SAN997

This weekend, I replaced the stock Bose amp and PCM 2.1 head unit/radio with a new JL Audio XD600/6v2 6-channel amp and the new Sony XAV-AX100 head unit with CarPlay and Android Auto. I like this new Sony radio because it has *wait for it* actual ***** and buttons!

To be honest, it was a lot of work, and probably took me 15 hours of labor--although, I am extremely careful. I fully insulate, solder, zip tie and cloth tape wrap and label every connection. I really don't want to think what this would cost to have a professional installer perform.

To replace the amp, I ordered a Bose amp wiring harness from eBay. This also includes the PCM/head unit wiring harness adapter. Fit and finish, as well as instructions were extremely top notch.

I also had to custom fabricate an aluminum mounting bracket that bolts into the stock Bose amp mounting arms that are welded into the body of the car. I used aluminum L-stock of 1/8" thick and 1.5x1.5" from Home Depot. I copied the car body's mounting point layout with a piece of cardboard and an X-acto knife held up to the stock mounting holes. I used 5/16" flange head bolts from Home Depot to mount the plates to the car. I also tapped four 10-32 holes in the corners of the plates to screw the amp in with. The amp stands off of the plates with 3/8" x 1/2" nylon spacers with rubber washers on the bottom of the spacers and between the amp and screw heads. This provides vibration isolation and holds the spacers/screws together when you mount the amp to the plates.

Also, when cutting the plates, you really have to trim them to the exact outline of the amp since there is just barely enough room top and bottom to place the new amp where the Bose unit used to be. You need the amp up as high as possible.

The bezel and mounting brackets for the head unit were included with my order from Crutchfield. Again, fit and finish were pretty good and color match seems good. Its not 100% OEM Porsche, but its good enough. And I can't complain about the price (~$1.50)

Regarding the amp, the 997 with Bose has 8 speakers, plus a center channel and a subwoofer. The center channel is not necessary to keep, and the Bose subwoofer has its own built-in amp that just needs the remote turn on signal and a line level pre-amp input. Also, there are 6 front speakers: two base, two mid-range and two dash tweeters. The dash tweeters and the mid-ranges are on the same channels.

Because each channel is 2 Ohms, I drive each each of the 6 channels separately with the XD600/6v2 amp. Also, I don't want to drive the door bass speakers with a mono sub-woofer channel because these are not true subwoofers, but just low-range stereo speakers. Besides, there is a separate subwoofer amp in the back. Keep in mind, I split the front channel into two with an RCA Y-splitter cable to drive both tweeter/mid and bass speakers.

One thing I can confirm is that the Bose speakers are pretty good. The problem is with the tuning and lack of adjustability of the stock PCM 2.1 and the Bose amp. Replacing this makes a night and day difference, and I don't think its necessary or worthwhile to replace the Bose speakers.

Another thing worth noting is that you do not need to run heavy additional low gauge power cable from the amp to the battery. The stock (10 gauge?) power wires in the Bose amp wiring harness are plenty for any reasonable volume level. I cranked it up pretty loud without any issues in sound quality. Another benefit of using the stock power wires is that the relay that turns the amp on/off is controlled by the car, so there is less danger of the amp running your battery dead or fire/fuse issues with a direct connection to the battery. Also, 4 gauge wire weighs a tons and is a pain to route. Besides, if you do the math (Ohm's law / resistivity of wire), you find that it is completely unnecessary provided you aren't trying to shake your hood off like a Honda Civic in the ghetto.

Anyway, here are the links to the parts:
http://www.sony.com/electronics/in-c...yers/xav-ax100
http://www.jlaudio.com/xd600-6v2-car...plifiers-98605
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Porsche-Radi...BSxuMD&vxp=mtr

The black cloth tape used to wrap the wires and connectors is Tesa Wire Loom Harness Tape from Amazon. This is the OEM stuff used by Porsche. It helps cut down on annoying vibrations and rattles as well. I used it to heavily wrap all of the hard plastic connections, including the unused ones:





997_speaker_wiring_bose.pdf

granprixweiss928

Nice. I like the new Sony deck too.

putting in Android Auto deck immediately gives my non-nav car nav.

TheLex

Nicely done. There's a huge thread over at 6speed about swaping out the speakers only. The people who've done that say that swap makes a huge difference.

Can you describe the changes in sound of the system after the head unit and amp swap?

One big thing with those itty bitty "subs" in the rear deck is they're not true subwoofers. This car lacks true low bass.

SAN997

The main goal was to upgrade to a modern head unit for things like Apple CarPlay. However, this also gives me a modern 10 band EQ, individual adjustment of channel gain and crossover frequency (JL Audio amp), and modern DSP adjustments. The net effect is that you can make the stock speakers sound pretty good.

The issue with the stock setup is that, to me, it sounds boomy without clear midrange or highs. I think this is mostly a tuning issue, as even some cheap Walmart Kicker speakers I put in my old 4Runner sounded better, in many respects.

