The steering wheel control adapter isn't going to make a difference in sound quality.

So you do have the Bose system and a subwoofer. That means you have the MOST system which uses fiber optics to communicate with the amp and CD changer (if equipped).
MOST adapters are kind of halfass in that you lose front and rear fader control. I have a stock system, but from what I've read, you need to have your volume control and other controls set to midpoint on your old head unit before removing it and installing your new system. If the volume was low or all the way down, the amp will remember that setting and the new system will sound weak even at full volume. I'm not sure if the fader control works the same, but if it does and it was set for full front, you may have no sound from both rear door speakers. I'm sure someone who has done the install will chime in and confirm.

You have a problem in that your old head unit was dead, so you can't hook it back up and adjust the controls. And who knows what kind of info it may have sent to the amp as it bit the dust.

Did you order this system or the installer? If you ordered it, what brand MOST adapter did you buy? If the installer ordered everything, what did he list on the receipt?

What would be really scary is if he did away with the main amp, sub amp and sub then directly wired the new head unit to the speakers instead of using a MOST adapter.
Your Bose speakers are oddball low impedance and designed to work with the factory amp. Normal head units and amps are designed to operate 8 ohm or 4 ohm speakers. The Bose speakers in your Cayenne are under 2 ohms. They will ruin the amplifier circuit in your new head unit...and having no sound from just one rear door speaker and a non functioning sub is suspect.

Just curious, does your left/right balance control work? When you adjust front/rear fader, does it do anything? Are you getting highs from your dash speaker and the rear tweeters in the C-Pillar area?

 

I think the need to adjust the head unit volume before disconnecting is a myth.

If one rear door speaker (either the mid or tweeter) is not working, you have a bad speaker. If both are not working, you have either two bad speakers or a bad channel on the Bose amp. The rear door speakers are tied together, so it’s only one channel per rear door and the speakers are split in the door.

There is no separate control of the Bose subwoofer or really anything for that matter. You can adjust the balance left to right and that’s it. You can’t fade, adjust the speakers separately, or do much but adjust the EQ settings with an aftermarket radio. If you want to improve things (and you like some bass), replace the Bose woofer/amp and add a new sub and amp. You can have the new amp wired to the radio sub control at that point. If you really want to improve things, and you’re paying someone to do it, it’s going to be very expensive.

 

Thank you for your kind reply and that of 19psi.

I will answer the issues in your replies as clear as I can, so that you can help me to decide whether or not the new system is acting "normal", or the installer does not know what he is doing.

(1) 19psi: you lose front and rear fader control = no, I do not have the fader front and rear control.

(2) 19psi: you need to have your volume control and other controls set to midpoint on your old head unit before removing it and installing your new system. = I think that is what the installer said; I think he called it phasing.

(3) 19psi: what brand MOST adapter did you buy = AXXESS AXDIS-PO32 02-07 Cayenne = the installer said the 08 version does not fit my car.

(4) 19psi: if he did away with the main amp = I do not know but I doubt he did.

(5) psi19: does your left/right balance control work? = yes it does.

(6) Are you getting highs from your dash speaker and the rear tweeters in the C-Pillar area? = (a) rear tweeters work. (b) I have 3 speakers on the front dash: 1 speaker at the left and right corner respectively and 1 big center speaker. The big center speaker works but I cannot tell if the corner speakers work because the center speaker is loud and therefore I do not know if I am hearing the corner speakers or I am hearing center speaker sound reflection from the wind shield at the corner !!!

(7) Bob: I think the need to adjust the head unit volume before disconnecting is a myth.= The only way to know is to put the OEM unit back, set the OEM unit at "middle", remove it, put the new unit back, and see if it makes any difference. But, my OEM unit does not power up.

