CDR-220 Replacement - Blaupunkt New Jersey 220?

I'm thinking about replacing the stock CDR-220 in my 2000 Carrera even though I hate deviating from stock. My main reasons for switching are 1) better sound quality; and 2) Bluetooth integration for phone, Pandora/iPhone music, etc. My main concern is the make it look as "correct" as possible. In researching, it seems like the Blaupunkt "New Jersey 220" ( http://www.crutchfield.com/p_023NJ22...ersey-220.html ) is a really good match from an "appearing correct" perspective. It is double DIN, but doesn't have the crazy graphics. I've read all the radio replacement threads and am surprised to see nobody mentioning the New Jersey model. Does anybody have any experience with it? My main questions are: 1. Will be plug & play (removing cup holder to make space for Double DIN)? 2. Will just upgrading the head unit significantly improve the sound? 3. Why hasn't anybody else used this in a 996 given that (IMO at least) it looks so correct?

I guess the Blaupunkt New Jersey option isn't popular based upon the lack of responses. After doing a lot more research, I think I'm going to go with a single high Nakamichi instead: http://www.crutchfield.com/p_291350I...R.html?tp=5684 Reasons: + Last Blaupunkt I had looked great but sounded as bad as the stock Becker (but that was about 10 years ago, not sure if sound quality is an issue for Blaupunkt anymore) + I can keep my cup holders, closer to stock + Nakamichi will definitely have high audio quality, + No display graphics or wild colors + Programmable display color and subtle design, should look pretty stock Negative: - Reviews indicate the Bluetooth phone mic isn't good and there isn't an option for external mic -- this is a pretty big drawback, but so far haven't found anything better.

Do you have the Bose option? Mine does and the amp and speakers are designed to work with the head unit. The EQ is all weird when you just replace the head unit. I have an Alpine and have tweaked the EQ but it doesn't sound great. I've not bothered to go further with the speakers, etc because it is adequate, but keep this in mind. While I agree that the Blaupunkt presents more like stock (which I am also a fan of), I can't get past the "7 segment display" characters rather than dot matrix. That's my own pet peeve. Concerning Bluetooth, I have a cab and while the microphone is wired in, the overly bassy EQ and cab noise makes me pick a Bluetooth headset every time. Bluetooth audio streaming on the other hand works well.

I just had this clarion installed in my toyota truck, I would say yes it makes the stock speakers sound much better, obviously not the style your looking for. One thing I would recommend is making sure your new stero has a usb input, 8 gigs of music on one stick, and easier to load music onto from the computer compared to the iPhone. I had an old sub I had lying around wired in too so my stereo is sounding great, good luck with what ever you decide to do

I wanted a Blau but hated that none of them appear to let the user change the LED and lighting colors. I wanted something stock looking with Bluetooth and microphone capability. I went with the Kenwood KDC BT-362U. I can match the coloration pretty damn close to the stock amber. I'm very happy with it.

This one from Porsche may be a bit too retro. It is really targeted at the air cooled years. I really like the concept though. I've been looking for a suitable Becker replacement as well and have not come up with something that fits the aesthetic.

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Thanks for all the feedback. I don't know if I have the Bose option or not. It says "HiFi Sound System w/Speakers" on the option sheet -- but I don't see anything labeled "Bose". My car is a 2000, so it definitely isn't the MOST fiber optic. Both the Blaupunkt and the Nakamichi I'm considering only have a 3-band EQ, so that may not be enough if special EQ is required. Good to hear just replacing the head unit can help. A lot of the Rennlist threads on this topic say the CDR-220 sounds bad, so I guess that's a good indicator as well. Yeah, the Blue background is a concern for me also. It's surprising they don't make the color changeable since Blaupunkt is a niche brand (at least in the US) and probably a significant portion of people that buy them are for retrofit purposes where matching is important. In the old days, I hated the Blaupunkt sound -- I had updated the radio in my '87 Carrera and I thought it sounded awful, even with speaker upgrades. Maybe they sound better now, but for many years they were unlistenable to me. The Nakamichi I linked to in post 2 is supposed to be able to change the color of the display and buttons separately, so I'm leaning towards that. I will also take a look at your Kenwood model.

