bose just really went out of their way to prevent anyone messing around with their system didn't they. so that when you do try to change you will end up with mixed up polarities and think that their system is really better but you just actually messed up polarities. they put in non standard impedance, inverted plugs…etc etc. i just really do not like it sorry bros.

 

Done...... whew! 2009 C2S

Thanx Conrad... you da man. I always thought this was something good to do and never believed the crap about the system is tuned. Put it this way, if it was tuned, the tuner was deaf.

OK, some tips that follow on to Conrad's (OP) work.

1 pair Focal IS-200 8" woofers with tweeters
2 pair Focal 100CVX 4" coaxials
1 Pair 8" woofer rings from Del Ray
Sheets of plastic

Total is $600

Tools: Dremel... yes you need this.

This is not an easy job. If you like working with a Dremel and figuring things out.. you will do fine but nothing just pops in. Some folks like to keep the opportunity to "return to stock"... well stuff it. You ain't gonna do that... at least I never did. This system ain't going back.

Speaker polarity...
I tested using a battery (per Conrad's suggestion), you put a AA batery on to the terminals.. if the speaker moves outward, the + side of the battery is definitely attached to the + speaker terminal... another way you can tell, on the tweeters for example, is the little capacitor in the speaker is always attached to the + terminal.

Door woofer:
Fat spade = positive = black lead
Thin spade = negative = gray lead
I reused the Bose wire "tail" and pushed the wires on the the spades... they fit
Door small speaker:
White lead = positive
White/black stripe = negative
Dash Tweeter:
Lead with capacitor =positive
I reused the connectors by Dremeling them off of the old tweeters.
Rear speakers:
I forget... sorry. I reused the connectors by Dremeling them off the old speaker assembly.

I soldered all connections... reusing all Porsche snap connectors so the speakers can easily be disconnected repair is needed. The connectors are glued to the backs of the drivers with some pretty tough cement. Use your Dremel..... pry... be brave.

Dash Tweeter install:
I butcherd those tweeters with my Dremel. Not for the squweemish. The sockets in the car are actually easy to prepare as all of those nasty tabs will just break off. They will take some of the mount under there with it, but that is OK. For a few, I stuck my screwdriver into them and the pounded the screwdriver with my hand.... bang! No more tab. Or grab and twist with a needlenose. Be aggressive.

The tweeter I pretty much just butchered.... it was scary. In the end, it jammed into the dash hole fine, no silicone glue needed.

Door Woofer:
I purchased pre-cut spacer rings from Del Ray... they predrilled them perfectly but they have to be re-drilled to fit the factory screws (As another poster recommended, I used the Bose woofer holes to guide the drill). Then, I used 3/4 bit to countersink the bolt heads. I put a ring of silicone glue on the door, and then screwed in the rings. The interior diameter of the rings, however was too narrow for the Focal speaker so I took my Dremel and ground the inner edge to make them fit. You don't have to re-router the hole, just grind off the sharp edge. I also ground a notch in the top, inner ring to allow the Bose wire "tail" to pass back to the surface. The Focal screws are too long so I used some other, shorter screws I had laying around.

Door 4" speaker
I did not cut the tabs on the speaker, but ground a trough in the door plastic. Why? I dunno, just wanted to be different. Then I put a ring of silicone glue wherever there was to be contact just to prevent any buzzes that may surface.

Rear speakers
I did this two weeks ago and forget some of the details. I did not remove the interior panel, and did it all from the surface. You must take a razor and cut slices in the sound deadening material behind the panel as it is too tight to accomodate the speaker magnet. Not a big deal as it has adhesive on the back... just slice and push it to stick. For the speaker, I used the Focal speaker ring... just push on the grill and the ring will pop out. This is hard to describe, but I flipped the ring backwards, and pre-assembled the speaker and the little screw "nut thingys" behind the holes by glueing it all into place with silicone. Leave to dry. Now you have a nice assembly to insert into the door panel hole. Drill a few holes and screw in. I did make a plastic panel that covered the speaker and the door panel. So I had a sandwich.... my plastic panel, the door panel, the ring, the speaker, lastlly the screw "nut thingys". Once assembled and screwed in place, the ring will block two of the slots for the grill. I just took a narrow drill bit and punched them out the slots... just took two seconds. This will only make sense if you combine Conrad's pictures and sit all the parts in front of you.

