Stereo Upgrade Question
 

I have a 2000 base.

the head unit is the factory CDR220 unit. I have speakers in the dash, doors, and also the former owner added rear speakers in the storage areas taht are to the rear /side of each seat.

Honestly, the sound quality coming out of the rear speakers is not all that great. I have no idea exactly how it is wired in, but I have used the fader feature and faded them out, and they don't really add a whole lot of sound/fullness/richness when they are on or off.

I find the front dash/door speakers provide most of what I can hear.

I have also noticed that the knob on the stereo that controls what CD track is playing is screwed up. that right knob, which you twist to advance from one track to the next on a CD - it has osmethin gwrong with it, and when I twist it, sometimes it goes the wrong way, doens't do anything, or does more than I try. LIke I rotate it one click to the right, to skip tracks, and instead it reverses tracks, or sometimes it advances two tracks...

i only use the CD player now, however, because I don't have an ipod interface. once i got that working, i would use the IPOD exclusively, and that defective knob wouldnt' really be an issue. although i'll have to buy the ipod connecter cable, and route it through teh back of the stereo... there are several threads here detailing how to do that.

another option i've considered is to just replace the stereo with something half way decent - nothing extravagant..but in the 2-300 range. i believe some of these newer esystmes have front mounted aux inputs so I could use a cheapy cable and just plug the ipod right into the front of the stereo... that would avoid having to muck up my car with some weird mount system and run a cable around the back... i could just put the ipod on the passenger seat or in teh cubby and let the wire run up to the stereo.. wouldn't look as clean when i'm driving - but when i park, and pull it all out - it would look clean.

my big question is this - i have very little knowledge on stereos...and I have no idea how this head unit stacks up to other stuff out there for sale now that is in teh pice range i'm considering. i know i don't want to spend $500+ on a head unit.... but i can see spending a couple hundred. maybe 300 max. for that price, i don't know if i'll just wind up with someting no better than the stanrdard head unit i have in terms of sound quality, power, etc... or if it would be twice as good and it woudl sound better.

i suspect that the stock head unit doens't have a lot of power b/c the rear speakers don't sound that loud...and i'm guessing there isn't much power pushign them and maybe an aftermarket head unit would send more power to them and it would be better.

so i can just buy the ipod wire and spend about $50-100 on that, maybea mount...

or i can spend a few hundred and get a new head unit that woudl make plugging in my ipod easier via a cheaper front mount aux cable...

woudl I get a lot better sounding music/cleaner sound, more power form a 2-300 aftermarket head unit or would that pice range give me somethign no better than what's in teh car already? (aside from my knob being on the fritz, the rest of the radio seems okay..although i've noticed my FM reception seems crappy, maybe an antenna wire came undone??)

while home for lunch I checked those rear speakers. there are two on each side.

MB Quartz. they said someting like pro titanium on them. they wre in the car when my dad bought it - so they were installed around 2001ish..... so they are an older speaker...

they do add sound, don't get me wrong, it's just that if you turn them off, the stereo still sounds loud/good enough. to me, they add something, but if I had paid big money to add these things, I would have been let down...

I've had a similar situation. I've replaced the factory dash units with 4 1/2 Boston Acoustics and a Kenwood w/ USB in the glove. The same will go in the rear storage. The issue is that there is only so much room in a small car. 4 1/2" will only put out so much. Remove the dash covers to see if the factory paper cones are there. I spent about $800 for the front dash and radio. Rear is for a later date.

For what you want to spend, the best bang for your buck is a new head unit. The factory is garbage, but the speakers are actually decent. You said base boxster, but you should still have the factory amplifier in the front truck correct? if so change the head unit (deck) and add the rear speakers in the rear storage and you will notice a dramatic difference. :cheers:

What is the recommendation for the rear speakers?

Any installation pics or guides?

How do you get the wires to them?

I agree, it sounds like a new head unit would be a good start, then maybe a speaker upgrade.
You'll find that there are a lot of good head units designed to not only connect to, but fully operate your iPod for the $200-300 price range you would consider.

Go to www.cartoys.com and/or www.crutchfield.com and you find all kinds of information. Alpine even makes a head unit that doesn't have a CD in it anymore and only uses the radio or iPod.

Dave S.

