Anyone do speaker upgrades?

[stealthn]

I am interested after seeing some content on speaker upgrades for my 06 Cayman S. I know there are better speakers out there than the Bose, and would like to try some without changing the AMP or sub, just better speakers/sound.

I know there are some stupid $$$ kits out there, but really just good speakers shouldn't be crazy. What's everyone done and how did you find them? I would really prefer "drop in" as I want it to be reversible.

Let me know, thanks

[stealthn]

No one

Alright I’ll give it a go, I just picked up the following:
1 pair JL Audio C1 650 6.5” woofer/tweeters
2 pair JL Audio C1 400x midranges

I chose these as I am not ready to upgrade the Amp yet and I am just looking to improve the sound for now. I will use the tweeters from the 650’s to replace the two near the windscreen, and the woofers in the lower door (I’m sure I’ll need to modify to fit).

The Mids will go in the upper doors and the rears. Not sure if there is enough fall left to get this done as I want to do a video on it, but we’ll see.

As for the centre speaker, I see some people just disconnect it and others have added another tweeter here as the centre really overpowers the other tweeters, but I’ll cross that when I get there.

Wish me luck

[Rusty Heap]

how hard was it to pull the door panel ?

I need speakers in mine too.

[stealthn]

I haven’t started yet, but the doors are easy. A couple good videos on YouTube, about six bolts. The dash speakers are going to be the hard ones.

[ViRu1220]

I did my 997 dash speakers, way easier than the doors. Just make sure you have a good set of plastic pry tools of all sizes. I think I had to go into an old iphone repair kit to get a small pry tool.

[Rusty Heap]

Bumping an old thread. Need new Speakers in my BOSE 2007 Cayman.

Crutchfield lists both 5 1/4 and 6 1/2, but which size door speaker do I need?

The above mentioned 1 pair JL Audio C1 650 6.5” woofer/tweeters are listed as not fitting.

[stealthn]

I’ll start on this this weekend, going to take my time as I want to film it/take pictures.

[Jim Richards]

I’m looking forward to seeing how your project goes/turns out, stealthn. I might want to tackle this sometime on my 981 Cayman. But first, I’m going to be adding CarPlay to my PCM 3.1, along with a backup camera.

[stealthn]

Well I started down the rabbit hole yesterday. It was a little colder than I was hoping and I did end up breaking a piece of trim removing it.

This will be a multipart series, I started at the rear speakers.

Remove the engine sound deadening


You need to take off the silver trim piece around the oil cap; open the door to the oil cap and remove the two screws, then gently pull up on the silver trim to get it up.



Next you need to remove the upper trim behind the seat, start with removing the trim around the seat belt to reveal the T20 screw



Then gently remove the upper trim, there is a light in in so twist to remove



Once the upper trim is off you can see the farthest back screw to remove the lover trim, there is also a screw on the engine cover area to remove



Once that's done you can remove the trim around the shock tower which has the speaker in it, unclip the wire from the speaker



With that out you can remove the speaker, here is the old next to the new.



The old speaker is slightly smaller than the new one, once the speaker is off there is a housing on top of the actual panel, so I removed the housing and the new speaker fits into the enclosure. I am going with a two way so the tweeter pushes on the grill so I will use some spacers to attach.



I was really hoping to use the quick connect housing on top of Bose speaker but it is very well attached to the speaker so I think I will just cut the wires and make new connectors



I am now waiting for the connectors to show up as I ran out of them.

More to come.

[Jim Richards]

Great progress, Bob!

[stealthn]

Thanks Jim, I am hoping to get to the door speakers in the next couple of days while I wait for some parts.

[stealthn]

Finishing off the Right Rear, got my connectors and got the speaker in place, tested before I buttoned her up.




Then I moved on to the door (Unbelievable pain to get the door off), I used all my strength (after undoing the bolts) and couldn't pull it away, so I pulled the car out of the garage and opened the door to heat it up with the sun.

While I waited I moved to the center speaker; I am deleting it as it washes out the other tweeters anyway.





Just gently pry up the trim and it has 2 T15 screws



I undid the connector and put the screws back in place and put the trim back.

Then I started on the right tweeter.




Again pry tool, then there is two metal tabs on each slide that need to be pushed away from the speaker to get it in.

Here's the new speaker



The old speaker had another connector I cut off and added the male ends for the new speaker



Once I got the wires done I had to use the dremel to take a little plastic off the lip of the speaker to fit the bottom two plastic guides and get it back in place.



Go slow on trying to get it into the two metal clips as I pushed it through the dash 3 times. LOL And it's tiny to get it out.

[stealthn]

So here is the door deconstruction

There is a T20 holding the door handle on, remove



Once the handle is off you can see a small plastic circle, just press on the bottom and it will come out to reveal a T30 nut



Next move on the door grab handle pry from below to get it off



It reveals two more T30's



Then move on to edge of the door and pry out the plastic trim to reveal another bolt





Then move on to the plastic covering the mirror area, pry up from the bottom while squeezing from the sides. There is a slotted piece of plastic at the top so the trim must go up from the bottom, don't pry on top. Remove the T30 pictured.



Now the hard part, pulling from the corners at the bottom of the door to get the push pins out - This took all the strength I had!! I'm sure it hasn't come off in 18 years.

Once off, it's two electrical connectors and the door handle cable to undo. The woofer stays in the door and the mid is on the panel.





Here is the new Mid in the door panel

[stealthn]

Apparently you can only have 11 images so finishing off the door install:


Here's the woofer coming out of the door, interesting it uses the door to provide more bass



Here is the old woofer next to the new. I will have to pickup and adapter to go from 6.5" to the 8" enclosure. I am done for the day, beer-o-clock!!

[Jim Richards]

That’s a heck of a lot of work, Bob! Outstanding! How many speakers does your car have?

I’m just getting started on my Apple CarPlay & backup camera project on my 981 Cayman. Things are never as easy as the aftermarket vendors let on.

[stealthn]

Thanks Jim,

Two speakers in each door, two rear speakers and three in the dash, but I took one out. I'll follow up when I get an adapter for the woofers in the door.

[911mhutch]

Excellent how to.. and on my summer list.

[stealthn]

Thanks, I’ve looked everywhere for speaker adaptors, even bought a couple I thought would fit, no luck. So I am making my own as my buddy sold his 3D printer (this was my backup plan). So hope to have a prototype done this weekend. Will update when I have more info.

[stealthn]

Alright! Finally after trying a bunch of stuff and searching the internet I decided I would make my own adapters for the woofers (and no, I wasn't going to use MDF), so I thought long and hard about the material I wanted to use and I came up with..........Wait for it....... Cutting boards

I wanted to use the Bose housing and speaker connection and as you can see the speaker screws are just offset from the mounting holes which made it...interesting



So I did up a rough template



Once I got it close to what I needed I cut the inner circle to allow the speaker to go through



The magnet was just a couple mm too deep so I cut the plastic grill on the inner door side so the speaker would sit flush



Then I changed the connectors for the speakers and drilled a hole allowing the wires to pass through. Here is it all buttoned up




This took WAY more time than it should have, but I am happy with the results! Now to get the other side done and buttoned up so I can do an audio test.

Red Wine time!

[CarGuyNeil]

Nice job. I'm enjoying your effort and writeup!

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