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Pretty cool, but agree it's probably slightly too retro. This one is far too retro, but very, very cool -> http://www.ebay.com/itm/LIMITED-EDIT...156bf7&vxp=mtr

This is what the Nakamichi looks like:

If none of the speakers say Bose, I'd say you're good. The amp with weird secondary amp attached to it is located in the trunk behind the wheel in case you want to double check there.

If you have the HiFI option on the Porsche, the head unit does not serve as the amplifier, so you have more potential choices in the market. Not sure about the stock unit, but that also may have a separate amp. As for sound quality, the speakers in a system account for most of the difference, almost all of the time. Confirmation bias issues aside, the pre-amp and signal processing (contained in the head unit) and amp itself confer little distinction in sound, absent high volume (pre-amps) and matters involving simple distortion (amps, if truly horrible). I suppose some head units are sufficiently lousy so as to cough up a noticeably degraded signal in a cabin as small as that in a 911 (which is rather an echo chamber in any event), but that seems unlikely among major labels and probably even so for the 15-year old OEM Becker. Any decent unit, equalized as much as reasonably possible, is about as good as it will get. The speakers can make a comparatively significant difference, particularly as against the now fatigued paper cone, OEM transducers.

I have the M490 HiFi non-Bose as well. I retained the factory 6x40 amp but have different dash and door speakers. I can crank the system and hear very little degradation. Of course, the 996 isn't the best listening environment, but it works perfectly well for me and didn't require me to shell out a ton of cash.

Good feedback. I looked in the trunk and it does have an amp behind the tire, but there is no marking on it to tell what it is (there is a white sticker on the back of the amp, but I'd need to remove the amp to see it). I'm hoping it's the non-Bose HiFi (picture below). I agree that preamp differences are usually less significant than speaker/amp changes, but the German radios (both Becker and Blaupunkt) have always sounded bad in my experience (even though they typically look a lot better than anything else IMO). There are many posts on Rennlist complaining about the CDR-220 sounding bad, but I wasn't aware that the external amp was an option, so not sure if they were complaining about the sound while using the external amp or just those using the internal CDR-220 amp. I'm hopeful the Nakamichi will be a significant improvement, but I will look at changing speakers if the HU doesn't improve the sound. Right now, I would say the sound is about a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10 (considering the vintage), so it isn't horrible, but it could be a lot better (I hope at least). Photo of amp in trunk:

I had a Kenwood 958HD http://www.kenwood.com/usa/car/receiver/kdc-bt958hd/ which looks fairly innocuous and has a close match to the interior lighting. Unfortunately its Bluetooth implementation was poor with my iPhone (did not display track info). The Alpine 149BT http://alpine-usa.com/product/view/cde-hd149bt/ that I replaced it with has better Bluetooth but the display color is less customizable: the button color can be changed to a fair match but the data display is always blue. What speakers do people like these days? For a while Focals were recommended,

Detach the amp from the firewall then take the amp out of the bracket. You'll then be able see the sticker on the amp which should tell you which one you have.

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The right bolt is against a plastic housing and is difficult to get a socket on. I did loosen it enough to get a view to the label. It says HAES 6x40w amp made in Sweden. I couldn't get a full picture, but the picture below is from an amp on eBay that appears to be identical. Am I correct in assuming the extra 2 speakers in the 6 channel are for the door speakers rather than subwoofers? It looks like it's not a Bose -- appears to be made by Harman for Porsche:

The 6 speakers should be 2 x dashboard, 2 x doors, and 2 x rear side panels.

I think not just the head unit contributes to the poor sound - but also amp and speakers aren't great. I had pre-most Bose setup in my 2002 - I also thought about staying close to stock - but in the end - why ? A double din pioneer looks much better and cleaner - my model avt3200bt (iirc) allows backlight to be programmed orange like stock instruments and porsche logo background on screen - looks better than stock - and the new model pioneers have apple car play option making for even better integration with iPhone. The turbos of this era had double din touch screen. I kept my CD-R just in case next owner want to go back to stock - but I can't imagine why...sure if u have a 356 or early 911 - stock makes sense - but on a 996 - a modern double DIN fits well and is a huge improvement for the interior ...

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Would love to see pics of the Pioneer installed if you have them. I do like the look of the double DIN Blaupunkt, but the rest seem too modern. Having Apple Play is a huge plus I imagine.