I started with a speaker upgrade and then added a six channel amp from a 996. Here's my upgrade path:

1. Added rear speaker - I used the Harvey/PNP kit that you can find on eBay.
2. Replaced dash speakers with Infinity Kappas
3. Found a six-channel amp on eBay and replaced the stock 4-channel amp
4. Swapped the CDR-220 for a Traffic Pro. I don't think this made much of change in the sound quality since the Traffic Pro is very similar to the CDR-220. The reason I made this change was that the Traffic Pros were on sale and the net cost was relatively low after I resold the CDR-220. My CDR-220 was having cosmetic issues due to peeling buttons.

Mike - Here is a good tutorial on installing the rear speakers: http://www.pelicanparts.com//techarticles/box_rear_speakers/box_rear_speakers.htm

I busted my old HU (Alpine CDA-9847) so I've recently been looking at what to replace it with. It's an easier process now that I've already made 1 pass at upgrading the stereo in my Boxster. I'm going to leave the MB Quart 6.5' woffers that I added to the doors a couple years ago, as well as the Harvey rear kit. I'll pull the Kenwood components out of the dash and replace them with Polk 401 coax. I looked at HUs and was targeting being under $200 for a good one, which is do-able. I'm probably going to get the Sony CDX-GT821IP (~$160) but another good option is the one right below it: CDX-GT620IP. Both have a real iPod connector that allows you to plug it in and leave it while it's recharged by the car and you control it via the HU. You can also just plug it into the standard Aux input on the front of the HU. Both come with the iPod cable. The main thing that makes me like the 820 better is that the display is bigger (3-line) which will make scrolling through the iPod easier. I should mention that I also looked for HUs where I could change the illumination colors. I hate bright lights in my dash so some of the standard HU colors aren't to my liking.

I totally agree with you on the head unit color. I didn't see any with adjustable color on the bestbuy circuitcity websites, but if you go to crutchfield and other stereo specific stores, I found models that allow you to adjust the display through a multitude of colors - which would not only allow you to not make it too bright, but would permit you to find a shade that would probably do a good job of looking OEM In terms of matching the dash lighting.. my 2000 has that orangey color to it and I don't really want a bright blue/green/red HU that clashes. call me anal, but I like it all to "flow" and look OEM.

funny thing about my rear speakers. I flipped my seats forward and I can see that on the passenger side, there is a plastic plate that the speakers are bolted into - from looking at the online photos of the rear speaker kits - I swear the car must have an older ersio nof that..the plastic has markings on it, and appears molded to fit into the cubby. but then on the drives side, whoever installed it used a piece of wood. literally, it is wood colored, and it is cut to the dimensions of the rear speaker kit... i am not the original owner...so I have to assume the original owner must have either had "part" of the kit, or maybe broke the piece and had to custom fab half of it... unsure... i may want to paint black - now it's bugging me that there is this wood thign in there.


i don't have speaker grills covering the opening..i think i'll just get some grill material and fab up some grills to cover it up and then you can't see it anyway.

i DO have the OEM 4 channel amp in the front trunk. Can you just pull that amp out and wire in a better more pwoerful amp? or will it not work with the factory head unit?

or what about getting a nwer more powerful HU and then somehow try to use that factory amp to run the rear speakers? use the HU to run the front four speakers and the OEM amp to run teh rears? or would that not work?

Search this site on Avic D3!

Pickup a double din DVD / Nav / ipod / XM, etc., system and you'll never regret it! I put JL audio subs in the door first and that made a nice difference. I then replaced the head unit with an Avic D3 (new models are better) and a cheap amp and my stereo setup is really cool. I spent like $500 on the head unit, $75 on the amp and got some free subs from a generous neighbor. The dash speakers are decent enough for now...

You can change the color of the buttons on the Pioneer systems. I like blue best.

My 9 year old loves going for a ride. We connect the iPod video to the Avic D3 and play rock videos like Blink 182, +44, Box Car Racer and Angels and Airwaves (all derivations of Blink 182 members)...

Go with the DVD / Nav systems and you'll never regret it!

-Steve

DVD/Nav
 

"Go with the DVD / Nav systems and you'll never regret it!"

I agree with the above, as long as you have the money. Last year I got a nav unit which I loved, but I hate having to run the power plugs to it. So I just finished having a Kenwood double din DVD/nav unit installed and the system looks and sounds great. An added bonus with many of the later-generation head units is the bluetooth phone capability, kinda fun to have your whole car be a 1000 watt cell phone.

Now, as soon as the car gets back from the shop, I will be able to enjoy it. My aftermarket headers burned a hole in the coolant line, and I was spraying coolant all over the place.

Ed

:dance: