996 New Stereo

Hi All, anyone have any suggestions on a tasteful upgrade of the factory CD player and CD storage unit for my 2001 911? I want to keep the stock look and feel if you know what I mean but would like to upgrade to a more iPod friendly unit. Anyone done anything?

Hi Whipit I had a Sony stacker in the 964 which fried a circuit and refused to spit out my 10 favourite CD's. After surgically removing the Sony I replaced it with what seems to be a slightly basic Kenwood KDC-U6046 system which does'nt require a PhD in sound engineering to operate. The unit is Black and looks reasonably good in the dash, not so lairy like some of the systems on the market today. I have the Kenwood Amplifiers under both front seats and thought I would keep with the theme. The system is compatible with the Iphone and my Samsung USB MP3. The sound is much better and I wish now that I had upgraded the system earlier. I bought the new Kenwood system on Ebay for $233 delivered, it arrived within 2 days from a mob in Melbourne. Now my wife wants to upgrade the stereo in her Merc.... My favourite soundtrack is the one emanating from the exhaust system

Thanks for the info, sounds like what i am after i will have a look. Couldn't agree more though, the sound form the exhaust is epic!!

The Ebay seller I sourced the Kenwood sound system from is called 'Elite Electronics Store' (Melbourne based). They have everything from sub woofers to nose hair trimmers

I was using a Pioneer in another car and although its a great unit, I have fitted an Alpine to my 952, and the Iphone integration is the best I have seen. As far as looks go, it's a pretty personal choice as to what looks right, so it would pay to see whats around. I have been in car audio industry for many years and wouldn't use any other brands other than the ones I have listed above, as they are the most reliable IMO. Don't rush in and see if you can demo the units with an Iphone to see hwo well they actually integrate, as there are many levels of how well they do this. Anyway you won't go wrong with an Alpine cheers Bruce

Just an update, have managed to find a video of a 996 stereo conversion done in the states that I reckon is what i am after. Basically they relocate the air con control unit down to where the CD storage currently is. This then frees up the space at the centre top of the dash to accept a double din size touch screen. I am going for an Alpine INA-W900E Radio/CD/DVD/Navigation/Bluetooth Unit and reversing camera. There is an after market surround that suits a double din in the 996 dash so it should look very factory. I am going to just have the iPod in the glove box out of sight. Will post some pics when its finished.

That's the same unit I have fitted in my 952. It's an awesome unit and I just love the total integration of everything. I get speed warning, an accurate speed reading, voice prompts for nav, can take and make calls, and listen to music all at the same time (well sort of). As my car has a high rear, I love the reverse cam, as before I had it was leaving a massive gap to be safe, but now I can park within inches of things (safely). great choice

Hey great to know someone else has one and loves it, thanks for the feed back. It goes in on Friday, cant wait.... Do yu happen to know if you can program the welcome screen? Just thought it would be a nice touch if it came up with the Porsche logo when it first fired up?

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Awesome idea whipit. I have been involved with Alpine for about 15 years as I worked at Melbourne's F#1 Status dealer. I made a call and have a disc on the way that can be loaded into unit and add a new splash/welcome screen. I have requested the Porsche Crest logo with Porsche underneath in their font. When I get it, I will let you know and will make a copy, and organise to post one over to you peace

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Top stuff buddy, awesome, let me know when it arrives

Will do Gary. As it's a favour, will have to just wait, but I am keen to get my hands on the disc too

Well have had the stereo fitted and I am really happy with the result. I wanted to go for a clean factory look and I think thats pretty much what I have got. They moved the Air Con control unit down to the bottom position, which is a factory spot I think if you went with the original Porsche satnav. This meant they were able to fit a factory trim for it so it looks spot on. This freed up the top section for the double din Alpine unit which is excellent as cyberpunky had said. There was also a standard fascia kit to fit it into the 911, so once again it looks nice and neat. I also had the reversing camera fitted, with it being a Cabrio its just makes it a little easier reversing if the roof up. I had the cable for the iPod brought into the glove box which is where the iPod unit is plugged in so its out of sight. Its very easy to control all iPod functions from the head unit. The satnav is also really good with 2D, 3D viewing, and speed alerts etc (useful when driving a P car!), although the map is slightly out of date for where I am so I guess I will need to buy the new map, but that life. At this stage I have left the factory speakers, and to be honest the sound quality is pretty good, certainly heaps better than with the factory CD unit. I am going to wait for a while and see if I end up upgrading them. Just waiting on that Porsche splash screen.....