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Will try to post sorne pics next weekend when I get back from Detroit ...

Thanks for all the feedback. I gave some serious thought to a Double DIN with CarPlay, but just decided to go the simple route. I'm sure CarPlay is amazing, but it looks like Apple makes it difficult to use 3rd party apps like Waze and I just don't want to mess with Apple controlling what I can run. Also FM seems to be more of an afterthought for CarPlay radios, but it's still important to me and I can't shake the desire for the simple stock look, so I just went for the single DIN. I ordered the Nakamichi NA350iBTR from Crutchfield based upon the sound quality, programmable colors, and stockish look. Crutchfield is great -- includes free Porsche wiring adaptor, antenna adapter, and Becker removal tool with no tax, free shipping, and 60 day return policy. I will report back once I have it installed with pictures and impressions. Thanks again for all the great feedback! Peter

That looks like a very interesting solution. I have a Pioneer unit in my Volkswagen that has absolutely great interaction with my iPhone. It also has the USB port in the front and I bought a 32 gb tiny thumbdrive that I put all of my music on. I love the hands-free phone operation as well. The only thing I don't like about it is how it would look in my 996. Way too flashy. If the Nakamichi unit handles the bluetooth and USB integration as well as the Pioneer I think it would be a win-win because its looks are pretty subtle. I'd love to hear how you like it.

Here is a heads-up for the install. While looking at reviews for the unit, I saw this from someone who installed it in a 2001 996. " One important thing to know for the install is that for this car, there's a separate wire that must be connected to a power source. This is the amplifier power wire, and it wasn't mentioned in the instructions. However, some online searches solved that issue. " Btw - Most of the reviews are glowing. Just one complaint - no way to connect an external mic.

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Thanks for the heads up on the wiring Bill. I'm very curious to see how it sounds. I'm a longtime audio enthusiast, so it's difficult for me to ignore a name like Nakamichi and the reviews seem to suggest that the sound is worthy of the name. The only thing I don't like about this unit is that (like most aftermarket radios) the front face is curved rather than flat. It's not obvious from the front view, but you can seen it from an angle. I suspect that the curved face will detract from the stock look a bit once it's installed even though everything else seems to be a good match. I will definitely report back once I've received and installed the unit.

Also watch out for the alarm wire. I believe there is a wire that needs to be grounded to the unit so that alarm system knows that the unit has not been stolen. It causes annoying issues if it is not connected.

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Look for a Brown/Blue wire from the original radio connector and remove the pin and tape it (or cut and tape the wire).

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Thanks guys. Will watch out for the alarm wire. The radio arrived today. It feels heavier than I expected and appears very well built. Here are some photos of the faceplate including one from the side to show the curvature of the face. I would prefer that the face was flat, but otherwise looks really good. The faceplate has a satin black finish (not gloss), so it should match well. I hope to install it tomorrow:

I wonder if there is a Porsche decal thin enough to go over the CD slot. That would be ideal. It really seems like a waste to include a CD player these days, but the units that are digital only don't have a lot of these features. Btw - That really looks nice. Can't wait to see it installed.

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Brilliant idea. I'm looking into it. That top part is about 4mm in height, so the decal would need to be about 3mm high.

