Speaker query

Hi all, After spending a year with the car and my Pioneer AVIC D3bti head unit I feel the time has come to do something about the rubbish speakers so can anyone advise me as I have no idea when it comes to these things! Can I confirm with anyone that the front (dash) and rear speakers in a 996 with the Porsche Sound Package are 10cm and that the door speakers are 13cm? These seem to be what people spec looking through the search results. Can anyone tell me the difference between co-axial / component speakers? Which do I need? What is the deal with cross overs? And lastly, will the amp already in the car be sufficient? I am not looking for MAX POWER base but I would like the sound not to distort when turned up to a reasonable level. Will replacing the 6 speakers do it and what sort of price should I be looking to pay to get decent ones? Many thanks in advance Guy

I don't have the audio pack on mine, but the original fitment Nokia speakers left a lot to be desired. Mine has the dash and rear side speakers only, which are an odd size "" 11cm. I bought some Pioneer 10cm Kevlar coned co-axial speakers for the dash, and some 6x9" ellipticals which I fitted to my home made parcel shelf/storage box, and disconnected the rear side speakers. ( http://www.porscheclubgbforum.com/tm.asp?m=230967 ). From memory, the dash speakers were about £30, and the rears about £65. The Nokia dash speakers are glued onto the speaker grilles, so I bought a pair of second hand ones from Porsch-Apart and hacked them around to fit the 10cm Pioneers. You can buy a plain grille in black from Porsche if you want to keep the originals, but they aren't available in Savannah. ( http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=15407 ). I'm no audiophile, but it sounds great to me, and a huge improvement on the standard speakers. Personally, I think you can easily go too far with car audio setups. After all, a car interior isn't the most conducive environment for high quality sound, especially once you get on the move. I just wanted to get rid of the distortion at higher volumes, and introduce a decent amount of bass, and I've certainly achieved that. The door speakers are 13cm, and I believe it is a fairly straightforward job to change them. There is loads of stuff on renntech.org on speakers, so it's worth doing a search on the 986 and 996 forums there. I'll leave it to the experts to give you the lowdown on the component/co-axial/crossover malarky. I just kept it simple. [ ] [ ]

Coaxials are basically a a two or three component speaker system where all elements sit together- so a 2-way coaxial has a tweeter (hi frequency driver) mounted within the main mid range/bass speaker cone. A 2 way component set means the tweeter is separate to the main driver - this is what you need to replace your current dashtop set up, as you currentlyhave a 4" paper coned mid driver and a 0.75" tweeter glued to your grille/mounting plate. Most aftermarket sets will be 1" tweeter - this will fit but you need to use s Dremel to remove the lip that positions the stock 0.75" tweeter on the mounting plate and then use hot glue to attach your replacement 1" tweeter. You also need to check the mounting depth of any set you buy, as you may find an aluminimum tube cross brace under one of the dashtop speakers and clearance will be critical factor here. Sony and JBL might be a bit more bass orientated, the Alpines and MBQ will be balanced clear sound, Kenwood might be a bit light on bass dependent upon model. Its sounds a lot of work, but its not really - remove one of the stock units and all will be revealed !! When you buy componet sets there will be a separate rossover unit - you don't need thsi as the factory sound plus package uses crossovers in the boot mounted amplifier to split the frequencies and runs separate cable runs to the tweeter and mid units mounted int he dash top. I suggest you double check this first by removing one of the speakers and inspecting the wiring - it was the case on my 986 with sound plus, but might be different on other model years. Shouldn't take more than a few hours to remove dash speakers, split old speakers from mounting plate/grille, modify plate for the larger tweeter, hot glue mount new units, and refit . The door speakers are 13cm (5.25" in old money), but you might have to fabricate some mdf mounting rings to pick up the factory mounting points. 6.5" 17cm units will fit with modification of the door speaker enclosure. The door speakers don't do an awful lot, so i wouldn't get too fussy about replacing these just yet, and you'll be hard pushed to find any set of 3 ways that incorporates a tweeter, 4" mid range and 5.25" bass driver (i think swedish company DLS did one years ago). Crossovers - a separate box that splits the frequencies to the various speaker components - more common on 'separate' or 'component' sets where the tweeter and mid/bass units are separate entities and it allows better placement of speakers and sound alignment. This means you have another box of electronics to hide, not easy on the top of the dash, and not necessary if the wiring from the amp is as i described above. The original Nokia factory fit units have paper cones, poor magnets and a foam speaker surround - cost about 50p to make - anythign aftermarket will be polypropylene cones and either foam or rubber surrounds with bigger and better magnets. You might struggle to find Butyl rubber surrounds on lower priced sets (probably start at £100 a set). www.bassjunkies.com is a good place to start to weigh up options - larger Halfrauds stores will stock 4 or 5 types of 4" 2 way component sets from £35 to £75 a set.

Many thanks to you both for the superbly detailed answers - just what I needed. Now to see what I can get installed and when [ ]

Gizmo will you update when you decide what way your going, i'm in the same boat and would love to update the speakers. My only prefference is to keep the car looking factory fit. I still would like to find out if it's worth changing the amp? many thanks Chris.

Chris, I certainly will - there is a plan afoot with my local independent so I will let you all know what happens Guy

Any updates.

Not until next week when I hope to get the new speakers sorted. Main man at my indy garage been off for a bit but should be back next week and then we can move it forward. Will let you know as soon as anything is sorted out.