and all is fine. After nearly a month without the car, I realized how crap the stock stereo is and decided to upgrade. On Monday I am fitting the following: Alpine CDA 9835r cd receiver Boston Acoustics Pro series 6.53 (6 inch woofers in doors, mids and tweeters in stock location JL Audio 300/2 amp (150w x 2 rms) Also going to fit the Alpine KCA 420i iPod controller, cause I just bought an iPod photo 60gb (wicked) Question is do I go all out and get a JL Audio 10 inch sub in an enclosure and a JL audio 250/1 amp to power it? Or is this overkill? Pretty confident the Pro series will rock up front being powered by 150w per channel, my friends say go for the sub. I like loud music, but I'm kinda over the mass bass thing. Won't I be satisfied without the sub?

I had the JL sub box behing the rear seat backs....and 2 amps...800 total watts with sirius sat radio in my old 996..it was awesome..you will be sorry if you dont do the whole thing. i didnt always blast the bass but when I was in the mood it was awesome. On the freeway with sunroof and windows down it was incredible! Go for it! My 997 system sucks but I dont care for now. I am going to wait till the sat radio is available.

I have a jl 10 in the rear and am running a 500/5 powering everything (separates in front also). FWIW you can get the line out adapter from bekker and hold off on the head unit for right now unless you need some feature of it etc. I have the traffic pro and my main issue was separate sub control before I had the jl with that option. In any event the pro has a separate preamp out and fader for the sub

Sound quality with the Becker is no good, you lose signal power when using adapter. Plus I want the Alpine for the iPod. Are u happy with the sub?

I dunno about that at least with the TP. I used the adapter with my cdr220 and I did notice a big difference in quality from the preamp to the TP however. I have been happy with the sub since I put it in. I made a custom box that mimics the bose box sort of and barely fits the 10 dual voice coil and huge magnet. It has the exact cubes as I did internal baffles etc. It's nice because I took out my rear seats and it looks factory save for the grill as it isn't so tall etc. If I did it over again, I would so basically the same box but fiberglass it paint it the body color, and bring the ends lower so it flows into the side panels better than being a right angle

BTW it was made so it cleared the factory seats, I took them out for weight savings. I also used 5/8 mdf instead of 3/4 to keep weight down. When I went to get the carpet at Al and Eds the guy looked at it and offered me a job. Pretty funny.

I bet if u tried an after market head unit with pre outs, sound quality would increase dramatically. Does the sub sound good? Or too much bass?

I had a kenwood detachable face unit in because the old one sucked!

The old pre-amp outs were ok, but not great, but I doubt there would be any gain pre-amp wise over the TP as it is technically an aftermarket unit and that would be a major feature conercerning the upgrade and it is a 3v out, and 20-20k for cd response.

I do a lot of highspeed cruising when commuting here and with the ambient noise from the speed you really need the subwoofers for any half decent sound. Two 10" subs in custom MDF/Fiberglass sealed enclosure, sounds impressive and if tweeked correctly with the rest of the stereo its versatile for any tipe of music (classical, rock, electronic, blues, etc):

Love that rolled edge and of course the leather

Yes, you always need a subwoofer in every system. It can effectively double the sound levels in most car systems. Sounds like you have a good one lined up. I made my own rear shelf simular to the (bose) factory box and used 4 Boston Acoustic Pro 6 " like you have in the doors.

Rhamy, I thought you would be focusing on track duty not pumping air!? Ciao, Johannes E.

I'm running two 8" subs in the back. (JLAudio makes great subs) and the sould is impressive, it's not overkill. If you go with one 10"....I think that is good too. Here is my enclosure.

robyn, any pics from the top (looking through the rear window)?

I'm running 35% tint, I'm afraid any picture I might take wouldn't do much. Next sunny day we have, I can give it a try and see what I can do. It sure does look good though.

so here's a question, are these sub boxes fastened to any hard point or are they just sitting back there with the back seat to hold it in? just wondering what would happen to these boxes in a rapid deceleration/crash.

There are the latch post on either side holding mine in. However I designed mine to fit snugly between those points and the back.

you used the factory seat back latch hardware to hold the box in?

Sort of. It basically sits right in between the posts which the rear seats clicked into on either side, and the back of the shelf. the top also extends all the way to the back so it has never moved.

thx SPR, saw your pics and i get the gist of it. you give some things to think about. i have made a box too but it's not secured by any straps or snaps or whatever. they are just held back by the latched seat backs and i buckled the seat belts left to right, right to left to hold the seat backs just in case.

Wow!! I did the sub, speechless!! First I installed the Pro series and JL audio amp, Sound quality of the system overall is brilliant clear, loud, loads of presence. Then a week later I did the JL audio 10 inch sub with a 250/1 JL audio d class Slash amp. The bass is awesome, tight, punchy very authoritative. Will take pics, cause the install was very clean. Best system I ever put in any car. For those of you still sticking with the crappy Porsche system, seriously consider a sound upgrade, it is worth it, whole system cost me 2,000USD with install.