Initial Impressions: Looks : It looks even better than I expected -- the curve of the faceplate isn't nearly as noticeable as I thought it would be. The color match is quite good -- better than it appears in the photo. For now, I am using the default "Orange" color. I think it allows you to set RGB values to get a really exact match on the display -- I will do that later if it's possible. Sound : The difference in sound isn't as big as I hoped. This is not surprising since I have the HiFi option that already has a separate amp, but it is an improvement. It was probably a 6 in audio quality with the original radio, now I would say it's a 7 or 7.5. I'm sure the sound quality of this unit is high, it's just that the stock speakers are a limiting factor (and probably the stock amp to some degree). I will upgrade speakers next. Bluetooth Integration : Blootooth integration works well. Have not tried a phone call yet, so can't comment on the built-in mic that wasn't popular in the reviews. For audio, bluetooth works great with Pandora and songs on the iPhone. The display just shows "BT Audio", it does not scroll song names either for Pandora or songs from the iPhone. Bluetooth does work fairly well with Waze -- you can be listening to FM radio and it will override FM with Bluetooth audio for Waze commands. There is a little delay in the BT override of FM so the beginning of the vocal Waze instructions is cut off -- but it is better in this regard than our Audi Q5 and not as good as the Kia rental we had a few months ago (which had no delay on Bluetooth override). There is no delay in Waze commands if you are already listening to a BT audio source like Pandora. iPhone Direct : Directly connecting the iPhone does charge the phone (only rated at 1 amp) and plugging it automatically switches to the iPod input (I'd rather it stay on whatever input it was using, typically FM in our case). Sound quality for iPhone songs sounded better via the direct connect than BT and it displayed the artist/song info on the screen. For Pandora, it seems like the display shows "no title" "no artist" -- at least for the few seconds I played it. There was a note in the Crutchfield listing about this unit needing a firmware update for direct phone connection, but it looks like they are delivered with that update now because my iPhone 6 worked without any update. Install : Install was 3 easy steps: 1) hand the box from Crutchfield to the Best Buy guy; 2) hand him about $70; 3) Pick up the car 45 minutes later. Normally I wouldn't trust my car to Best Buy, but this is such an easy change that having them do it was perfect. They were very professional, clean, courteous, and really respected the car. Most places will give you a hard time or charge you a large premium to install a radio purchased elsewhere, but BB does it with glee. There aren't many Nakamichi dealers, buying locally wasn't an option and BB seemed to be the best route. BB will charge you quite a bit for wiring harnesses, antenna adapters, etc -- but there were no additional charges since Crutchfield included all of that with the radio. One other advantage of the BB install is that they will reinstall your original radio for free if you ever want to revert it back. One difference from the install is that the radio doesn't come on without the key on -- and it doesn't keep the radio going after you shut off the engine until you open the door. I'm sure this is due to the install, not the radio, but I'm not sure it bothers me. Overall Summary : I am very happy with it. For not very much investment, it looks great, sounds better (but certainly not amazing with stock speakers), and it modernizes everything with very good Bluetooth integration. I suspect other popular radios like Pioneer, Kenwood probably have slightly more sophisticated BT to show song listings scrolling on the display with Pandora, but I was more interested in sound quality and the radio looking correct, so I am very happy with this choice. It is typical for small volume boutique manufacturers to lag the leading edge (in features, not sound quality), so I am not surprised or disappointed by this. It might be of concern to others, though, so want to point out what it doesn't do in addition to what is does do.

Peter - thanks for the extensive write-up. I think I'm going to go the same route. Have you tried using the USB or SD slot for music yet? I'm curious to know if it displays the track information and how good the navigation is. My Pioneer is actually very good with that and I never use bluetooth for music anymore. I would think that the Nakamichi would be at least as good.

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I don't have any music loaded on SD, so I probably won't be able to test that. The "iPhone Direct" comments above are based upon connecting iPhone via the USB port (using an Apple lightening cable). It does show tracks for the songs on the iPhone, not sure if that would be the case if the music is on an SD card. I'm not sure what you mean by the "how good the navigation is" question. If that's in reference to Waze, I haven't seen how Waze audio override of an FM station works when the iPhone is directly connected to the USB port -- I will try that next time I'm in the car. I have played with the audio settings a bit more and the audio benefits are more distinct now. Enabling DBSS seems to make the door woofers have much better defined bass without being boomy. Tweaking the 3-band equalizer has helped as well (with just modest boosts at 15khz and 80hz). Still, the stock speakers are limiting. I will be ordering 4 Alpine SPS-410's. Trying to decide where to order them from -- they are only $45.99 a pair on Amazon but are $69.99 at Crutchfield. Crutchfield comes with an electrical adapter cable though so maybe it's worth the extra $50. I have adjusted the display to be a much better match to the factory orange. There is a "user" setting in colors that allow you to set Red/Green/Blue separately from 0 to 31, so it is possible to get very close in color. I also changed the display brightness setting from high to low and that makes it a better match for the A/C and other factory orange lighting. I will take another picture and post the RGB settings when I have a chance to look at it again. I'd like to get rid of the orange lighting around the volume ****, but don't know if that will be possible.

I meant how intuitive is it to switch between albums/folders on a USB drive and what info is displayed? Once I loaded all of my music on a small 32 gig USB drive, I never used Bluetooth audio again. I only use Bluetooth for phone calls.

