barbancourt

My car came with Pioneer speakers, amp, sub, and head unit. Sounds decent sitting parked, but once you start rolling it sounds progressively more tinny. I lose a lot of midrange. Do you have that problem? I’m wondering if I need some baffles or if it’s just that the speakers suck.

sasilverbullet

I'm not an audio engineer, just electrical. My .02 is that if great sound is important to you, completely replace the radio, amp, and all wiring.

wsrgklt

I’m not an engineer of any sort, but I have no doubt that replacing every one of the 20 year old stock components with quality aftermarket kit would result in great sound, but that’s not really what I’m after. I just want to be able to turn a rock/rap song up loud enough to sing along with at highway speed without hearing massive bass distortion.

The problem is that I don’t have a baseline of how this stereo sounded when new. The p.o. installed a cheap Pioneer head unit and the speakers are all 20 years old. So I don’t know where to set my expectations. But my benchmark would be the stock stereo in my 2003 MINI - a car that cost about 1/3 of a 911 at the time.

So I’m going to proceed progressively, but want to have a plan so I’m not cobbling mismatched components together.

At this point, I’m going to start with a Continental VDO head unit that doesn’t look like it came from the toddler’s toy aisle and a pair of 4” Hertz CX 100 coaxials in the dash. I’ll see how that sounds before moving to the doors, rears and amp.

peterp

My recommendation will be good for news given your preferences. I would strongly recommend not replacing the door woofers for the following reasons:

1. The door woofers are actually very well built with rubber surrounds, unlike the dash and rear speakers which are really cheaply made

2. The door woofers are 2 ohm, which are difficult to find in a woofer/subwoofer driver, 4 ohm will be safe for the amp but have lower volume level and be more difficult to balance volume levels with the mains

3. The door woofer is as much bass as the door enclosure can handle. You can put a Tang subwoofer in there with some cutting, which will put out much lower frequencies than the stock woofer, but will also rattle the enclosure if you really use the low frequencies. The Tang will also be less balanced in upper bass than the stock woofer, which the factory tuned carefully to blend with the dash/rear speakers. Also, the Tang is 4 ohms rather than 2 ohms, so the volume level will be lower and more difficult to match volumes with the dash/rear speakers. In other words, the Tang will put out much lower bass frequencies, but the overall volume will be lower due to 4 ohm, there will be a hole in the upper bass, and it will rattle if you crank it to take advantage of what the Tang can do.

Just leave the stock woofer as is -- it's good quality and it is well balanced as tuned by the factory. No, it won't put out the deepest bass of a sub, but the door enclosure can't handle the low frequency of a driver that acts as a true subwoofer.

If you want deep bass, you really need to add a dedicated sub rather than replace the door woofer. I don't know if it will fit under the 996 seat, but under seat subs like this one are only 2.7" high and they rock ->
I haven't used these in a car, but I'm using a pair of them in my basement with a 12v power supply and they are shockingly good considering how shallow they are:

wsrgklt

Well then @wyovino may have the right idea: replace the old door speakers with new stock ones.

Everyone seems to agree the dash speakers are junk and the best thing to change first. Are the dash and rear speakers also 2ohm or are they 4ohm? It’s difficult to find 4 inch 2ohm speakers.

dporto

^^^ One thing you should keep in mind is that even under the best of circumstances (ie: sitting still in a driveway or parking space, engine off not much outside ambient noise) the cockpit of the 996 is not an ideal listening environment (glass all around at ear level and relatively low total volume). You can throw all the equipment you want at it and it will never sound "right" (ie: like the music sounded in the concert hall/studio).

blacksquid

The original owner of my '99 C4 Cab completely replaced the sound system with an Alpine head unit, McIntosh 5 channel amp, and Canton speakers. I replaced the Alpine with a Pioneer DEH-80PRS to get BT for my phone. I also bought adapters for the dash from CAI to properly attach the speakers to the grills as the tweeters became unmoored from grill, and were dangling behind the dash, and the ton of hardened glue the installer used. What a mess! The adapters give you some more speaker options so I'd check out CAI-store.com.

Good luck with the sound upgrade.

H2Ocooledesteem

I highly recommend the infinity kappa line with their low imp offerings. I have them in my Porsche 958 and 996tt and they’re so much better sounding. This is on the stock amps as well. I tried the JBL GTO speakers and they were garbage. Couldn’t even get them close to full volume before ‘popping.’

peterp

Unless your old woofers are making noise or otherwise show some signs of being defective, I would leave the originals in place and I really doubt there would be any benefit in putting new speakers of the same type in. The woofers are very high quality with strong rubber surrounds and a strong cone, they are lightly stressed in use, and have no sun exposure in door to damage them. I doubt they degrade at all over time unless somebody abused the system with really high volume levels for a long time.

These are my 2000 original woofers -- unfortunately dusty in this photo, but basically like new both structurally and performance-wise:

peterp

The stock dash/rear speakers are 4 ohm, as are most replacements. You need 4" 2-way speakers -- there are none that bolt-in, but it seems like most 4" can be modded to bolt in. If you go onto Crutchfield, you can put in your car model and year and it will show what speakers fit (it should come up "fit with mods"). This link might work -> https://www.crutchfield.com/g_51200/...rs.html?tp=102

Crutchfield has a very cool "SpeakerCompare" tool that allows you to listen and compare each of the speakers (recorded samples under identical conditions). Click compare and you should be able to listen to them. Not the same as hearing them in the car, but gives you a comparison of the characteristics of each speaker. Be sure to click the "Equal Volume" option so the volume is level-matched -- that way you are listening to the differences in speaker sound characteristics. For some reason it defaults to "Equal Power", so the volume-level won't be level matched -- that will help you tell which speaker is most efficient, but it's a terrible choice for comparing sound quality because the louder speaker will tend to sound better because of the volume increase.

aturcotte

Used a dremel to cut the plate to fit . Not easy but doable.

SoCal911t

I put Focal K2 Power 100KRS in the front and Focal Performance 100AC in the rear. If I had to do it over, I would probably go with something cheaper. I don't think my listening habits along with the 996 acoustics warrant the expense.


I bought the custom adapter rings from CAI-Store.com. I also bought adapter pigtails for both front and rear from Crutchfield. They are Metra #71-017C 'Speaker Wiring Harnesses'. If you're like me and don't like hacking up stock wiring, It allows you to use the stock speaker plugs.

wsrgklt

@peterp I’ve spent loads of time on the Crutchfield site already. Seems like there are a bunch of options at every price point for 4” speakers that fit the dash and rear. Many of them ghanés mounting tabs that are made to be easily clipped off, so they are easier to fit.

@SoCal911 I was thinking of getting the CAI adapter rings, until I saw a thread that shows how to cut the stock speaker baskets and use them as the mounting rings for aftermarket speakers. Those wiring adapters look like just the ticket. Thanks for the tip.

peterp

These are the original dash speakers:


These are the Alpine SPS-410 (no longer available) with the tabs cut off


Alpine's glued in original baskets:


Full mounted (original tweeter disconnected since new speakers are 2way)


I used the same wires from Crutchfield as SoCal911 in post #27 -- they make the wiring a lot cleaner (no need to cut any wires)

.

wsrgklt

Here is a step by step for modifying the speaker baskets: https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...-speakers.html

@peterp did you glue the speakers to the rings or can you just clamp them together with the screws? Also, Alpine SPS 410s are still available on Amazon and elsewhere. I’ve read lots of positive things about them, and the price is nice, but I think I want something with higher power handling and lower bass extension.