Wcube

I just updated my front door speakers over the weekend. I figured it out using all of the old posts using Focal speakers, but I used Alpine instead which were a lot less expensive. Everything fits well, and sounds great. Haven't figured out how to swap out the tweeters yet - that will be a project for another weekend.



midranges compared



capacitor comes with speaker



midrange installed



woofers compared. Inductor comes with speaker




woofers compared



woofers installed

nellborg

What model 997 did you install these into?
And, is the difference in sound quality noticeable enough to justify the time and expense....
EB

Wcube

2006 Carrera Coupe 2wd. Not much difference at low volume, but louder I could hear the difference. The new door woofers are providing deeper bass, and the mids are really clear.

Wcube

Decided to replace the rear speakers to match the fronts.

E39Nutz

wait till you replace the tweeters. You will notice that listening to the Bose is like listening through a ball of earwax.

Scb1712

This looks great, and I’ve always liked the sound of Alpine speakers. Do you know if this would work with a Bose system?

Wcube

That I do not know. Perhaps someone else from the community can chime in.

Wcube

Project update:

Installed the Alpine tweeters - big sound upgrade over the factory tweeters. Also replaced the ASK amplifier in the trunk with an Alpine KTP-445U. I ran RCA wires via a 12 pin plug adapter from the PCCM Plus to the Alpine. Front mids and tweeters are run on the front channel at 4 ohm, and the woofers and rear speakers are run in parallel to the rear channel at 2 ohm. It sounds great, and a big improvement over the factory speakers and factory amplification. Also the white noise/hiss I had from the PCCM Plus has gone away once I turned down the Alpine amplifier gains. The PCCM Plus must have the internal gains maxed to create the white noise/hiss.

Kuro Neko

Excellent post here, and after reading countless threads all over the internet, it is the information that made it clear to me what front speakers to use to replace those in my non-Bose Cayman.
After upgrading my navi, the extra clarity and power made it apparent that I had at least one rattly cone...

I've ordered the full set of Alpine's six speakers (you can get the 1-inch tweeters in either the S2-S40 or S2-S80, if you chose the set with the 'C' suffix).
Some questions if you do not mind:



The feed wires from OEM connector to new bass unit are crossed, assume to maintain polarity?
Are the tabs on old and new marked +ve and -ve accordingly?



Same here, as you've spliced the mid-range feed wires and not used the OEM connector?
How did you connect the dash tweeters similarly?

Thanks!

Wcube

Hello Kuro Neko,
I changed the wiring later to have the brown stripe wire consistently as the negative for each speaker, so the last adjustment resulted in the wires not being crossed.

I used Posi-Taps to connect all of the speakers wires without cutting the factory harnesses. For the tweeters, I again used Posi-Tap connectors to the factory wiring, and shoved the big tweeter capacitor and wires into the cavity. I then just used the foam donuts that came with the Alpine kit to lay the tweeters in, and then snapped the factory grill back in over them. Hope this helps - let me know if you have more questions.

Kuro Neko

Thanks so much for the reply, much appreciated!
Assume the brown stripe is the car's negative marker for all the speaker feeds?
I've not pulled my car apart yet...

kellen

Any plans for a subwoofer in the back? Have thought about adding the Bose sub box with upgraded speakers to my system. Just unsure where to start for the actual wiring and amp to use.

Wcube

Yes - that is what I assumed and wired - brown strip is negative.

MrMoose

Brown stripe wire is negative, yes. I actually just posted a very similar speaker upgrade I did in the 987 forum, wish I'd seen this before I did the work as it would've saved me a lot of time and thinking.

You really don't need a sub, IMO. The 9x7.2 has 8" speakers in the doors: those are quite effective as subs, and the Alpine S2-S80s put out a ton of bass even with just the stock ASK amp. If you're using an aftermarket amp it should be even better since you can tune the crossover to more effectively use them as subs, but I'm happy with the sound I'm getting out of the ASK amp so I haven't bothered.

Here's what I think I figured out on the stock setup, if anyone knows otherwise let me know. At least on the 9x7.2 the OEM 8" door woofers don't have any filters on the speakers themselves; there's a BIG inductor in the ASK amp that I assume is a low-pass filter for them? The OEM mids have a 100uF capacitor on them that serves as a 400Hz high-pass, so my guess is that the woofers have a similar low pass frequency. Since I was just using the stock amp I put 300Hz bass blockers on the mids to replicate what the stock system was expecting (in retrospect I should've just bought the 100uF caps and soldered them in myself).

The 8" Alpine in the S2-S80c kit have an inductive low-pass filter built in, I assume set at ~7kHz to match the 5.8uF high-pass inline filter that comes with the tweeters. Again, in retrospect I should've just bypassed this since the stock speakers don't have it and I assume the crossover is in the ASK amp, but it probably doesn't make much difference.

kellen

I did the focal upgrade in my 997.1 Bose including doing the subs and then in my 997.2 non Bose. Definitely lacking in the bass department without the rear subs in my opinion.