Unfortunately, I can't help you there. I usually have the iPhone connected, so have never used an SD card or USB for music. If there was an easy way to bulk export my whole iTunes to SD, I might do that though. I would try posting a question on the Crutchfield Q&A page for that model.

There is no easy way to do that. It took me many hours to organize the music, but I think it is well worth it.

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Pioneer double din

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Porsche logo background and Orange lighting for buttons to match instrument lighting - screen can be darkened at night if you need . Touchscreen. Bluetooth. USB cable for iPhone.

[Image-only post; no author-written text. Original image references:] https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlist.com-vbulletin/2000x1504/image_7b5c413985ddfe7f30435fa9ad6d8002a5ed122b.jpg

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Thanks for posting the photos. The double DIN's look very cool.

Update : I just finished installing the front Alpine SPS-410’s. Although I had the head unit installed because it was so turnkey (and figured an expert could do it better than me), I did the speakers myself because it requires speaker mount modifications that I didn’t want to trust to someone else. There is a big sound difference – the original speakers are paper cone and really cheap. Much crisper highs and cleaner sound from the Alpines. I only have the fronts in, will do the rears hopefully tonight. I followed this video ( Porsche Boxster Speaker Replacement - YouTube ) to make the mounts for the Alpine SPS-410’s with a few exceptions: 1. Rather than trimming the tabs on the Alpines all the way flush, I left a bit of tab on because that helps provide a glue surface to the mounting ring. You do need to cut enough tab off so that the speaker grill sleeve fits between the remaining tab on the Alpine and the mounting ring. 2. Because I had proper cables from Crutchfield, I did not leave the original terminal on the mounting ring. 3. Instead of epoxy or superglue, I used 3m Emblem Glue (which is strong but should be easier/possible to remove if you ever need to replace the speaker again): A couple of other notes on removing/installing the speakers that I didn’t see noted in other speaker threads: 1. The spacing is tight for the speaker screw closest to the windshield. Home Depot stocks a Torx T20 �” socket for $1.97 that works perfectly -- there isn’t enough room to use a socket wrench, but you can drive it with a 1/4” open end wrench. 2. There is a retaining clip on the large end of the speaker (the opposite side of the screws). Once you remove the screws, pull up on the small end of the speaker to remove it from the dashboard (I don't think it will lift out if you try to remove it large side first because of the clip). I used a plastic pry bar to gently lift it. 3. That silver retaining clip on the large end of the speaker can easily fall off the mounting assembly once you remove the standalone screw mounting the speaker to the grill. The clip is important because it serves as the threaded backing for that speaker mount, so the screw won’t stay if the clip is missing. Other Notes: 1. While you have the speakers out, it is a good idea to clean the leather speaker surround and grill because you can get the nooks and crannies around the speaker and you don’t have to worry about getting cleaner on the speaker. 2. It’s also a good idea to use contact cleaner on the speaker connector while you have it out since the connection probably isn’t perfect after 10 or 15 years 3. Leave the factory tweeter in place but unwired. I don’t think the highs on the factory tweeter are that clean, so it’s almost certainly sounds better without them (and connecting them might mess up the crossover on the Alpines – although I’m not positive about that). 3. Crutchfield vs Amazon. I bought the speakers from Crutchfield at a premium to get the Porsche cable adaptors included. In theory, you don’t need the cables if you follow the speaker mount video exactly because they leave the stock terminals in place. I’m glad I had the cables because a) leaving those terminals in place doesn’t look that easy to me; b) much more importantly, I didn’t want to worry about getting polarity correct when resoldering the wires. If any of the speakers are out of phase, then the speakers will still work fine but the bass from the out-of-phase speaker will cancel out the bass from the in-phase speakers. Since bass is a premium with the small speakers, I like using the Crutchfield harness to be sure polarity is correct. If you solder with careful attention to polarity, it won’t be an issue to use the original terminals.

Looks great! It surprises me that Crutchfield was able to help. When I bought my '02, 2 years ago, they had no solution on their website, so I called them, and got the same response. I've used them many times, so was surprised. I've lived with the same OEM setup you had, and installed a BT interface that works fine for sat radio, but your unit really looks nice. No doubt the speakers will yield big gains too. On a side note, your cup holders are the same I've had in a couple of Audis. While maybe not the best, I found them useful. Their location, and the fact that your A/C and heater controls are in the lower console, leads me to think that it's not original. Do you know? I like them!

