M. Schneider

Both the new 991 911 coupe and 981 Boxster where Bose equipped have a subwoofer located up inside of the dashboard. Its a triple band pass arrangement and is very good to excellent in performance I'm told,,, in terms of car interior acoustics anyway. .... Remember its a car.

sfo

had BOSE in 987.1 and also 981S ..

Sounds in 981S was much improved; crisper, clearer, much less distortion, stronger and more powerful.

chuck911

Speaking as an audiophile, the best approach to truly cost-effective upgrades is to first recognize that simpler is better. Read cmb13's comments on his simple system. Minimizing the number of speakers and amps allows you to spend more on fewer higher-quality components. This also may free up some funds for improved wire, an often-overlooked yet essential component. Whatever you do, most important of all is to go and audition and actually listen to each and every component you are considering. Yes even the wire! Never, ever, buy anything based on specs! Do not listen for "pop" and "definition". Sonics that bring these terms to mind tend to indicate a system that may impress at first (by hyping previously unnoticed sounds) but that will tend over the long term to bring listener fatigue. You grow tired of it, and never understand why, when it sounded so great at first. So listen instead for dimensionality and depth. A wide, deep soundstage is much more inviting and satisfying than the wall of sound most systems hit you with. Bring music you enjoy - uncompressed! no MP3's! - and pay attention to which components help you to relax into the music, get your foot tapping and forgetting everything else.

Carcam

Chuck and cmb- my local stereo shop suggests adding an amp and maybe just changing the 2 big door speakers. It would be nice to find a place for a sub. I will also be installing an Escort 9500ci. My son upgraded his system and that "wall of music" was fatiguing and hurt your ears after a while. He added a sound symposer and tweaked it with a laptop and it's perfect now. I don't need my stereo to be truly audiophile quality but I would like it to have more depth and dynamic range.

Justin N

Tonight I started trying to take a look at the base speakers and how they are mounted. The dash speakers aren't too bad to take apart. The doors have proved a bit tricky- I can't seem to find any clips and don't want to just start prying away at my baby....

Is there a way to get an assembly diagram of the doors and the other components in there?

chuck911

Adding an amp? Or upgrading existing amp? Adding makes no sense, upgrade lots of. The reason is with adding you still have the lousy quality there covering up the improved quality. Getting rid of the old amp/amps and upgrading those and door speakers makes great sense to me. Again, be sure to audition both the amps and speakers before deciding. Listen first, then decide. Highly recommend including some amps and speakers that you think are probably more than you're willing to pay. Cannot hurt. You either will learn you are able to save money without sacrificing listening pleasure, or the opposite, that its well worth the extra funds. (I have recommended this technique to friends, only having their wife listen. They ALWAYS want and approve spending for the expensive gear that sounds better. The key part being SOUNDS BETTER. You simply must audition all audio components.) Next thing, especially if you're having pro's install, talk to them about reinforcing the mounting area of the door. A little judiciously applied carbon fiber or fiberglass can work wonders. Ditto damping material. These little details most people overlook are essential vibration-control elements that almost always yield improvements far surpassing equal money spent just on any one component.

Porsche cabins are small spaces, so a subwoofer need not be large- and you only need one. Key here is for the shop to understand you want smooth, even low-frequency response and not just the 40Hz rapmobile hump. I noticed on one 991 thread there is a panel just below the rear window that pops out easily and appears to cover a space approx 4" dia by 30 wide. Anything even close to that volume could serve as a transmission line (google it or ask your installer) for a 6" driver, plenty enough to deliver awesome low bass. Actually even a 4" driver (of the right type) connected to a well-designed transmission line can deliver surprisingly good bass with excellent pitch definition and dynamics. Custom fabrication involved but could be almost invisible and sound great.

Justin N

Chuck, all good ideas, I didn't know about the space on the rear deck. The sub with the Bose and burmester goes underneath the stock stereo, so that could be a good place too or possibly an amp. I am still not surer where the stock amp is at it doesn't seem like its part of the main nav unit. Looking at images of the back of the PCM it looks like it might only have a digital out, but I'm not sure.

All that being said, I will probably will stay away from upgrading the amp, at least initially. Modern amps have very little distortion, and with some moderately efficient speakers that are 90dB/1w, so just a few watts in the car is more than enough for a coupe. In my home system with two magnepans I rarely use over a few watts.

The speakers I am looking at are generally not the norm for car audio - morel, focal, seas, scanspeak. Mostly high end drivers that supply OEM to the home audio industry. I think these are better made and higher value than alot of the rebranded stuff that you can buy at car audio shops. Alot of these brands also have very compact motor structures with small (and light) Neodynium magnets that are inside the voice coil.

I also have access to a cnc for doing molds for some fiberglass or carbon fiber reinforcing or adapter plates if necessary. I can already tell this is going to be a fun project!

chuck911

Okay, but remember: forget specs and audition. Lots of amps measure good but sound bad. You sound like you would also appreciate the improvement the right wire can bring. Synergistic Research has a lot of good choices from inexpensive all the way up to damn near the cost of your car! Even the "cheap stuff" sounds appreciably better than the stuff car companies put in there. Good luck!

WCE

Key reason to upgrade at least to the Bose. This sub is a vast improvement over the various too small rear mounted boxes Porsche has tried in the past. Unfortunately in the US it's part of a package adding features some have no use for but still worth it for the sound improvement IMO.

cmb13

If you upgrade only the 2 big door speakers, I would suggest getting at least 2 way speakers so you have some mids / highs with the low. I don't know the size of these speakers, but for instance some will be a 6" driver with a 1" tweeter. If you upgrade / add an amp to these speakers, they will probably overpower the other speakers. In my last car, I removed the unwanted speakers, except the one in the dash which was too hard to get to. In this situation, it became irrelevant, becasue it was so overpowered, it became inaudible, which was fine with me.

cmb13

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