threeOh

Getting ready for the inevitable once the car arrives. '04 40th Anniversary 996 with the standard CDR 23 (or 230, whatever P is labeling it) and no CD changer. I would like to wire in an aux jack. Here's the alternatives I've come up with.

1) FM modulator. I hate these things and have never gotten any of them to work on our two BMW's. Anyone with experience with a modulator and a 996?

2) Have Porsche program out the CDR23 entirely and simply replace the whole system. Has anyone had P program out the system? Any issues?

3) Wait. Common sense tells me Becker will eventually offer a means to interface the cdr 23 with an aux jack. However, if BMW (with DSP) is any example the wait will be years and people will find a way around it.

4) Any other approaches out there???

wingless

It may be that the rear panel connectors may be used to supply the receiver with an external audio input. For that to work, the external mute would be driven then the receiver would select the external audio inputs.

This prior post has links to Becker pin out diagrams. https://rennlist.com/forums/showthre...hreadid=101337

mudman2

As the 996 is also a MOST equipped system. In order to add anything you have to access the Porsche Software load and tell it that the input is active and what it is. This is not a PST2 accessed option rather the program itself.

If it was not in Porsche's mind at the outset, it seems unlikely that any third party solutions are possible as many to date have found with the Cayenne.

Just to clear one point however, an FM modulator is NOT an FM transmitter like the various iPod accessories which do not work.

Its is a direct physical injection of a powerfull FM signal into the antenna input of the head unit or PCMII. This does work and produces "near CD quality" results, nothing that you would be able to fault with an engine 3 inches from your ear. :-)

threeOh

Mudman,

Thanks for the reminder that wired modulators also exist. Its been so long since I've even thought of such a device.

I'm not sure I understand your "NOT". Whether wired or wireless is irrelevant to the funtion of a modulator. It simply "remaps" the input signal to fit the characteristics of -- in this case -- an FM signal. And, as in the case of an FM signal, limits bandwidth to the point where not only near CD quality will never be achieved but mp3 quality -- at any decent compression rate -- will also not be achieved.

But, in the end your "3 inches from your ear" saved the day. You're right and now I'm on my way to figuring out how to make a switchable hardwired FM modulator.

If you know of anyone who has done this please let me know as I firmly believe that waiting for "third party solutions" only brings mediocre solutions to simple problems. Look at BMW's with DSP. Its been in their cars for at least since '97. There is not one single third party solution that will fool BMW's bus into thinking something that's not there is there. There have been two attempts that I know of by well respected third parties. Both have failed and have been pulled off the market. There have been countless attempts by "installers" -- the term is what it means, they install -- but none has surfaced as a defacto, let alone functional, approach. Yet I, along with countless other BMW owners have -- with the assistance of a few parts in Radio Shack's catalog -- sat at the dining room table with a soldering iron for a few hours and sat in the trunk for maybe a 1/2 hour and accomplished this unlikely task.

These discussion boards are great in that they connect bits and pieces of knowledge that lead to solutions. I've always loved the BMW boards for this.