(8) Bob: If one rear door speaker (either the mid or tweeter) is not working, you have a bad speaker. If both are not working, you have either two bad speakers or a bad channel on the Bose amp. The rear door speakers are tied together, so it’s only one channel per rear door and the speakers are split in the door. = (a) I have 1 small circular speaker and 1 mid-size circular speaker at each rear door (just like the front door), both small circular speaker has no sound at the rear door. (b) if I have a bad channel on the Bose amp, and if the rear door speakers are tied together, this "bad" channel must be able to 100% split the sound frequency between the 2 speakers, or there is a "high pass" switch between the small circular speaker and the mid-size circular speaker, Am I correct ? And if this is the case, then this "high pass" switch must be damaged in both doors, do you agree ?

(9) Bob: There is no separate control of the Bose subwoofer = correct, the subwoofer on the control does not work. The important question is: IS THE SUBWOOFER DEAD ? or the subwoofer is still working i.e. can I have BASS ???

(10) Bob: adjust the EQ settings with an aftermarket radio = The installer told me the EQ work, told me to go to the "CUSTOM", but I have not tried.

(11) Bob: If you really want to improve things, and you’re paying someone to do it, it’s going to be very expensive = No, the car is not worth that much although I am willing to spend the money, but, I simply no longer believe these so-called installers.

 

Just looked up that number and it is a MOST adapter (most expensive I've seen too).

For one dead speaker, I'd suspect an existing problem as Bob mentioned above. Hopefully just a dead speaker or a bad wire going to it and not the amp.

The factory EQ settings are probably all neutral and not sending out any lows. I'd go into the EQ settings and crank up the bass, then lift the trunk floor and listen.
I have no doubt you have a sub control in your menu, but since nothing will be hooked to the sub output of the head unit, it won't do anything for your factory sub. I would think you could attach a powered aftermarket sub to that output and it would sound much better than the Bose ever did.
I have a small hatchback car that I installed a very thin 8" self powered sub in the spare tire area and it blows away the Cayenne Bose subwoofer. It's self contained...amp and woofer in a 3" tall housing. I don't know how they pulled off that much bass out of a thin enclosure, but after 7 years, I'm still impressed. It's made by Sound Storm Labs and I paid about $90 on Amazon. They also offered a 10" version. You'd just need run a cable from the head unit's sub output to the sub and of course power the sub from a 12 volt source.

I also did a similar setup on my 928 but used a round Bose sub that fit into the spare tire and powered it with a separate amp. Sounds really nice too, but more complicated wiring.

 

Hey, thank you very very much for all your excellent advice.

The same speaker is dead on both sides in the rear.

I simply did not know before this job, that this sub will not work, that speaker will not work, this steering control will not work, etc etc. If I knew what I know now, I would have, right from the start, change the amp, do the re-wiring, make sure all the steering controls work before the work starts ,,,,

Actually I would not mind one bit to spend the money again, parts and labors, to re-do the whole damn thing, re-wiring, amps, etc etc, everything, BUT, no confidence, zero, zero, zero, to find a person who has the TRUE capability to do the job !!!

p.s. just in case you don't know, they all tell you they can do it !!!

 

The tweeters probably just have a small capacitor wired inline and mounted on the tweeter that is your passive high pass filter. Speakers fail, you’ll just need some that fit…you won’t notice a sound quality difference with better rear tweeters.
All my speakers work with my MOST adapter, including the sub. Just play some music with some bass and open the hatch. It’s pretty obvious if bass is coming from the sub. Also, the Bose sub amp is mounted on the bottom of the subwoofer enclosure. When water gets into the trunk from a clogged drain, the amp gets corroded and fails. You can have all the other speakers working and have a bad Bose sub amp. The main amp is on the right rear fender below the window, so it’s rarely ever affected by water intrusion.

 

Not trying to butt-in to this involved convo... just figured I'd plug the place I got my radio from that I love, for others and for future reference.
100% plug and play (there aren't really that many wires with the Bose option anyway) (I think 3 believe it or not) and looks original.
https://www.erisin.com/collections/for-porsche-406

Also, maybe I missed it... you said the rear speakers don't work. Did you verify that the left and right rear tweeters produce sound?
If this is the case then yeah like Brian said you just need new woofers. My left one started to go bad (scratchy sound) and when I replaced them I noticed the right one was on its way from moving the cone manually.

Lastly, if you can verify that only the woofers are bad, I recommend you go with this matched pair from JBL:
GX608C
The tweeters are now actually very audible from the front and completely balance out my front to rear sound now. (I too have the MOST adapter)

This thread is too long, but if yo uscroll down to the bottom I show the rear speaker installation.
https://rennlist.com/forums/cayenne-...ce-so-far.html

 

Hey Bob,

I assume by now you know my "new" system well. So, here are my 2 questions:

(1) Regarding the small speaker in the rear door, are you saying all I have to do is to:-
(a) open the rear door panel,
(b) disconnect the small and big speakers,
(c) go to buy a new comparable pair,
(d) connect the new pair,
(e) the small speaker (and the new big one) will work again .

Please do reply and let me know if it is this simple (a-e) !!!

(2) Regarding the subwoofer in the back, are you saying all I have to do is to:
(a) remove the spare tire,
(b) disconnect the subwoofer,
(c) disconnect the amplifier,
(d) go to buy a new comparable subwoofer and subwoofer amplifier,
(e) connect the new subwoofer and subwoofer amplifier.
(f) and the subwoofer will work again.

Please do reply and let me know if it is this simple (a-f) !!!
Also, how do I control the new subwoofer ???

 

Hey, Steve, why didn't I know you before I got myself into this wholly mess of a "new" system ? If only I knew I could buy a new plug and play unit without piwis ,,,,,,,,,,,

The left and right tweeters (the ones behind the rear brake lights) are working. Let's see if Bob comes back and says all I have to do is to put in a new comparable subwoofer and subwoofer amplifier, and tell me how to control the new subwoofer (right now, the subwoofer control on the setting of the new Sony unit does not work).
I can find someone who can connect and disconnect, hell, even I can do it if only I am strong enough to lift the spare tire out of the back trunk !!!

Thank you very much for your kind input.

 

Sure thing. Everything you just said made sense except for the tweeters behind the rear brake lights. Not sure what that meant. Aren't we talking about your rear door speakers?
I re-read what you wrote above and it sounds like you were saying you had no sound from the rear tweeters (smaller speakers above the larger door speakers).
All I can say about that is that they are indeed wired together in parallel with the larger rear door speakers. It could just be that you need to boost the treble and turn the volume up a bit more to hear them (?).
Seems very unlikely that they both would go bad or that the filter capacitors that Brian mentioned would both go bad.

Edit: I have some tiny rear speakers waay in the back that I'm not even sure I ever checked. Maybe this is what you meant.
Also, to reiterate what was said by someone else, the subwoofer control of your Sony won't work right now. The RCA plugs out of your Sony labeled "sub out" are not connected. There's no place to connect them.
Your Bose subwoofer gets its signal from the factory amp and there is no adjustment for it presently the same way there was no adjustment for it with your old factory PCM radio.
This isn't a problem though if you find you want to upgrade your subwoofer. You just use the signal to your old sub.
Feel free to keep the questions coming. If you lived in central NJ I could help more with everything in person.

 

I have the small and big speakers at the rear door (of which the small speaker has no sound, on both rear doors), and yes, you are right, i will download the coloratura from the magic flute and see if I can hear the blasting high notes; maybe it is not the speakers but the ears. will let you know.

and

I have a speaker (which I thought was a tweeter) behind the brake light at the trunk, on both sides, and both are working.

I live in the capital gain excise tax Washington State against which the IRS says the words CAPITAL and the word GAIN do not exist in the entire excise tax legislation. If you are here, please, put in everything new. Mind you, now that you mentioned I could have bought a plug and play unit, I has been hitting myself I did not know about it earlier. This so-called "new" replacement of the OEM PCW 2.1 has been nothing but continuous hell.

 

I doubt your install was any different than Steve's since his uses the MOST adapter just like yours. Your install most likely didn't take more than 3 hours including the backup camera.
The only MOST plug n' play unit is the expensive PCCM+ offered by Porsche. I've seen them as low as $1300 online, and Porsche dealerships charging 2 hours labor to install.

