TECH TALK: Up Your 911’s Audio Experience with 3D Printing

By Christian Moe - June 1, 2017

Sometimes you want to hear more than the wail of a flat-six.

There is not a lot wrong with the original 911. It’s iconic design and class-leading dynamics have carried it on as a successful model for more than half a century. But if you find yourselves in possession of a classic 911 model, you may find the audio solution to be a little lacking. There are lots of choices available for a new head unit, but unless you want to start hacking your car apart, there is not a lot of choice for new speakers.

Unless you have a 3D printer that is.

Thanks to the wonders of technology and the Internet, you can now 3D-print a special mount that takes the 911’s mono speaker that is mounted in the center of the car, and turns it into two smaller speaker mounts. You aren’t going to get any kind of life-changing audiophile experience with this sort of setup, but it does at least allow for the use of stereo audio. Considering that any modern replacement head unit is setup for stereo outputs, actually having two speakers in the car can be pretty important.

The bracket is a pretty simple design that fits neatly into the original speaker mounting location. This lets you get that tasty and crisp stereo audio while maintaining a stock look, as the original grille will still fit over this bracket.

The only potential downside we see with this 3D-printed mount is rattling and vibration from the new speakers. While our current 3D printer doesn’t possess the ability, there are ways to print in two materials at once. If you printed the bracket in a solid material, but lined the center speaker mounts with flexible plastic, you would add a vibration reducing layer. This extra isolation should prevent any unwanted rattling or noise from interrupting your music or driving experience.