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Crutchfield has been pretty helpful. Most of my selection was done on their website -- I entered my car model info and it automatically shows all of the head units and speakers that fit -- it seems to be accurate for head units and dash/rear speakers. They don't show any double DIN's as a match and their match for door speakers seems weak (it shows only 2 full range 5 1/4" speakers rather than identifying (or at least including) 5 1/4 component woofers/subs). The photo below is after a couple more tweaks: 1) Original photo was "default" orange, the photo below is with custom RGB codes for orange color matching. The color match is much closer in person than it appears in the photo. I will post color codes once I'm convinced I have the best possible match 2) I eliminated the orange LED around the volume control by removing the volume **** and shaping gasket material to cover the light. The gasket material can't be seen with the volume **** on. The previous owner had the cupholders installed by a Porsche dealer. I happened to notice that while flipping through the old records. I assumed that they were standard 996 cupholders that he just had added, but it sounds like that's not the case from your comments. I haven't tried the cupholders yet, so I can't comment on their usability.

Funny what you did blocking out the light behind the ****. I was thinking that I would try to see if it was possible. Nice job.

I have heard that there are no single din flip out LCD head units that will work in a 996, but has anyone seen this link (about half way down the page) Why wouldn't this work (other than blocking the hvac, of course)? http://cartype.com/pages/453/porsche...abriolet__2002

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According to Crutchfield, there are a bunch of flip out LCD single DIN's that fit my 2000 996, not sure if that applies for all years.

What I am finding is that tuning is essential when replacing the factory audio. The downside of the factory speakers is that they are fairly low quality paper cone speakers. The upside is that they were probably tuned to the cabin of the 996 to at least some degree as part of the initial factory design process. The new speakers are much better in sound quality, but I suspect not quite as tuned to the specifics of the car. I did some very quick RTA using a pink noise track and an RTA iPhone app and saw pretty significant dips at about 200hz, 3000hz, and 18khz. I was able to flatten it out quite a bit by tweaking the Nakamichi bass / mid / treble settings, which could be configured to adjust pretty close to these frequencies (from memory, I think the closest adjust points were 180hz, 2500hz, and 17.5khz).

I understood practically none of that audio tech talk, but I'm interested in how you like the head unit now that you've had it for a couple of weeks.

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Sorry, didn't mean to confuse with my prior post. As far as the head unit, I am very happy with it. The sound quality is an improvement, even with the stock speakers, but don't expect a huge improvement with the stock speakers. The Bluetooth integration is good with the iPhone. There were complaints about the built-in microphone in the reviews, but I find it works fairly well. The tuner is good -- I usually isten to a public jazz station that has a pretty weak signal and sometimes get a little static, but mostly it is good. Unfortunately I didn't listen enough to the stock stereo to be able to compare tuner performance on that weak station. I would prefer that the Nakamichi had more than 6 presets, but there are multiple FM bands to store additional presets. Overall, I am very happy. After also upgrading the speakers (to the Alpine SPS-410's on the dash and rear) I find that jazz music sounds really, really good. I have to say that I think rock and pop music only sounds pretty good with this setup. I will be upgrading the woofers in the doors next, so I will report back after that (but it will probably be a long time before I find time to work on that).

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Quoting myself to try to explain the above in something closer to English. Any quality aftermarket speaker is likely going to have better measured performance than the cheap stock speakers. That said, the interior of a car (any car) has many reflection points that cause some frequency ranges to be amplified and others to be diminished. Even though the factory speakers are low quality, I suspect that they were tuned at least a little bit to the specifics of the 996 interior as part of the design process (this is my assumption, not fact). I suspect that when you replace the factory speakers with aftermarket speakers, the sound quality of the speaker is better but they may not work as well with the interior of the car. When I first put in the Alpine SPS-410's, it sounded more "impressive" (crisper highs, better lows) but didn't sound as balanced across the frequency range as the stock speakers. It still sounded better than the stock speakers, which are muffled in comparison, but it didn't sound as balanced. The Nakamichi (and most other modern radios) have equalizers built in to adjust the sound. The Nakamichi allows you to separately control bass, midrange, and treble settings. Not only can you adjust the level, but you can also adjust the frequency that each band affects. For example, for bass you can pick 80hz, 120hz, 180hz, .etc as the adjustment point. Being able to raise or lower certain frequencies allows you to better tailor the sound to the reflections from the interior. To adjust the equalization setting, I played a "pink noise" test tone (equal volume across all frequencies) and used a cheap iPhone app to measure the sound levels at all frequencies. This showed the peaks and valleys across the frequency range and, from that, it was easy to see how to adjust the the bass/mid/treble frequencies and levels. This is a very crude "low tech" approach, but it does seem to help balance out the sound a bit. Many modern home theater receivers come with a microphone and do this type of setup automatically, but it doesn't seem to be as common with car radios.

