steve0827

Hey everyone,

Happy to say that my 997.2 will soon be turned into my DD as I am currently in line for the GT4. Anyways, I've never been a big fan of the Bose in the car. Has anyone upgraded the sound system itself? I want to keep PCM, but would like to do whatever I can to bring the sound quality up to par with the Bang and Olufsen in my Audi S4 which I will be getting rid of soon.

Thanks in advance,
Stephen

Bruce In Philly

I replaced all of my speakers with Focal units. There was an improvement. Not a huge improvement but an improvement. I did the work myself and it was a lot of work and to be honest, I am not sure it was really worth the effort. I am an audiophile so I want good sound at almost any cost but there is big effort here for limited gains. I would do it again because I am passionate about music and I like a project... but.

Today, I am seriously considering ditching the whole Bose unit and putting in an Alpine.....

The biggest impact is the electronics and as of today, nobody has figured out how to access the pre-outs to install better amps.

I had the fortune to compare a 997.2 next to my 997.2 where the guy replaced the entire Bose head unit but kept the Bose speakers. I changed the speakers but kept the Bose head unit. His sounded darn good.... way better than mine.

Anyway, I posted a ton of stuff about the install on this other guy's epic thread here:

http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/9...o-install.html

There is 33 pages as this post but only about 8 pages of meat. Note that I wanted to preserve the 5.1 and, it appears, I am the only one to keep the Bose center channel dash speaker but I attenuated it with an L-Pad (pot).

Good reading. PM me or post here for any specific questions.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

ADias

Sound quality is subjective but replacing a Bose setup with Alpine or whatever defeats the system balance that Bose and Porsche designed. Replacing components randomly in a car environment is a crap shoot. I like good sound reproduction but I belong to a group seeking natural authentic reproduction, not over-emphasized (read bass boost) spectral regions; I actually consider the base (non-Bose, non-Burmester) stereo in the 997.2 quite good. It is always startling to feel the low (fake) bass energy radiated by neighboring cars stopped at a red light rattling windows; how can they stand that nonsense while driving and still pay attention to their driving is beyond me.

And of course monkeying around with stereo components in a modern Porsche is a big negative as many buyers will frown upon buying such car. I would just pass.

PapaC4S

If you want to keep your PCM 3 unit, you need to have the PCM recoded to Sound Package Plus by the dealer. This will activate the 8 analog outputs on the back of the PCM.

You will then need to build a custom connector to fit inside the quadlock connector (see attached). The parts can be bought at a VWor Audi dealer (3B7035447 plug and N90684505 pins).

Once you have the analog outputs,you can drive any aftermarket amp and speaker setup of your choosing.

Dennis C

I upgraded the entire system in my 996, including head unit, amps and speakers. I also went with Focal units and the improvement over my stock Bose system in that vehicle was dramatic. I believe that the speakers are the weak link in the system in terms of sound quality, but getting them to work with the stock head unit will require some additional work as noted above.

ADias

What was specifically the improvement after the change? Was it a balanced sound?

What was missing in the Bose with EQ settings set flat?

Linnm

I did focal speakers front and back, a rear sub, a new amp and a sound processor. Mine was a non-Bose system, we kept the head unit. Sounds great. The installer "tuned" the sound to the car interior
If anyone wants further details, please advise

Bruce In Philly

Interesting but very odd. Eight connectors.... that is just four channels Front l-R and Rear L-R. The Bose unit is a 5.1 surround DVD-A decoder. Missing is the center front and subwoofer pins (four more pins total). Something is not right here.

Can you confirm? Source of this info?

Peace
Bruce in Philly

PapaC4S

The PCM can be configured to either drive the BOSE amp via a fiber optic link or drive an ASK amp using the 8 analog outputs.

If you have the BOSE amp, the amp takes the digital signal from the PCM and does all of the sound EQ and crossovers for each speaker. The 5.1 configuration would only be with the BOSE configuration.

If you recode the PCM to drive the 8 analog channels in the Sound Package Plus configuration, you get 8 full range signals that would normally go to an ASK amp.

You can take these full range signals and drive your own set-up. I removed the BOSE amp and replaced it with a Mosconi 6to8 DSP sound processor and Mosconi AMPs in the front trunk. I replaced the standard BOSE speakers and installed Dynaudio and Scanspeak speakers. I replaced the BOSE subwoofer with a custom subwoofer built to fit in the rear seat space. New wiring was needed all around. Sounds amazing.

Dennis C

Cleaner, more balanced sound. Crisp highs and much better bass response.

steve0827

Thanks for the replies everyone. I guess I have a lot to look into before I jump into this.

robbieracer

If you have the Bose system you can totally upgrade the system without touching the PCM. You need to leave the Bose amp in place and sum the signals together after the amp and use a processor to separate them. I did this in my 991 and the system was spectacular! I used, Audison, Arc Audio, Focal and Audio Control for the processor. Just replacing the speakers won't give you any improvement, it'll probably sound worse.
http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/9...ml#post4277554

Bruce In Philly

Not my experience. Mine sounds better. Better to me is refined definition and less listening fatigue. It is also more natural sounding and easier on the ears at louder volumes. To be fair, it is not a huge improvement but worth it if you like a project and sound is important to you.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

7 treasures

I am a recent newbie to Porsche after oh, about 45 years of dreaming of owning a 911.
This is my first post on Rennlist although I have been a longtime reader and found the information here most helpful.
about 3 and a half months ago I finally bought my first Porsche, a 2010 997.2 S Cabrio.
It hit just about everything I've wanted in my dream 911 with two exceptions. First the color. I wanted a dark metallic blue but they have been almost impossible to find in the configuration I wanted. So I went with the metallic black and I am happy enough with that.
But the other issue that I want to try to fix or upgrade is the sound.
From the spec sheet, this vehicle only had the standard base stereo and speakers.
This means (as far as I can tell - I haven't yet confirmed and I can't seem to get the info online) that the unit had 4 outputs at 30 watts each.
There are 2 door units with a tweeter and a mid-range (although it is supposedly a woofer) and then the two back seat speakers.

The previous owner upgraded the unit with a Pioneer AVIC-7200 NEX system that is pretty outstanding as an "infotainment" unit. However, it's output is 50 watts at 4 channels.

The result in my car is that I have a clear sound and the mids and highs are very clear but there is NO bottom end.

Now I'm not looking to got a ridiculous booming low rider bass kit going, but I would at least like to be able to hear the bass and low end and right now I cannot hear almost any low end.

So I went to a car stereo dealer-installer that the local Porsche dealer recommended and this guy is recommending me installing a 400 watt power amp that feeds 4 channels at 100 watts a channel to stick in the frunk.

I am thinking that this is just going to blow up the factory speakers eventually.

What would any of you recommend?
Are there speakers I can just install myself in the door and rear that would give me just some bass?

Or do I REALLY need to get the power amp and just new speakers that can handle 100 watts each?

And is there a way to upgrade the number of speakers and really go from the base system to the Bose system or similar? Or does the Pioneer keep me limited with basically the four channels?

Any thoughts and/or input would be greatly appreciated!

Christian Stark

Do you mean 4 analog channels?