New stereo install: need your ideas / inspiration!

[pontifex4]

I would guess that you could kill a lot of the rattles and really beef up the sound of the 10-speaker panels by recreating the speaker plate under the armrest from thin MDF.

To do this optimally, I think you might even end up ditching the 3" speaker and just pushing the 5" as far forward as you could, but that's really just conjecture. I've been staring at those panels in my white car for nearly a year with this in mind, but still haven't done anything about it!

Also, I've never had to buy carpet or Vinyl to match a Porsche: can anyone point me to a specific product for a good match? (Black is easy in this regard, but the closer I can get, the better!)

Thanks!

[CurtP]

For carpet try World Upholstery (http://www.worlduph.com). They will send you samples so you can match. They're really expensive though - at least the materials that I used are (Feintuft, which is around $80/yd).

However, 20+ year-old carpet is going to be faded and difficult to match; even black. Don't get me started about the whole carpet ordeal that I went through not too long ago.

[fbgh2o]

Have I seen a picture of the sub? Was it a challenge to get the power wire to it?

Here you go. It's nothing special, but fills out the sound relatively well. The 6.5" Alpines in the rear are probaly adequate. Was not hard to wire, but I did drill a hole in the firewall to run the wiring, which made it quick and easy.

I would love to see your 951 (and your new one)! I'll send you a message this spring when I'm stir crazy from having had two porsches in a garage all winter. I'm sure you'll be able to relate!

Any time

I hear you on that, but I am driving the 996 this winter

[odb812]

old stereo from my 968, very heavy, but if you're going to take it out when you go to the track anyway. now I have a alpine lat system in the trunk, no pics but nothing exciting there.

[ramius665]

What kind of rattling did you get from the top and chassis with that setup? Certainly looks impressive!

[odb812]

No rattling with that setup, I had it secured to the body well. I also have the ballast removed on my car and its solid as a rock. The new lat system was rattling my trunk lid until I turned the gain down a little bit. It's loud enough with the gain turned down to hear with the top down at highway speeds, but I'm still going to trace down the rattle.

[ramius665]

Just curious, do you still have the stock rear shelf from your 968?

[odb812]

Sure do, It's in the car right now. The new sub is in the trunk.

[ramius665]

Dang... I've been trying to source a cab shelf for my 951 for about a year now. But I'm not willing to pay Parts Heaven or any of the other dismantlers $400+ for one, especially because most of them need to be recovered anyway.

Since I've decided that when I finish this rebuild my car won't be a street/track car, only street, it's changed what I've been considering for audio options. I've been highly tempted to source the interior body panels from an '87+ car and weld them in to my '86 body. That way I could use my factory M470 speakers that have been collecting dust in the bottom of a box somewhere.

I'm at a bit of an impasse right now, I want to have the same HU and front speakers in my 951 (highly modified) and my wife's 968 cab (bone stock and staying that way). Granted, the only thing that will show as non-factory is the HU, but even that's been a difficult choice. Every time I go look at new HUs I just get worn out on all of the bright flashing lights and options that I know I don't need. And the salespeople don't seem to understand what a "subdued" looking HU is. But it's all a low priority right now because I don't even have the engine back together yet.

[pontifex4]

Originally Posted by ramius665

I'm at a bit of an impasse right now, I want to have the same HU and front speakers in my 951 (highly modified) and my wife's 968 cab (bone stock and staying that way). Granted, the only thing that will show as non-factory is the HU, but even that's been a difficult choice. Every time I go look at new HUs I just get worn out on all of the bright flashing lights and options that I know I don't need. And the salespeople don't seem to understand what a "subdued" looking HU is. But it's all a low priority right now because I don't even have the engine back together yet.

I completely agree. There are actually a few options if you're willing to scour ebay, though. Blaupunkt units from the early 90s are the obvious choice, and many offer Blaupunkt changer control (whose bus power and signal aren't device-dependent) so they can easily be hacked to take AUX-IN from an ipod, etc. You can do this yourself with an old stereo RCA cable and a junk blaupunkt CD changer cable in a couple of minutes. Similarly, some of the higher-end units from back then had a set or two of RCA pre-outs, in case you want to add an aftermarket amp.

I've rewired a few older decks for RCA in/out support, and as long as you add a supplemental ground on the chassis of the unit for the RCA shielding, the sound is pretty good. If you're willing to drill into the case of the unit, you can also wire a toslink digital output directly to the output of the CD player (before the internal D/A converter) and have optical digital out to an external DSP. No ipod or radio support then, obviously, and you don't get to use the volume control on the radio, either, but the upshot is that the transport mechanisms of these early car stereo units are normally rock solid.

