Radio/Amplifier

[997_986]

I have a Boxster from 00 and the previous owner had a lot of stuff with subwoofer and a lot of wiring done. I have stripped everything back and now only see this:



I assume that this is the original condition!

Now I'm going to get a (small) radio that is very similar to the Becker and also has yellow lighting. I hope to get an adapter for it but I am confident.
When I stripped everything back I uncovered a plug in the trunk. I did some research and the plug fits into an amplifier. I need to try and find out if i have feature "490" then i would be able to get an amplifier. But:
Question 1: If this plug is present, can I assume that the vehicle had an amplifier or were they always as preparation?
Question 2: Is there a chance to determine which exact amplifier is needed? I am not sure with 986 645 301 03.

Is there a plug and play aftermarket product? I don't want to have much to do with wiring ;-)

[spinjockey]

Do you have speakers in the door? If so then you have option 490 and yes you can buy an amplifier to plug and play. You will need an aftermarket wiring harness adapter because no radio is an exact match pin for pin. The early boxsters thru 02 also had switched and constant 12v reversed so a lot of people make the mistake of connecting the wires based on color matching to find out their clock settings aren’t retained in the radio.

You should also be able to look at the option sticker under the hood to verify.

[997_986]

Thank you.
Yes, I have speakers inside the door:



And I checked the options, I have "321" what points to a CR22 and "490" that identifies the sound package. I took a picture of the plug as well, actuelly there are two of them.



I cut off the thick wires that were connected to the speaker wires. I hope no more modifications made, so I will organize an used amplifier (HEAS?) and fingers crossed ;-)
Any remote diagnosis possible or hints? Thanks a lot so far!

Btw, does anyone know what the brown sheathed cable with the small plug that is sticking out of the top center of the door seal is used? It was not connected....but no application for that in sight as well ;-)

[theiceman]

this is an interesting thread as i am playing with my sons new to him Boxster an ( 01 S ) .. he did notice no sound coming from the door speakers and an aftermarket Alpine installed in place of the original head unit.

So we need to check if actual speakers are in the door .. if not can they be added ? is the wiring there ???

Also OP posted a pic of a hacked up and electrical taped connector in the front trunk. we have the exact same hacked up connector .. i will try and get a pic later.. looks like original wires were cut off an looped to standard speaker wires, bypassing any amp. we are not sure if there was an amp there and it was ripped out or not.

we were thinking maybe wires from original radio went to an amp , that amp was ripped out with head unit and amp was bypassed and new head unit wired directly to speakers... thoughts ??

Do all 4 speakers go to amp on original config ? 2 dash and 2 door speakers ?

it is a very nice Alpine unit of the day so surprised it sounded so awful . We are thinking of just ripping everything out and starting over with something more modern as he will need Bluetooth anyway.

Is there a generally accepted good after market config to use on these cars ? or did i just ask the radio equivalent of what oil to use ?

Thanks


edit: just looked in warranty book with options ... have 440 but not 321.... but 321 means nothing anyway as original radio is gone

Sorry OP to hijack your thread but i think we generally have the same questions and can work through this together.

[spinjockey]

Originally Posted by 997_986

Thank you.
Yes, I have speakers inside the door:



And I checked the options, I have "321" what points to a CR22 and "490" that identifies the sound package. I took a picture of the plug as well, actuelly there are two of them.



I cut off the thick wires that were connected to the speaker wires. I hope no more modifications made, so I will organize an used amplifier (HEAS?) and fingers crossed ;-)
Any remote diagnosis possible or hints? Thanks a lot so far!

Btw, does anyone know what the brown sheathed cable with the small plug that is sticking out of the top center of the door seal is used? It was not connected....but no application for that in sight as well ;-)

Ok so looks like someone did a hack job to splice in a non oem amplifier. The small connector goes to the head unit preamp outputs. The large connector goes to the speakers. The diagram in the thread below will help you sort out the pin order

https://www.renntech.org/topic/54352-haes-4-x-40w-amplifier-functions/


Note that the diagram is for a 6 channel 490 system as found on the 996. The boxster only had a 4 channel system with no rear speakers unless optioned with the bose system. There were actually three different 490 systems with slight variations in the amplifier behavior. The 4x40 490 configuration found in the boxster and separate 6x40 490 configuration found in the 996 coupe and cabriolet respectively.

There is an aftermarket/oem option to put speakers in the rear shelf cubby on the boxster. The original instructions kept the oem 4 channel amp and wired the rear speakers direct to the head unit. You can still buy the kit or source the parts from eBay because the aftermarket vendor sells the wiring harness there. There are also other speaker frames available for different speaker configurations.

Many of us have instead purchased a 6 channel 490 amp pulled from a 996 cabriolet or used an aftermarket amplifier. If you use an aftermarket amplifier you will have to splice wires as I am unaware of any adapters for the amp connectors. If you go aftermarket my advice would be to run preamp connectors direct to the trunk then splice the speaker outputs. The oem 4 or 6 channel amplifier treats the door speakers as a low frequency only channel. Using the 6 channel oem amplifier with the rear speaker shelf you can get your audio to decent but it won’t be great and you might decide the best music just comes out the back.

I don’t know what the brown wire does. The picture makes it hard to get a good look.

[spinjockey]

My guess is the brown wire goes to the amber courtesy light in the door pull. It is located just inside the door latch.

[997_986]

Many thanks for the tips, I'll check everything!

[997_986]

So here's the next problem. How do I get the plugs together, it looks like something is missing. Really embarrassing. To move on I would cut off the frame to be able to join the two together. Unless I'm missing something...?


Okay, I checked it, the plug was retracted. Sorry

[theiceman]

great info .. since the amp and cover were ripped out of this car and likely just run directly from the head unit , it might be a place to start.

[997_986]

Thanks, with the help from the forum the connections all look unchanged. I got a used amplifier and have already placed it in the original position.
I'm a complete layman in this area, but could it be that the radio (not a CR22 of course but more modern) would have worked without this amplifier or will it do any harm?

[997_986]

Originally Posted by theiceman

[...]
edit: just looked in warranty book with options ... have 440 but not 321.... but 321 means nothing anyway as original radio is gone

Sorry OP to hijack your thread but i think we generally have the same questions and can work through this together.

It's fine, your option M440 points to: manual antenna, 4 loudspeakers --> MY 2002
MY 2003 --> Antenna diversity

Whatever this exactly means. But yes, I would start from scratch as it is not very difficult to route new cables through the car. I discovered that when removed the crap from my installation.

Edit: I think my adaptor comes today so I will have a first check with a radio

[theiceman]

Originally Posted by 997_986

It's fine, your option M440 points to: manual antenna, 4 loudspeakers --> MY 2002
MY 2003 --> Antenna diversity

Whatever this exactly means. But yes, I would start from scratch as it is not very difficult to route new cables through the car. I discovered that when removed the crap from my installation.

Edit: I think my adaptor comes today so I will have a first check with a radio

Thanks

Turned out a had a becker Porsche CDR at one point. But i am thinking exactly as you posted, just replace head unit with a better one and skip the amp altogether. Its a very small Cabin and will likely be fine .

[997_986]

It is not that easy to shop for DIN1-units that have a retro-design with yellow lights. I will go for a "Blaupunkt Frankfurt RCM 82 DAB or a Kienzle MCR1120DAB+, the last one can be choosen in yellow lights.

[theiceman]

Originally Posted by 997_986

It is not that easy to shop for DIN1-units that have a retro-design with yellow lights. I will go for a "Blaupunkt Frankfurt RCM 82 DAB or a Kienzle MCR1120DAB+, the last one can be choosen in yellow lights.

what about continental ???

I was considering this one .

https://www.amazon.com/VDO-Continental-TR7412UB-European-Bluetooth/dp/B08D2R48HZ

[theiceman]

Originally Posted by 997_986

It is not that easy to shop for DIN1-units that have a retro-design with yellow lights. I will go for a "Blaupunkt Frankfurt RCM 82 DAB or a Kienzle MCR1120DAB+, the last one can be choosen in yellow lights.

i posted an earlier suggestion with a link to amazon but it got rejected.

I am looking at a continental. it has the retro look with yellow/ orange ? lighting .

It is very simple and affordable. I am just not sure if 100w is enough to drive the factory speakers. ( 4 by 25 )
there is a blaupunkt Bremen , with 200W output , but that is 5 bills and a little much for what i want.

does anyone have an idea of what output the factory amp is giving ? and what the resistance of the speakers is ? are they standard 4 ohm speakers of the day ?

[997_986]

Unfortunately, the supplied adapter did not fit, new round. However, I was able to complete the conversion to DIN1, my son has chosen an economy version of the radio but the look is still retro ;-)

Let me say even if you buy special kits, in this case METRA 99-9605B, there is a lot of fiddeling work to be performed

[theiceman]

Originally Posted by 997_986

Thanks, with the help from the forum the connections all look unchanged. I got a used amplifier and have already placed it in the original position.
I'm a complete layman in this area, but could it be that the radio (not a CR22 of course but more modern) would have worked without this amplifier or will it do any harm?

you got an original porsche amp ? any idea what the outputs are in terms of watts ?

[997_986]

Originally Posted by theiceman

you got an original porsche amp ? any idea what the outputs are in terms of watts ?

No it's not genuine, my son wanted BT and DAB. AFAIK the genuine Becker CR22 had 4-Canal Stereo Output with 4 x 18 Watt.

[spinjockey]

I have the Frankfurt in my 986. Here is a pic of the installation. Looks quite sharp.

[997_986]

Looks great!