Finally got round to putting my speakers in

A while back there was a thread about speaker upgrades http://www.porscheclubgbforum.com/tm.asp?m=412788&mpage=3 Like Richard and Rod I went the DIY route and bought the bits before christmas. I've only just got round to putting them in this afternoon. Here's a few more photos of the process. The main thing I was missing was a soldering iron with a cutting tip so I popped in to Machine Mart yesterday and picked one up http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/details/whk30k/path/ Marked the circle with a compass I was having a peruse around the local car audio center and spotted some dynamat http://www.dynamat.com/products_car_audio_speaker_kit.html and being a fan of Chip Foose and Overhaulin' I had to buy some[ ] (they seem to coat the whole car in it) The idea was I'd put it around the speaker hole in the car but I haven't got that far (I'm not sure now I've had things apart it needs it) but what I did do was cut some strips and put them around the edge of the hole to make sure the speaker was a good fit to the grill. (The foil is quite thin and behind it is a sticky non-setting mastic type stuff) I also managed to get all four screws in by clipping the mounting tabs back and using the little holes closer to the speaker I pulled the rubber connector covers off the unused Pioneer speaker wires and threaded them on the new VW ones then striped and soldered to the tags on the speakers then pulled the rubber covers over to make a good neat connection. I've not yet had a chance to have a good listen just a test to make sure it all works but it definatly sounds better than the originals and I suspect it will need a few hours running in to reach it's final sound.

Nice work - its not that difficult, and the improvements will be noticeable without spending shed loads of money as i've stated previously. Its only when you pop out the original speakers you realise how bad the standard units are ! Not sure about your positioning of dynamat, its designed to dampen vibration in panels, so should be applied to the door trim panel rather than around the speaker, but i guess its doing no harm.

Agreed you expect more on a premium motor

You're right I didn't really use the Dynamat for it's intend purpose. I used it as a sealer. When I put the first one together I wasn't that pleased with the fit of the speaker to the grill so took things apart and put the Dynamat round the hole in the grill so when the speaker was screwed back down it squashed the Dynamat filling any little gaps making a nice firm fit.. Now I've had chance to use them a bit more I can really hear the improvement. There's a much better sense of staging, it all sounds much clearer much less muddled. Even the phone sounds better with better clarity to voices Next thing is probably to connect up the iPhone. I like the integration of the Dension 500 but it's quite expensive. I'm toying with the idea of getting one of these Gear4 CarDock FM things for £70 http://www.gear4.com/product_detail.php?products_id=502 It uses RDS so you get still get the track listings on the radio and it looks like it would fit in the 996 lighter socket nicely.

My nephew has one of those and he isn't happy with it at all. I believe he has issues when it automatically re-tunes, and he gets conflicts with radio stations because it tunes too closely to strong stations. It's for sale if you are interested........

How did you make sure you maintained the correct polarity with the connections? Are they obviously marked? I have yet to remove the existing speakers (but have the necessary bits as per the speaker thread). I have the non MOST PCM1 + CD Changer system fitted and have found very few ipod kits compatible. In the end I went for the Dension Link ONE. http://www.dension.com/index.php?pageID=175 It is an FM modulator but connects directly in-line with the aerial so gives a stronger stereo signal than ones that don't. I appreciate it is not ideal but I'm not up for trying to retro fit MOST or using a cassette adapter, or ripping out the head unit at the moment. I did try to find one that would bolt inline with the CD changer...but to no avail (unless anyone knows better of course I'm about to start the DIY speaker project....quite looking forward to it too! B

The positive connections are solid colour wires, and the negatives are bi-colour (ie have tracers).

Oops I couldn't see anything obvious and ended up doing mine the other way round. As long as they are all the same i.e. in phase it shouldn't matter but I might just pop them out and see if I can tease the pins out of the connectors and swap them round.

Wow - the original speakers must be really rubbish then ... The wired telephone network only carries a bandwidth of 300Hz to 3400Hz anyway - with GSM encoding over just over 8kb/s restricting the audio quality even further. So, if you can tell a difference in the quality of a mobile phone call, that's saying something about the quality of the old speakers. Time for an upgrade myself ...

albeit i have a becker 4720 in mine (almost identical to teh CDR21 but with satnav) and have fitted a solisto box to it to connect the ipod digitally (track listings shown, artist etc all controlled from the head) but it replaces the cd changer ( not as well as) dont know if they do a most cd changer version but might be worth a look - took about an hour to fit it all in - try solisto.de Jon