Here's a link to a few 20th century Blaupunkt units which look about right:
http://www.applefritter.com/node/10618#comment-33407

If you can stand to go higher end, here's the classic Alpine unit I mentioned in one of my earlier posts (this one isn't mine):


For a bit of added modernity, there's also this Denon/Rockford unit (most of the black ones came badged as Rockford Fosgates, though the only image I can find right now is silver):


...and this Clarion, which has (some) support for ipods, etc:

[CurtP]

Originally Posted by ramius665

Dang... I've been trying to source a cab shelf for my 951 for about a year now. But I'm not willing to pay Parts Heaven or any of the other dismantlers $400+ for one, especially because most of them need to be recovered anyway.

You have to be really patient. The right deal will come along, but you'll probably have to wait. It took me months to come along the right deal and even then I still had to recover it. And I wish I had made a couple of modifications to it before I recovered it. I should have replaced the pieces that go over and meet the side panels. I'll probably get to it one of these days, but it isn't on my priority list as of yet. I went with black Feintuft carpet and linen leather on the doors to match the dash.

Originally Posted by ramius665

I've been highly tempted to source the interior body panels from an '87+ car and weld them in to my '86 body. That way I could use my factory M470 speakers that have been collecting dust in the bottom of a box somewhere.

There's very little that changed. The only real difference that I can think of is the rear speakers have several plates available, depending on which speakers are installed. Cutting out for the 6.5" speakers would be easy and fabricating your own blank-off panel wouldn't take much. The rear tweeters are mounted on the trim panel, not on the sheet metal. No differences in the front doors as far as I can tell (one of my doors is from an '86, the other is the factory '87 door).

Originally Posted by ramius665

I'm at a bit of an impasse right now, I want to have the same HU and front speakers in my 951 (highly modified) and my wife's 968 cab (bone stock and staying that way). Granted, the only thing that will show as non-factory is the HU, but even that's been a difficult choice. Every time I go look at new HUs I just get worn out on all of the bright flashing lights and options that I know I don't need. And the salespeople don't seem to understand what a "subdued" looking HU is. But it's all a low priority right now because I don't even have the engine back together yet.

I hate most new HUs too. Too many settings, too many small buttons and most don't look at home in our cars. Nakamichi makes some really nice HUs - I came really close to buying a CD-500, but reading several forums where a complete lack of customer service/warranty work scared me away.

Another option I was considering is the multimedia units - no CD player. The Dual XR4110 looks very simple, but I know nothing about the brand. Clarion and Alpine have some nice looking units too. In the end I went with a Becker. It has an aux input, a limited amount of expansion and I like the look. It uses the same DIN connectors as Blaupunkt, so some of the accessories plug right in.

[mwc951]

I'm sourcing parts for an un-install I'm going to do.
Years ago, I put a moderate system in my '88, Alpine
4v out HU, big Alpine 5 channel amp, Diamond
components in the doors & rear, single KLA sub. Made
a nice panel to hide the amp rack. See pics.

Going with a basic 4-channel powered off the HU.
Most likely Focal co-axes in the rear & doors.
I've always had Alpine HUs, but it just doesn't fit
the interior. Passed on a CDR-220 last week for a
very reasonable price. Leaning toward a Nak
CD-400. I'd like to replace the Auto Meter gauges
with VDO's as well.

I have one of those old Alpines...cassette with changer
controls. Functions perfectly.

[pontifex4]

mwc, where did you put the sub?
Also, that's a sweet deck! Nothing says, "no expensive stereo here" like a tape deck in 2010.

Edit: oh, and unless you're looking at the Access line, Focals are too power hungry to be run from a deck, in my opinion. Like a lot of premium car speakers, they need a lot of amplifier headroom before they sound the way they're intended to, and without it, they'll just sound a little cheap. Kenwood has a couple of new shallow-mount speakers which may be worth a look, but I don't have any experience with them.

[mwc951]

The KLA box is made for the cubbies on either side of the rear.
http://www.klaindustries.net/subwoofer/subwoofer-1.htm
I used a Rockford sub. For an 8" it thumps just fine.

Any idea who makes an efficient co-ax that could be run off
the HU? Not concerned about mounting depth, I have the
10-speaker door panels. Stuffed a 5.25 Diamond HEX in
there.

[pontifex4]

Originally Posted by mwc951

The KLA box is made for the cubbies on either side of the rear.
http://www.klaindustries.net/subwoofer/subwoofer-1.htm
I used a Rockford sub. For an 8" it thumps just fine.

Any idea who makes an efficient co-ax that could be run off
the HU? Not concerned about mounting depth, I have the
10-speaker door panels. Stuffed a 5.25 Diamond HEX in
there.

Dollar-for-dollar on deck power, I don't think there's any beating the green cone Fusion 5.25" with the tilting coaxial tweeter:

http://www.fusionelectronics.com/nor...2-product.aspx

These have a fairly stiff basket, but like all speakers, they need to be mounted to a stiff, damped surface to get the most out of them.