Anir

Nathalie and I had the pleasure of hosting Rod Birch this weekend for a long-awaited upgrade of the supposedly "hi-fi premium" sound system in the 993. Rod graciously made the arduous trip from Sacramento to work on two cars in Kentucky (thanks, Rod!!). He is a gem of a person, and a true Porsche audio expert and enthusiast. I've done two stereo upgrades myself in years past, and I was amazed by Rod's familiarity with our 993's and with audio equipment in general.

The system sounds absolutely perfect - clean, loud, crisp, authentic, perfectly balanced, warm, with no noise or audible distortion to my ears even at insane volume settings. Here's the details (it's a story of an American head unit, French speakers, and an Italian amp!):

McIntosh MX-406 head unit and single CD player. Chosen for its simplicity and a face that integrates well with the 993 carbon fiber trim. Also, we like our McIntosh home equipment. I removed the factory, trunk-mounted CD changer since it and the McIntosh head unit could not "talk" to each other.




Audison LRx5 5-channel amplifier. 60W x 4 (4 ohms) + 180W (4 ohms). Replaced the factory Nokia amp under the passenger seat. I forgot to take a pic!




Focal K2 Power 165 KP two-way speakers with cross-over in the doors, 6.5" woofer. We tossed the large, heavy, plastic factory Nokia enclosures and Rod mounted the woofer, tweeter, and crossover directly to the doors. The duct tape is to prevent the outside air from blowing onto the occupants from within the doors.



The speakers look completely stock with the enclosures replaced, as does the rear deck with the Focal Access 100 CA 2-ways (4" drivers) installed.






Two custom subwoofer enclosures in the rear footwells with Image Dynamic 8" subs. These are Rod's specialty and an excellent, easily reversible bass solution. As you can see in the pic, the unit forms an excellent sealed enclosure once installed. Very nice, Rod!

Anir

The artist hard at work:








Ready for amp installation:




A happy customer (and tired installer!):



Thanks again, Rod! We loved having you!

Dave I

Awesome setup and pictures. Are you still able to slide your GT3 seats all the way back with the sub enclosures in place?

John H. in DC Area

Well done, Anir (and Rod). I agree that the clean and simple McIntosh face maintains the simple classic aesthetics of your interior. That 6.5" woofer is pretty healthy in and of itself, I'll bet the system sounds pretty good even without the subs. But depending upon the music one listens to, subs can make the difference between a sufficient and spine-tingling acoustic experience.

You must be over the moon with joy these days ... got your car back, it looks awesome, and now you've got a one-of-a-kind sound system. I'd call that combination guy-heaven!

Anir

Dave,

Yes, with plenty of room to spare. The driver's seat is almost all the way back in the pic above. However, my children have lost some of their rear seat footroom.

John,

Thanks! I am in heaven, although I certainly miss tracking the 993. I've signed up for a Formula Mazda test day with Rotary Rockets at Gingerman next month, so hopefully, that will help satisfy the trackday craving.

For some of the newer Rennlisters who may not know of Rod's reputation, here is a link to his website, Car Audio Innovations

csertich

Anir,

Your Mac and the install look great. I bought my equipment from Rod (Nak CD-400, ARC audio amp and your speakers minus the subs). Really like it a lot. Very true sound. But the engine still sounds better.

Enjoy Anir. Rod's a nice guy and a great technician. Nice that you had the opportunity to meet him. I have not had the pleasure of meeting Rod Birch.

Take care,

chuck

PorscheDavid

Congrats on the "system"...I have a Rod Birch special similar to yours in my 930...now looking forward to matching it my the 993. How did you get Rod to come to Kentucky???

Anir

Thanks, Chuck and David!

David, I realized that it was a huge inconvenience for Rod to leave his daughter and wife (who is 8 months pregnant!) for the weekend to visit us. I tried to compensate him for his trouble by (1) purchasing all of the equipment from him (except the McIntosh, which he does not carry), (2) paying for his airfare, and (3) paying a travel allowance for the time away from work and family. It took him 8 hours to travel each way, which effectively translates into at least two installations he could not do at his shop. Lastly, Nathalie prepared a nice Mexican dinner of tortilla soup and chicken enchiladas to coerce him into visiting (a man will do anything for good food, right?).

Rod is very dedicated to Porsches, high-end audio, his customers, and his business. He's the classic American small business owner. His goal is to be one of the 10 best car audio specialists in the country, and I have full confidence that he will achieve it (if he hasn't already).

Anir

Here's a pic that illustrates the available rear footwell space for my children after addition of the subwoofer enclosures. The seats are in the proper positions for the front seat occupants.




Check out the huge factory Nokia speaker enclosure from the passenger door! Weighs 6 lbs according to the bathroom scale. No wonder the check straps break in our cars! It's hard to believe that something so big and over-engineered can produce such low-quality sound.

Benton

Anir,
Looks wonderful; your interior is my *very* favorite. I LOVE chestnut, and with carbon fiber, full leather, GT3 seats, sexy audio aquipment, ... Oooohhh, so beautiful. I bet you are on cloud nine with the car back.

Bigbartguy

Rod Birch is a class act. I called him for some matching replacement carpet to cover my custom-made sub-boxes and he was great. Very nice guy.

it looks good !
Tim

swftiii

Thanks for all the pics and the story - the install looks great! I have spoken with Rod a couple occasions and will agree - he is a true enthusiast and a class act.

-Skip

nile13

Anir, the installation looks great. I love Mac's mellow sound, used to have them in my home system. What I've heard of Focals, they would be a great match to that head unit.

Am I understanding correctly that Rod put the tweeter where the midrange speaker was before? How's the imaging with tweeter being a bit low like that? I'm looking to replace my "hi-fi" system with a/d/s components and Soundstream amp I already have, but was not sure how I'd deal with speaker location.

The other interesting thing is that I have an Alpine changer connected to the stock head unit. Not sure how this was done... don't want to loose the changer while replacing teh amp. The stock amp has some DIN connector going into it. I have not investigated yet, but am afraid that it might be the CD changer connector.

Anir

Thanks, Mark, Tim, and Skip!

Nile,

Yes, the new tweeter is located where the factory midrange used to sit. It is angled towards the occupants. Imaging is great. The factory tweeter is disconnected, but still sits in the uppermost enclosure.

I thought about getting the McIntosh CD changer, but decided to increase my trunk space instead.

Benton

I didn't mount my speakers like that because I figured the Hifi panel would mess up the imaging. Oh well, too late now to go back. I fiberglassed over the panels, smoothed it out with the woofer above the tweeter (tweeter is aimed at passengers) which is down near the corner of the door. I'm covering them with carpet sometime this or next week and getting them back in. I'll post pics when I'm done, but it may have been a moot effort if the imaging is fine mounted like Anir's.