The Maintenance Files

Car Stereo Installation

 (Spring/Summer 2007)

Porsche Owners:

First of all, a note to all who belong to the so-called "Church of Weight and Speed', whose goal is to reduce weight on their 911:  Go for it guys.  Strip it down, throw stuff out, have fun.  While you're at it, get liposuction or enroll in Jenny Craig  & reduce your fat butt too.  Go build the ultimate 911 light-weight go-cart.  Track addicts are real people too imho.  But it's not what I want.

While I'm at it, I might as well address those 911 owners who feel that the sound of the Porsche flat 6 is better than Mozart:  I don't care.  My car is a cruiser & I wanted a decent sound system.  As for the flat 6?  Yes, it's great.  I love it, too.  But on a freeway?  At a constant 70 mph?  Give me a break, it gets tiresome.  Live with it if you want to, but I'd rather have Bob Marley along for those drives.

Random Internet Stumblers:

You probably found this via a Google search on something that's referenced here.  This is a portion of my website devoted to my obsession - my 1987 Porsche Cabriolet.  This chronicles my installation of a sound system in the Porsche.

After a lot of forum post reading & talking with some of my customers & suppliers who dip into 12V hi-fi, I decided on a basic system:

Model Description Features & Benefits
Head Unit: Dual XD622W

See Dual XD622W 		AM/FM/CD Weather Receiver Somebody posted this one a while ago on the PP forum.  Plain faceplate.  No damn light show & a simple muted inoffensive green glow.  It has a volume knob rather than stupid buttons.  And not being a fan of compression & MP3s, these backwards leaning 'features' were also not in the mix.  If you start with poor quality media your system can play nothing but poor quality & lossless compression ain't lossless.  Rant off.
Door speakers: Focal 165V1

See Focal 165V1 		2 Way Component System I sell Focal home product & I know & trust their sound.  And I could buy it for a very good price since I work remotely with the factory staff. This series is a midrange series for Focal in technical terms.
Amplifier: Focal 2.75

See Focal 2.75 		2 x 75W rms 4Ω A new premium series of amplifiers from Focal.  Big.  Hefty.  A real amp rather than the cheapo Class D things from other vendors.  Class D is fine for a sub amp or in a studio monitor, but not for real audio.
So . . .


I email Dominic (Focal road man & a gifted acoustical engineer).  I sent him a picture of one of my Blaupunkt door speakers - with stupid whizzer cone & a rotted surround.  I told him that this was what one of their premier US Focal salesmen had in his car.  Could he help?  We went back & forth & finally agreed on the system above.  He thought the deck would play the components well enough for a 20 year old noisy convertible, but I insisted on trying one of their amps.


 And lo & behold . . .


A carton arrived from France just after Christmas.  But it seemed awfully big.

Well, surprise, surprise, it seemed that Dominic had heard me when I mentioned that I would probably add a sub in the future.  He figured I might as well get it over with.  So, he added:
Model Description Features & Benefits
Subwoofer: Focal 21V2

See Focal 21V2 		8" Polyglass woofer Two of them.  Amazing build quality.  It's a shame to hide them away in a sub box.  I am certain that they can move some air.
Amplifier: Focal 1.800

See Focal 1.800 		1 x 400W rms 4Ω (800W 2Ω) A serious subwoofer amplifier.  Since I will run the two 4Ω 21V2s  parallel, the amp will be driving a 2Ω load.


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