Speakers
 

I've seen mention of the speaker enclosures behind the seats, but short of that has anyone had any luck with aftermarket speakers in their 986? I am speaking (ha-ha) specifically behind the seats. I find the front-only sound to be very retro, like my 1968 Volvo had. I didn't like it then either.

So right now I have the storage behind the seat with the little sliding doors and then a small compartment on either side.

Would I be crazy to think that Porsche ran the wires back there as a matter of course and I just need to find and connect them to speakers? Or do I need to rip the car apart?

As an aside, I have the single-CD stereo in a 2002 Boxster S.

TIA

Porsche did pre wire the car for rear speakers. The plug's located in the convertable top well behind the passenger seat. Many people have installed speakers in their storage box...a search will bring up serveral threads on the subject.

Porsche did NOT prewire Boxsters for speakers back there unless they were installed as the factory option.

That being said, adding them is not difficult by any stretch of the imaginationl... including running the wires as they are prebundled. Trickiest part of install is cutting the old cubby bins out of the enclosure but even that is not hard. There are some OEM kits around as well as aftermkt ones on ebay. I think now a days they go for ~ $150 locked and loaded. With an '02, you'll have to connect them to the back of the head unit to power up (at 18W per channel). Or you can find a 6ch x40W amp from a 996 to replace the one in your front trunk and wire them there powering all channels at 40W.

Definitely a worthwhile upgrade and there are many DIY posts here and on other Boxster forums to walk you thru. Just search on rear speaker kit.

:)

In have installed two sets of speakers - one set in my 00 and another in a friend's 02. I used the PNP kit sold by a guy named Harvey on eBay. I also installed a six channel amp and replaced the dash speakers in my car. The sound quality is much improved. I'm sure an audiophile would not find it great, but it is acceptable to me.

The rear speaker installation is not hard. The first time I did it, it took about 4 hours. The second time around it may have been less than 2 hours. I think the first time was difficult because it was the first mod I performed on my Boxster and I kept thinking I was going to make a costly mistake.