987 Aftermarket Head unit recommendations

Hello all, I recently got a 2005 Boxster S and I want to update the head with a touchscreen unit. The car has the Bose option. There are a lot of options out there and the more I look, the more overwhelmed I get. Thanks for the help!!

It is pretty much a nightmare trying to pick one. I think first you want to decide what features on the head-unit are "must haves" - mine were Bluetoof, USB, iPod input, SSD card input, CD/DVD player, and Satellite Radio. Pretty much the full boat sort of thing, but I want lots of choices since I'm fickle when it comes to what I listen to. I also wanted a volume KNOB. Touchscreen is fine for most things except adjusting volume. With the knob it's amazing how much I actually do adjust it, I doubt if I go more than 10 minutes without tweaking the volume. It's easy to do without looking and being distracted with a knob... trying to do it on a touch-screen requires looking at the screen so you're instantly distracted. I'd spend some time with Crutchfield . They have compatibility guides and pre-made wiring harnesses that make a swap fairly easy. Since you have the Bose option, there is one issue - you have a fiber loop audio interface going to the amp, and without an adaptor from fiber to wire it just isn't going to work, and the adaptors are rather pricey. BTW - when you have a chance - please visit New Member Introductions and introduce yourself and brag a bit about your car - some photos would be nice. Please update this when you do decide and let us know what you get and how it works out..

+1 on Don’s Crutchfield recommendation. I have found their product documentation and customer support to be excellent. Call them, explain what is important to you and I suspect they’ll have some ideas that will work.

Thanks for responding and your input. Very helpful. Crutchfield is great!

"Bluetoof" - love it! My car came with a Pioneer EX501, which I actually like pretty well. It's not perfect (I hate that there's no volume KNOB) but it works well otherwise. The only concern I have is that there appear to be a lot of direct-wires to the speakers (copper)... so I'm not sure what they REALLY did back there. For now, I'm leaving it alone as it works well enough, but I would certainly think the optical-adapter route is the better way to go... I may try restoring mine to that setup, assuming the PO didn't remove the amps and such. The only complaint I have is that because I'm not using the BOSE amps, the equalization is lost, so the speakers love to distort easily. It's one of the many reasons I hate blows-speakers. So, the EQ had to be set to "voice" to boost the mids while reducing the lows, as the speakers would distort VERY easily otherwise. Using the optical adapter should preserve the factory EQ and prevent this from happening, I imagine. I'm thinking I need to replace the speakers with better ones, as blows-speakers don't work well without their custom amps and EQs.

Have you checked the existing speakers for rotted rubber surrounds? Apparently, in some climates, this happens sooner rather than later (probably hotter climates) - but all speakers with the foam surrounds are bound to have this issue. I've repaired lots of high-end speakers with the issue, but I question if there are kits available for the oddball size car speakers tend to be.

Again, +1 to Don’s comment about deteriorating speaker surrounds. Mine were a sticky mess of disintegrating foam. I did not repair them, as Crutchfield had a relatively inexpensive replacement recommendation. Pretty simple swap and they sound okay to me. That said, I have modest expectations/needs for audio in a sports car.

I was looking on Suncoast 's website under audio for the 987 series, and for the ASK audio system, replacement drop-in woofers are only around $47/each. At that price and with the ease of replacing them, that's the route I'd be taking if there was a foam problem on mine. Here is the link: Audio & Radio - seems the prices are very reasonable for genuine Porsche parts...

Hi Consider the range of car systems made by Erisin . Fitted one in mt 2010 car that had sound plus amp system. Always bit of a faff but looks proper as it looks like the original one knob each side. Sorry for bad qual image.

I have an '08 (non Bose ) and ended up replacing the entire system. I went with a Sony XAV-AX3200 head unit, with a DD Audio amp, DD Audio lower door speakers, and Kicker upper door speakers and tweeters. The sound that comes out of this system (especially with no subwoofer) is nothing short of amazing. The Sony head unit doesn't have a ton of options, which is what I wanted as I pretty much run everything through Apple CarPlay . It works extremely well, is very responsive, and I've had no issues with software crashing, etc. It can get a little washed out with the top down, even with the "anti-glare" technology, but I'm not sure it would be better with anything else. XAV-AX3200 | In-Car Media Receiver & Player | Sony US Hope this helps!

In Sid, I'm using the Pioneer AVH-Z9250BT which has a 7″ WVGA Touchscreen Display, Built-in Wi-Fi for Apple CarPlay Wireless and Android Auto Wireless, Dual USB, and SD Card Slot. I think the equivalent in the U.S. is the AVH-W4500NEX over in the States.

I bought a Pioneer as well, part of their new NEX line (the touch screen face is detachable from the main radio - connects via cable) Pioneer DMH-C2550NEX My car was a 2006 Cayman S with Bose. Bose makes an aftermarket swap a lot less of a cookie-cutter approach. You can read the forum posts regarding this. Main thing to consider when you buy, as others have mentioned - features - Apple carplay? android auto? wired or wireless syncing? Additionally - can you live without buttons? If so, that will make the process a little cheaper. Any head units still with buttons carry a premium in price. Also, capacitive vs resistive touch technology. I learned this the hard way, starting with a different model, capacitive version of this radio, and lucky for me (did the install during the winter), found out that capacitive doesnt play well with gloves. Returned it and swapped for the DMH C2550 NEX, which is resistive, works with gloves. The bigger advantage to this model is the screen fits a double din slot, but the body of the radio is single din, which helps with the mass of wiring you will inevitably need back there, including the fiber optic decoder, plus any additional wiring for backup camera (may as well do it all at once while you're in there) and the parking break defeat.

Capacitive vs resistive - yeah, gloves are always the issue between them. However, there are options to provide capacitive response with gloves these days as well. You simply need a bit of electrical conductivity from your finger inside to the outside of the glove. You can even buy silvered thread (metallic thread) which can do this. I had done that in the past, and simply stitched in like 5 passes of that thread, and that worked quite well with gloves...

I honestly did not have great luck with the "touch screen gloves", tried a set made by Mechanix and a set I got from costco. Got tired of messing with it. Wasnt sure if it was temperature sensitive either, in a car audio shop it worked "better" but not great. In my car when it was cold out, it worked very unreliably. Accuracy was the biggest issue, end up hitting the wrong button and doing something that I did not want in the first place, which by me was unsafe to continue in a car thats a manual. I built in a redundancy and wired in a generic steering wheel mounted remote as well, but still ended up sticking with the resistive model instead (which had physical buttons too) which is a shame because the capacitive touch screen's performance without gloves was certainly more fluid (more like an iphone ).

No argument there... I never used an off-the-shelf one, but my silver-thread version worked great on my cellphones... because I could feel the touch point and it was well-conductive as well.

I second the Sony . Got their lowest end $299 one with wired car play and it's amazing. Physical buttons for volume and track are great to have, and they're small enough to be out of the way

Hey there i have then same 2005 s what did you get for your head unit? Anything you liked or didn't pertaining to you entertainment system..