There are two ways to skin this cat. The old fashioned way is to replace analog speakers to get the desired frequency response. This is expensive, difficult, hard to tweak/adjust and will likely introduce rattles into your trim panels. The modern way, which I think works well in this case, is to use a mix of modern computer signal processing and individual analog channel gain/filter adjustment to adjust the sound to your taste. I find this route works well with the Bose speakers, and I'm not convinced the Bose speakers themselves are the real culprit. Probably Bose can design a good speaker, and some 57 year old Porsche executive had them tune it to sound boomy because he thought that would sell.

By the way, I removed the Bose sub to save weight, so I can't comment on "true bass". I am more of a mid and high range aficionado than a bass guy. But the boomy bass and poor definition in mid/high was my main complaint with the stock sound. Previously, I found that for any setting of the bass on the PCM, it was extremely boomy just above the low sub-woofer range, say, 300 Hz. At the same time, turning up the treble would just make the highs shrill above, say, 8 kHz. In between, the mid-range got lost and lacked clarity.

Also, it just feels good to finally be rid of that ridiculous MOST fiber optic interface. It is incompatible with accessories, buggy and expensive to deal with. I can't tell you how much headache I have had with buggy MOST and PCM/CD changer issues. It cost me $85 just to get Porsche to turn off the "CD changer not found" warning after I removed that paperweight from the frunk. Plus, if something goes wrong with the speakers or wiring, its hard to diagnose anything with the Bose amp setup. It turned out, a mechanic forgot to connect the mid-range speaker in my left door panel. I wouldn't have discovered this with the Bose amp and PCM in place.

SAN997

Yeah, finally a way to get rid of the car manufacture's and aftermarket car audio industry's nav scam. They charge you between $750 and $2000 to add an outdated nav system that lacks traffic and has outdated maps you have to pay to upgrade every year.

The car companies are not happy about it, but most of them finally decided in 2017 that consumers were demanding Android Auto and CarPlay. Toyota is one of the last big holdouts.

El Dario Loco

This a very accurate description of my experience! No amount of adjustment seems to make any difference. I really expected more of a Bose 11-speaker system and were truly disappointed when I bought the car. Would love to try what you did but unfortunately I lack the skills. So, until I can find a good shop I can trust I'm stuck with PCM

awfilms

Man, Need to do this so bad. Freaking hate the oem radio

SAN997

Yeah, the OEM radio is a joke. The only thing it does well is listen to FM. You would think they could at least give you an AUX jack, or maybe even the ability to hack the PCM to solder in an AUX jack. But no!

beyondthegrave77

Hey,
This is a much simpler question since you did a major upgrade to your audio in your porsche, but I have a 997.2 with Bose and PCM3 but it has no navi and no Steering wheel controls.

If I just wanted to update the headunit to a newer aftermarket one(android,alpine,etc) and keep everything else stock, do I just need to get that MOST fiberoptic converter box? Or will I still need that canbus steering wheel control box also to complete the Fiber Circuit even though I DONT have steering wheel controls?

Thanks

ronvanr

I am so tempted to go this route, I get a bit more frustrated with my PCM with each passing day.

SAN997

I don't have a 997.2, but I'll assume that it has a MOST fiber optic bus. In this case, you would need to either replace the Bose amp or get a MOST converter. As for the steering wheel controls, if you don't have them on your car, there is no reason why you would need a CANBUS interface for them.

To complete the fiber optic circuit, you don't actually need to buy a piece of electronics. You can just buy a MOST fiber loop on eBay for $15. This is just a looped piece of optical fiber.

awfilms

Yes, it's a damn joke

ALEV8

Who turns on the stereo?

AMERICANAAAA

Hey there! I just had the same sony unit installed in my 997.2 and truly changed the audio experience in my car.

Now it is truly Infotainment!

I had the installer use the nav-tv adapter to hook the unit up to the bose amp. Im still debating weather to buy a new amp and ditch the bose amp all together. Unfortunately, with the nav-tv adapter there is no adjusting the fader

Otherwise the sony unit is AMAZING! AND THE ****!!

SAN997

Yes, the **** is a rare luxury in today's car audio systems. Unless you are either doing it yourself or want to spend a lot of money, I would stick with the NavTV, if it works for you. Switching to the JL Audio amp is only worth it if you are willing to commit either the time or money to the project. However, having done it, I am very glad I did. No more Bose or fiber optics at last!

One other point worth mentioning is that car audio installers have a nasty habit of using Unshielded Twisted Pair audio cabling (same as Ethernet cables). This is entirely the wrong cable to use (you want shielded coaxial RCA cables). The whole UTP car audio thing started as a stupid fad about 10 years ago. But, if you replace the Bose amp with the JL Audio, you are going from an optical link to an electrical link. So if you don't use a high quality 5 or 6 channel shielded coaxial RCA cable, you will probably get alternator or other noise in your audio signals.

Personally, I just found a Mediabridge 5-channel coaxial RCA cable on Amazon that works great.