Random tip for door panel removal: Some of the snaps may need to be re-set. Observe and be careful. I actually had a few spares from the dealer I purchased a while ago when I did some other work in there.

OK, the sound:

Worth it if you love music. Simply that. It is clearer, more articulate. Amazing? no... of course not... but an improvement. I need to spend some time with it and may repost what I think later. Conrad was correct, the highs are clearer... not brighter.. and the doors really woof and not muddy. Definitly better. Unfortunaltly, is shines brightest with well recorded CDs and XM/Sirius... is just fah.

Thanx again Conrad.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

 

conrad and bruce…your comments are veryencouraging. i am again trying to get over the time i scratched the dash and i stopped the install.. bruce i also am trying to do the rears. all i can say is those rear speakers are for transistor radios! seriously. how can good sound come out of them. my main concern is is there really enough power to drive thenew speakers? those magnets in the oem are miniscule! im not even puttin focals just jbls at the back and the bose looks 100x cheaper!
my new ? is can the 997.2 amps drive our newspeakers? i did try to put in a center speaker. got a 3" speaker for marine installations but still these were a bit bigger so i stopped. but i did try them on and they were also better. better separtion with the new speakers since the center wasnt overpowering everything and making things sound mono

 

bros, i just changed my rear speakers with simple polyplanar 3" speakers that actually just bolted on…cheaper and guess what, they sound so much cleaner than the bose. Shane i initially believed your statement. yes changing speakers might not really provide any benefit, but after seeing the quality of the bose speakers… well i did not wnt to beleive that there could be benefit to what i was doing so i just went with the polys. guess what so easy to install yet after they were so much cleaner. the sound coming from the back is now more desirable than the sound coming from the doors. and this is coming from my driver who does not have any real experience with anything except driving for me. he said in the native language…sir the ones at the back sound better, the ones in the front sound like tin cans!!!
ok so maybe next week i will be doing the last part. the doors. so far i have done the two tweeters at the fornt, disconnetecd the center and done the rears…so my sound is i guess all messed up right now but i start to hear where the noise is coming from…now its from the doors! if all does not sound as good as it should so easy to put back.

 

ok i just reread others posts and i just wanted to contribute. i really do not know how good rear speakers should be from my knowledge they should simply be rear fill and not something to compete with the fronts…i guess for better imaging.. now i did not go with anything fancy with the rears. i just had to get rid of those CHEAP BOSE SPEAKERS! anything in the aftermarket was better. i looked soemthing close to plug and play. got the 3"polyplanar speakers. i had 4"jbls too but fabricating a rear mount to put the jbls on simply did not cut it out for me. so i skipped that and just used the polyplanar units. initial look on the speakers, the pp units were more robust looking with bigger magnets. i would think they were also tougher since they were for marine use.
the speakers were practically plug and play. i left the tweeter of the bose but it was disconnected.
all in all i used the original mountings i used original wiring i just replaced the speakers and the speakers were a bit tight as they were a bit longer and the magnet was hitting the sound proofing.
all in all a cheap upgrade. a lot cheaper than the focals, but immediately i noticed that the sound coming out the rears are now a lot cleaner!

 

A general rule in hi fi: "accuracy is good". In other words, no good can come from purposely crapping up a speaker driver such as the rears. Our ear/brain systems are pretty amazing and they like detail. Detail contains information. Information translates, ultimately, to emotions and enjoyment of music.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

 

i agree bruce and what i put in were so much better than what was previously there. at least that was what my ears were saying.
let me just also say that bruce was right that the striped wire is the positive wire for the speakers.
so connect the wire with the black stripe to the positive of the new speaker to get polarity correct

 

My only comment here is be careful with speaker "voicing" and sensitivity. If you throw in speakers that aren't reasonably matched for sensitivity and have the same sound character, you could be making a mess.

For better or worse, I chose all Focal for the main speakers and they matched up very well. The subs have much less influence and the Dayton Audios work very well in the setup.

