Stereo upgrade finished!

Wow! What a difference. Once you upgrade you 996 OEM stereo system, you wonder how you ever put up with such disappointing sounds. Here is the list of upgrades: Kenwood KDC-X889 CD/head unit Kenwood KDC-C719 10-disk CD changer Kenwood KAC-8401 amp Kenwood KAC-849 amp 2 Farad Capacitor MB Quart PCE-213 6-1/2" component speakers (installed in door sub boxes) MB Quart DKD-110 4" coaxials (in dash and rear panel stock locations) MB Quart PWD-254 10" subwoofer (in temp box on rear deck behind seats) I am shocked how great the MB Quarts sound! It is absolutely awesome cruising in this great car with such loud and clear music. My wife has been against this upgrade from the start and honestly it has not been easy to install, either. Last night I invited her to go for a ride for a listen (she usually drives herself in her '03 Boxster S) and now she wants me to upgrade the Boxster S sound system. She has the Bose system and it is honestly only a couple of notches above the sucky OEM Becker system. I've heard over and over again how 996 owners have upgraded to Focals but to tell you the truth, they are so overpriced and I honestly like the MB Quarts better. I purchased everything for this upgrade on eBay and probably saved some serious dough. I'm into this upgrade probably around $800-$850 plus many hours of labor. So far it is my favorite upgrade!

I upgraded mine some time back as well. list of equipment I used: 1. PSE 2. see #1

And now your right foot accuates the volume control, right Dell

Absolutely!

Just wondering what your plan is for the subwoofer box? I too share the same attitude towards the stock system...even as much as I love to listen to the sound of the exhaust, the time I spent listening to the audio system demanded an upgrade. Right now, I'm running Alpine 6.5 components in front (with custom baffles) with MB quart 4 inch coaxial separates in back - all set in stock locations (the only difference is that I removed the Bose plate ). I have a PPI 4x50 amp mounted on a board sitting in the inflata-tire (I have a C4S) with a JL 250/1 mounted where the changer used to be. An Alpine CDA 9857 drives the whole collection (love the new gen ipod control). And for the sub, I tried to hack the original bose sub box with 8inch speakers, but that didn't work too well (too much vibration and bottoming on the low freqs). I ended up making the second cosmetics sacrifice (the first being the blue lit head unit) by removing the back seat butt pad and sitting a JL 10W6 sealed sub box there with the seatbelt wrapped around it. In a word, the system is AMAZING. Yet although you can't really see the box easily outisde the car (I have 20% tint) it's really getting on my nerves that it's so rigged, when the rest of my install is very tight. I've already gotten used to the power handling and extension of the 10 - I considered Car Audio Innovations 2x6 JL box which was made to sit in the Bose box location, but I fear that the 2 6s may not be solid enough. If anyone else has managed a nice tight install of a single ten in the back package tray, I'd love to hear about it.

Mike - do a search on 996 stereo upgrades on this forum. There have been a few guys that made a very tasteful enclusure that follows the slight arc behind the rear seats. They skinned it in leatherette - I've also seen it done in matching carpet that looked great. See also Vivid Racing's website and their tricked out car they are selling (or have sold?). They did something similar and put twin 8's back there (a very common sub upgrade). I'm planning on the carpet route once I figure out my enclosure to fit a 10" sub. Your system sounds great! Did you ditch the dash 4" location altogether? They can actually do better than the rear corner panels with the sound coming from the front.

Yeah, it's probably the best system I've had in an automobile yet (and I've had a few). Actually, the Alpine's are component mid and tweeter, so I used the dash location for the tweets, and put the crossovers in the spare tire well. I considered the MB 3 way separates, but I previewed them in another vehicle, and they sounded a bit too bright (a common characteristic of MBs in some situations). The staging is fantastic, with the angle of the tweeters having a wide range of field for aiming. So I guess I didn't use the right search term, or was just too lazy before ;-) - found many more threads this time talking about subs (and then as an extension, the broader discussion of usefulness of a high end audio system in this kind of car). Someone had a picture of a 10 inch sub set in the well of one of the rear seats - seems like the most cost effective and simple manner of installation that I could do myself to get me away from what I have now. I love the idea of the molded and carpeted full enclosure in the back window, but I don't have the expertise to do it myself, and I would think having a pro do it would get well up into the 4 figure range. If anyone has any nice recent pix they haven't posted already of their sub enclosure setup, I would love to see it!

Is there a better sounding set of subs that would fit in my Bose box without major modification? Is there a better sounding amp that would replace stock amp without major mods? I just want cleaner sound.

Pics Here: https://rennlist.com/forums/showthre...24#post3235524

Yes, PSE would be an exact fit for both and it will sound much cleaner.

The Bose setup has what I believe is a parallel wired scheme with the front stage. When I originally tested mine, the meter claimed that it was a 2 ohm load both front and back. Therefore, in addition to other possible complications, you have to have a multi (5 at least) channel amp that is stable at a constant voltage at 2 ohms. In addition, you'd have to get the adapter for the becker H/U that will give you a nice 2-4V RCA signal. WIth all this complication, my decision was to pull the whole damn thing and start with a custom setup I mentioned in another thread that I actually decided to hack my original bose box with a couple of 8s. I also added a bit of dynomat, and it ended up being wired to a JL 250/1 amp. In a word, it sounded like ****. Since it's a ported enclosure, it is very mid-bass laden, and has very little how end extension. My system suffered from a bad case of flatulence, so out the bose box went. As for the PSE, that's my next audio upgrade - no ohm meter necessary

I know others have replaced just the speakers themselves for a nice upgrade. Mike had explained above what he tested from his Bose system as far as OHM rating etc, but I would be hesitant to mix/match for fear of destroying either the new speakers or the Bose amp. Your call, but if you're not satisfied with the stock system, I would highly suggest you start from scratch. It'll be worth it in the end. Good luck!

Ya, maybe I will just get an Ipod. lol

Would just replacing the stock Becker speakers with MB Quartz significantly change the sound quality? I also have a new Kenwood 4 channel amp that I had in my old car. How do you install an amp into the old head unit on these vehicles? I would be putting the amp in the hood on top of my transmission; I have a C4.

Someone once stated on this board that he went ahead and installed his upgraded speakers while waiting for the rest of his system to arrive and found a nice sound enhancement. I would really be careful of this as you could blow your new speakers or cause damage to your stock amp/HU. I'm not sure you could hook up the becker cd player to a new amp. The question comes up, why would you want to? for very little money a new head unit is a fantastic upgrade. The stock head unit puts out very poor quality sound anyway. It is pathetic that Porsche would put such a crappy system in such a great car. They should take a lesson from Lambo. They have always put very nice stuff in their supercars. It is not even that hard to hook up a new head unit. I recently posted a wiring diagram in this forum for hooking up a new stereo cd/head unit to the stock wiring. It really is not a big deal to do. Anyway, if you really wanted to, I'm sure you could figure out how to hook up the speaker level inputs from the Becker head unit (6 speaker output) to a new amp. I actually felt relieved when I took my snips and cut through all of those wires, disconnecting that crap...