Have you gone into the settings menu and set the equalizer? If you haven't done this, there is no point in continuing until you do.

Also, can you point out on the picture what speakers are not working?

 

A thought and a couple of questions. For one, a lot have replaced their PCM 2.0 (2003~20040 or 2.1 (2005~2008/9?) with various aftermarket units, Pioneer (What I did), Kenwood, Secaine, etc... and most if not all worked fine so it has to be a wiring or adapter setup issue don't you think? For Bose units as the poster believes he has Bose, are there different Bose Amplifiers/Subwoofers? Mentions he see's Bose through the spare tire. On my '06 CTTS the Amplifier/Subwoofer takes up most of the Spare tire well and Porsche only sent them out the door with a Can of Fix a Flat as there isn't room for a spare tire. Other question, I have the front dash side speakers but under the front large speaker vent grille is an empty cavity and no wiring, there was never a speaker there in the center of my dash. I'm not so sure about this phasing issue either as I seem to be able to adjust the Bass and Treble through the Pioneer head unit and it sounds real good and noticeable different in the settings. I'd say overall my Bose system sounds noticeably better with the Pioneer headunit than it ever did with the PCM 2.1. And yes the most of the Steering wheel controls are controlled through the CanBus but if I remember right (I installed my headunit 6 or 7 yrs ago), the Mute control was actually controlled by a wire going from the steering wheel button and not on the Canbus?? Over on the PCCM+ thread it sounds like many are having software issues and many are having dealer installation issues. I think $1400+ for an Android head unit is a Porsche surcharge just to get the name. And how much wiill Map and/or software updates be?

 

The optional spare tire is a collapsible that fits over the sub. When you inflate it with the included air compressor it expands to full size. If you have the 2nd battery option, it'll be under a larger sub enclosure which won't give you room for a spare.
You can have a combination of options, just not all 3 due to space. I thought they discontinued the 2nd battery by '06, but maybe not?

The "phasing" seems to only be for volume, not tone. There are have been a number of topics where people have had low volume after installing a new system. The cure has been to reinstall the old system, turn the volume up and then reinstall the new system. The only thing I can think of is they had the volume turned way down the last time the old system was used and the amp remembered that causing things to be out of sync with the new unit.

Odd that you have no center dash speaker or wiring for it? I think it was in all the Bose and Burmester systems.

I'm starting to think the OP has no issues. If the EQ is at a flat default setting, the sub isn't getting any lows and tweeters are getting no highs. At first it sounded like only one rear speaker was dead (I assumed a large mid), but now it seems that he/she isn't hearing anything from either of the rear door tweeters and possibly the front dash tweeters.

 

If you have sound coming from both rear doors (it doesn't matter which speakers are working as long as something works on both sides), then those rear amp channels are working. Then, yes, if you replace those speakers with ones that both fit and match the resistance of the Bose speakers, they will be fine. However, as someone who was a professional car audio installer for over 10 years, I can tell you that rear speakers are mostly pointless. There are plenty of sound quality competition winning cars that only had front speakers and subwoofers. Rear speakers in car audio are only for rear-fill and don't improve the sound quality experience beyond that. If you want rear speakers, just get the cheapest thing that works.

As it was mentioned, the Bose sub amp gets its audio signal (it's a regular high/low signal, not fiber optic) from the the Bose amp. The audio signal is sent from the PCM or MOST adapter over the fiber optic cable and then translated in the Bose amp. You don't have the ability to adjust the subwoofer with the Bose sub amp. Yes, if you search online, you'll see that you can replace the Bose sub amp and subwoofer with either the PCM or any aftermarket radio. If the new sub amp doesn't require more than a 30 amp fuse, then you can likely even use the original wiring. To control the sub volume independently, you'll have to either run new RCA cables from the aftermarket radio to the new sub amplifier (assuming the aftermarket radio has sub RCA outputs) or if the new sub amp comes with a bass control ****, you can run that somewhere up front to control the sub volume.