 

I'm going to chime in here. What does putting 75 watt speakers on 10 watts of power mean? First of all speakers have "recommended" power ratings, but power has nothing to do with speakers. This might imply that your amplifier is completely inadequate to power the speakers. That would suggest a couple of things:

You will drive the amp into clipping in order to get decent volume, thereby driving the amp into a thermal shutdown, blow a fuse, or potentially damage it. Personally, in MANY years, I've driven many speakers into clipping and never had an amp issue. However, I've blown some speakers. If you over drive a speaker, you will over heat the voice coil and it will warp, causing a scratchy sound from the speaker. The chance of doing that with speakers that have a much power higher rating than the amp is virtually zero. Just look at rock guitar amps. They are constantly fed distorted signals at very high volumes, but the speakers have much higher power ratings than the amplification.

You will have volume levels too low for good listening. I can tell you that isn't going to happen with this switch. The easiest way to kill the system is by upgrading the head unit, running too much amplification into the stock Bose speakers and frying the voice coils. 10X greater chance of that happening than driving less efficient speakers with the stock amp. UNLESS you are driving the Bose amp to clipping and risking a thermal shutdown. I've turned my system up to "concert" levels and it doesn't clip. Anyone else who's done it, please share their own experiences.

A good, basic upgrade is going to cost $750. A good, basic upgrade costing $2500?

 

Just going to say that your install was an awesome contribution to the audio thread! Hope you enjoy it. I think you'll find huge improvements as the door woofers break in. Then try to clip the amp - you'll be amazed at the volume levels! Next, you'll want to do the subs, really tightens up the whole package! Glad it all worked out.

 

Agreed, has nothing to do with anything. Careful, we are wading into a flame war. But since I am a 'Net expert... actually, I am a dog, but I play a rocket surgeon on the 'net....

A watt rating for a speaker really means nothing. It does tell you about its power handling capability, and that is a fancy way of saying how fast it can dissipate heat. Heat is what literally burns out a speaker. It is possible that the spec is determined by the maximum distance, or excursion, the cone can make (rare, but you know it hit the pole as it makes a racket). Only the old Yamaha "natural sound" speakers would hit their poles as most other speakers would simply burn out.

Watt ratings for speakers have NOTHING to do with system matching or amp matching. If you have say a 100 watt amp and a speaker that is rated for 75 watts, it will work fine, just don't crank it up all the way. What is more important spec is its efficiency rating.... this is how much volume, in decibels, it puts out with 1 watt of power into some specific frequency. What this will tell you is how loud and speaker will play. High efficiency speakers are good with low power amps.

Actually, most speaker burn outs are from underpowered amps and not from high powered amps with low power-rated speakers. Low power amps and inefficient speakers mean you will turn the volume control up higher to hear, therefore maxing out the amp (possibly). What happens, is lets say you turn up your system loud..... the amp maxes its watt output and clips. This literally turns a normal, curved, music wave into a square wave as the amp can't swing the needed voltage. Given the laws of physics around wave forms.... someone else chime in here... square waves (or clipped waves) contain large amounts of high frequencies (this is why square waves on an analog synth sound bright). It is this dumping of high frequencies into the tweeter that burns out the tweeter.

See... not all speakers in a speaker can handle the same about of power. A speaker may be rated to handle 100 watts, but I guarantee you, the tweeter can only handle a bit of that.... it is not needed as you don't need much watts to have high frequency volume. Clip your 100 watt amp, and you can have 100 watts going into very high frequencies and then your tweeter fries.

Now load or ohm ratings on speakers have much to to with amp matching. You don't want to exceed the load your amp can push. This has nothing to do with watts, but has everything to do with current. This is ohm's law, I will not present the math but.... if you hook a 4 ohm speaker up where there was just an 8 ohm speaker, that 4 ohm speaker will draw more current and stress an amp as it deals with the tougher load. This is OK, if the amp is built for it (4 is a greater load that 8... odd how they number this rating). See my earlier post for more on this.

While I am at it, ohm ratings on speakers have, for all practical purposes, nothing to do with sound quality. This is just one more aspect of the engineering decisions the designer made and there are many many they make to design a speaker. If you have a 4 ohm speaker that sounds better than an 8 (or visa versa) you can not draw any conclusions about its load rating on the sound..... there are too many variables. In fact, when you are discussing load and sound quality, the issue has more to do with the amp's ability to address loads than the speaker's inherent quality due to it its load rating.