Gary that looks awesome, as if it was fitted as OEM. The splash screen will complete the illusion perfectly. The speed alert is essential as my speedo is out(it's on to do list) but I had to adjust mine, as out of the box it was triggering if I went 1 k over. I now have it set with some lee-way so its not going off constantly. I love how I still get warnings etc while I have ipod screen displayed. The reverse camera is fantastic in my car too, with its high rear end. You can register the unit at Alpine click here and get 3 year warranty, if fitted by authorised dealer, as well as software updates, map upgrdaes, etc. cheers Bruce

Hi Bruce, cheers mate and thanks, I am really happy with it. Funny my speedo is out as well, its on my to do list too. Going to go and get my serial number of the Alpine unit and register. BTW you don't happen to have any ideas why its not displaying the album artwork on screen, it says in the manual it will but I am not sure why it isn't? cheers Gary

The Album art seems very hit and miss. Some of my tracks display art while others don't. It doesn't seem to matter if the music was bought from Itunes or not either, or what displays on the iPhone. Not a biggie for me as I don't care whats on display when driving lol

Just carefully re read the manual and it makes a small reference to "pictures that are smaller than 80kb can be displayed" So I might try loading a smaller artwork file on one album and see it that is it.

Hi Gary the file has been made, but am now just waiting for it to be emailed to me. Unfortunately it's on a PC that is being looked at, but that should be fixed in next 24 hours. As soon as they get PC back they will forward me the file, and I will email it to you. almost there cheers Bruce

Hi Bruce, great, cant wait to get it thanks Gary

Hi Gary thought I had got my hands on file finally but it is just reinstalling alpine logo. Hopefully it's just a mix up will keep you posted cheers

Hey Gary mate what an ordeal lol after burning about 10 CDs I finally got it to work. The files came in 2 emails, 4 files in total, but was told only needed 2 and i had to try a lot of combo's and do some advanced hacking to get it to work lol. turns out 3 of the files are needed. I was at my wits end, and the last combo, was going to be my last attempt, when it actually worked. Anyway it looks great and really happy I finally got it to work drop me an email cyberpunky at optusnet dot com dot au and i'll send you files and instructions. Bruce

Hi Bruce, Just sent the email, sounds like you had a bit of a high "technostress" day!! cheers Gary

Gary you have mail

Bruce, we have lift off

sweet. love it when a plan comes together Awesome idea mate, so thanks for that

Well, good news, my iPod did a firmware update today all by itself and bingo the album art works Now to just get a little more user control on the colour schemes so I can match it to the orginal and we are away .

Hey Gary good stuff. will have to check mine. I saw album artwork today but was only on that screen for a moment as went to nav screen. I really need to get my speedo fixed as HU lives on speedo screen. I got the imprint processor today. I am hoping to have it hooked up over next few days.

Hi Bruce, last night when I put the car in the garage I noticed I still had the Alpine box the HU came in. I had a look and the colour scheme it shows on the picture on the side of the box is really different from what you get, much more of a black with blue if you know what I mean. I wonder why we cant get that on the unit? Anyhow, everything else works a treat, so maybe I am just picky

I had a look at the box and do like that scheme too. It's like the Boxes for TVs at work. The picture always goes to the edge of screen with no border, unlike in reality, where they all have borders lol. My unit has been a bit buggy. It locked up on Nav screen once and I had to remove the power to reset it. I went to adelaide over last weekend and the voice of NAV dropped out. I played with settings yesterday and it has come back, but I copped a ticket on trip, so not happy about that. Ironically, I was distracted because the Iphone was flat and unit wouldn't detect it. I had got it working when I stopped for fuel a few minutes before, by again disconnecting power, but I stopped a few minutes later and got some food and when I took off again it wasn't working, so I was looking for a safe place to park and didn't notice my speed drift up to 109 KPH and I got pinged(still in Vic). I did get it working again while I waited for the cops to give me a ticket but figure the nav speed warning may have prevented the ticket if the unit wasn't bugging out on me in the first place lol. The trip was a great drive though, and these cars are so much fun even if severely handicapped by our draconian road laws. Dropping down to thrid and overtaking was a blast. I doubt there are too many cars around that you can just drive for 9 hours and then get out of, feeling like it was a trip to the office