BREAKING NEWS : Porsche has decided to OEM the Nakamichi and they sent me the evaluation unit below!!!! Okay, not really. A bit of a failed experiment with adding the Porsche logo. The concept is good, but the logo turned out too large/wide. I used a height of 3mm. I should have measured the original (which is about 2mm) rather than the space available on the Nakamichi plate. The aspect ratio is wrong also -- which is why it is even wider than it should be for the height. The original measures about 2mm high by 32mm wide while the new one is 3mm high by 86mm wide, so the width to height ratio is about 16 on the original and is 28.6 on the new logo. I think it will work well once the size is right though.

Agreed that it is too big, but I don't think it looks bad. Where did you get the decal and do they offer smaller ones?

Hi Peter - I went with the Nakamichi and installed it this afternoon- looks pretty good and is a huge improvement in connectivity over the cobbled together beckersound aux cable. Did you ever customize the display to a close rbi setting for the stock color? Also, I think the sticker looks pretty good - what type of media did you use?

The color settings are: "User" mode -> RED : 20 GREEN : 08 BLUE : 02 DIMMER : Low The Porsche decal was made to size in Thailand (http://www.ebay.com/itm/271898835044?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT). I made the mistake of just giving them the 3mm height dimension not knowing they wouldn't have the right aspect ratio. I've asked if they can make it 2.2mm by 36mm, which is just slightly bigger than the original (the original has CDR-220 after PORSCHE, so I wanted to make it slightly larger for just "PORSCHE"). The decal itself looks perfect. It's just the letters cut out -- there is no backing film, so you can't tell it's a decal. It's a bit of a trick to get them on because some of the letters stuck to the backing sheet and it took a couple attempts (fortunately it came with 4 stickers). The current size may look pretty good in the picture, but it's too large when you see it in person -- it draws your attention to the radio rather than making the radio blend into the background like it does with the original PORSCHE label. I will order extras if it turns out they can make them in the right size and just send them to you. I've left the sticker on for now -- curious to see if my wife and son notice it when they get in the car (though it's pretty hard to miss).

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Glad you are happy with it. Agree that it is a huge improvement to have everything integrated -- I used to have a standalone Bluetooth and it's so nice not to worry about that. I even charge the iPhone off the faceplate USB rather than using a cigarette lighter socket (it does charge faster off the cigarette lighter, but it's so nice to eliminate the lighter adapter). It's my wife's car and I really wanted to modernize the phone interface for her and it has been perfect for that.

Great thanks, Peter. It will be nice to have Bluetooth integrated, I have been using a Motorola Roadster and it only works when t feels like it. Keep me informed on the decals, once they are dialed in, it should be a nice touch!

The decal manufacturer has indicated that they can make them in 2.2mm x 36mm. It takes 2+ weeks to get here from Thailand. I ordered 4, whatever I have left after successfully installing it I will mail to anyone who wants them.

OK, so it took a loooooooooonnnnnnng time to get the smaller decals from Thailand. The first set they sent never arrived, so they sent a second set. They warned me that the decal would be difficult to apply when printed this small, but I did manage to get it right after a few failed attempts. I ordered 2.2 x 36mm, but it seems like what they sent is closer to 2.5 x 48mm (which actually seems to be just about the perfect size). I was planning to send my spare decals to anybody else that wanted them, but I only have 1 left after my failed attempts, and it will likely take a few tries to get it right, so I would recommend ordering them directly using the eBay link in post #53 (they are only $5.99 shipped for 4 decals, and they actually sent me 2 extras because they were concerned about whether I could get it applied correctly at that size).