Oh, one more thing.... measuring a speaker's load by simply putting a meter across its terminals is a very very crude way to measure. First, if you want to get closer to real life, multiply the value you see by 1.3... even then you will be very wrong. Why? Load, or ohm rating varies by frequency. That is why most speaker companies not their ratings are "nominal" and are based on some sort of average or what they feel is appropriate. For example, if a company makes a speaker designed for mid-range frequency use, what good is measuring the impedance in frequencies outside of its intended use?

Quick real life story.... if you are even reading this far. I purchased a set of Martin Logan Quest Z speakers many years ago. I listened to them in many stores (I as traveling at the time) always with beefy solid state amps. The Quests were notorious for having a difficult load to drive despite what the ML stated in their spec. The tech reviewers printed the impedance curves (by frequency) and the darn thing was a near short circuit in certain places. Right before I purchased my pair, I found a set of beautiful hand built VTL 300 tube amps.... very "powerful" for tubes. I figured no problem and boy are these going to sound good. Tube amps, I was unaware, don't like tough loads. I hooked everything up and the sound was glassy...... my heart sunk. I sold the MLs, kept the amps, and purchased a set of Magnepan 20s (their top of the line) which were known as a good match. Now I have pure beauty. FWIW

Peace
Bruce in Philly

 

Man, I didn't know about ML's and Tubes (thanks for sharing). FYI, I have the Ascent-I paired with the Aragon8008 --- I would not know what I would do without this system. I haven't heard any Maggies, but someday I'll stop by an audio place and check them out. And before I visit, I'll try to make sure I have the dough since audios tend to be my kryptonite.

 

Why car audio standard is 4 ohm and not 8 like home audio.

I just posed this question to a distant friend of mine who used to design amps for car audio; handy to know someone like this eh?
His answer is related to the low voltage car environment: "Low voltage requires high current to transfer power" Think Ohm's Law here.

I then asked him “Where do you get current from?” His response: “You get the current from the battery. The huge transformers and caps in normal amps are needed to turn AC into DC. In a car you have great, big source of DC. In fact, when we were doing research we once had a “battery party” and took the batteries out of 8 cars and hooked them together to get a source of very pure, high current, + &- 48V DC to drive the output stage of our amp. It was wonderful, heavy, messy etc. I have often thought of making a battery powered headphone amp for myself. Also considered making a commercial battery power preamp - in “off” mode it’s charging and in “on” mode your disconnect the charger and let it sing”.

Interesting……

Peace
Bruce in Philly

 

Ah my friends, post something on the Audiophile thread I started in the 997 turbo forum!

 

Only if you are driving well into square-wave distortion.

Ohm rating has *nothing* to do with an underpowered amp damaging a speaker.

What is "red estimate"? I never learned this term getting my electrical engineering degree.

When designing an amp it's actually far easier to make it stable running a higher load ("more ohms") than with a smaller load, so I'd seriously challenge the assertion that you're asking the amp to work harder. With the vast majority of amp designs you're asking it to work less hard.

Do you know why his system failed? Or which part? I'm not convinced anyone actually knows this.

So you're charging him $124 *MORE* to repair an amp than the cost to replace the entire thing? Their market value is $250-300. Sounds like you should be jumping for joy that you were able to pad your wallet that much.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_u...inty_and_doubt

I think your post history has shown well enough that you're willing to say anything to make a sale.

When you first joined the forums you were selling LED tails which you said were higher quality optics than the others because you personally spent 2 years in R&D and had better optics. Zero proof of this, and they were by all accounts identical to the others.

Then later you increased your price on the same LEDs and indicated you were getting them from a different supplier (I thought you said you were making your own?) and that your supplier was lying to you.

Then later you upped the price again and shared some phoney baloney story about customs causing your prices to go up, but when pushed on the issue you admitted that you were just upping the price.

Then that other time you were selling headunits with customized Porsche startup screens for some extra $$$ and you claimed that local Porsche dealers were suing you and forcing you to pay a royalty to use the Porsche logo. Oh, but Porsche dealers have no rights to the logo.

Then this thread started and took off, and you offered your own Focal package (right here, in this thread!) to do this exact upgrade, but for a higher price than you can find on Amazon or Ebay.

And now you're claiming that this exact upgrade path (for which YOU sell your own package!) is going to destroy your amp and you need to spend at least $2500 on a custom delrey upgrade kit to upgrade safely.

Give me a break. You are making my BS meter fly off the charts.