adesevara

sounds like you want to add iPod capability to your car. since you don't have an amp, i am guessing that there is no MOST fiber-optic bus/cable to deal with. you'll need a set of stereo removal keys from www.beckerautosound.com your new Alpine stereo will be a standard 1-DIN size, and will pop right into your dash to replace your old stereo. you may be able to pick up a Porsche-to-Alpine adapter from Scosche or another company that does wiring harnesses. you won't have to cut any wires and this will take care of powering the stereo. as far as wiring up the speakers, this will depend on if you use an amp or not. i recommend using an amp for what you're looking to do. on the back of your Alpine, there will probably be two sets of speaker outputs: speaker level (for if you didn't use an amp) and pre-amp outs (low level signals sent to the amp to be 'amplified'.) so if you want door speakers (and better sound in general), you'll need an amp. and if you want rear speakers, you'll need an amp with 6 channels. you could get a factory amp from a car that had the 6 channel amp (usually 996s), but i would get an aftermarket amp that will perform better than the stock amps. so, your amp channels will be L+R dash/L+R doors/L+R rear, and you'll need another channel for a subwoofer if you want to add it later. the door speakers in the boxster are mid-subs (only low frequencies get thru the crossover built into the factory amp), so if you don't use a factory amp, all frequencies will go to the door speakers (which might not be bad). depending on which MB Quart speakers you get (coaxial speakers or component speakers) and which amp, this is 'tweakable' (you could get just the highs to come out of the dash, and just the lows to come out of the doors.) component speakers are more expensive than coaxial speakers, so maybe look for an amp that has built-in crossovers per channel. or if you want the best sound possible, go with component speakers. lots to think about... there is a good write up here, written by Andy M on how to add door speakers. use the search function and you shall find! ;) there are a few rear speaker kits available on eBay for $200-250. you would have to cut the Porsche radio connector off the end of the rear speaker kit wires, and match those wires up to your amp. shouldn't be too hard at all. so to recap: - radio removal tools from Becker site - Porsche to Alpine wiring harness - amp (look for built-in crossovers) - component or coax speakers if you've installed stereos before, it shouldn't be too hard. swapping the head unit is probably the easiest part of all of this. that's a start. hope this helps. if you post back with specifics (speaker models, amp, etc.) i can help more. ;) The Alpine I'm looking at is the CDA-9857 (I have the same head unit with Inifinity Reference components in my Xterra and I really like it) or the CDA-9856 (same unit, no remote). MB Quarts would be DKD 110 4" coaxials for the dash (I was told they are the only size that will fit). And MB Quart PCE213 5 1/4" components for the doors. I was also thinking of adding rear speakers using the PNP kit from ebay, but I don't know how well those speakers really function. As far as adding an amp, I have no problem doing that, I'm just not familiar with them. Any recommendations on brand and installation? Thanks so much for all the information, it's been a great help!!!

I've got an '04 that I'm looking to replace the stereo in (for obvious reasons). Right now it has the Becker head unit, no amp, with dash speakers only. I want to put an Alpine ipod ready deck in with MB Quarts in the dash and doors, plus something in the rear. Anyone have any thoughts on that as well as degree of difficulty involved? I've done stereo installations on every other car I've owned but from what I've been hearing, this one seems particularly challenging and there's only one installer in the area and he didn't seem too familiar with Porsches. I've seen a lot of info on this board about replacing and/or adding speakers but nothing really about replacing the stock stereo itself. Any help would be appreciated!!