dension gw 500s bt in porsche 997

Whats the first thing you do when you buy a new car? Upgrade the stereo to support A2DP phones of course

The PCM 2.1 system found in my car only supports two ways of playing your own music, using a cd or a fm transmitter. Neither of thos really speaks to me as a cd feels pretty limited and fm transmitter requires a plugin to my phone and the sound quality is subpar, especially when transmitting heavy bass.

A bit of googling told me that a Dension or & mObridge would probably be to my liking, most people seemed to prefer the Dension since they have just released a new version, the Gateway 500s Bluetooth (remember to pick the second version if you want to keep your cd changer). This unit adds music over bluetooth, usb, iphone connector or aux, this means that any music player, phone, laptop computer or usb drive with music on it can play through the cars speakers. What I really wanted was to play music from spotify on my phone through the car speakers, it wasn’t easy to find information about wether it would be able to do this, luckily it does and I couldn’t be happier. The music starts as soon as I hop in my car and spotify is active on my phone (on the first screen of the iphone multitask tray), I really love not having to touch the phone or the car stereo, it just works as if I had started the car in FM or CD mode. The sound quality is really good but it seems to skip 0.5sec once or twice after starting the car, but this could be an issue with spotify.

I opted to do the installation myself with help from my father who’s a car mechanic, his expertise wasn’t really necessary for completing the install but it really helped being two while pulling out the original stereo without scratching the interior. We decided to install ut behind the original stereo because there’s a lot of space, the bluetooth signal would be optimal and it would be easy to install the usb/aux/ipod dock. I used the following guide to get a hang of the process: http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/997-turbo-gt2/283799-dension-500s-bt-install.html but I found it to be easier to depress the metal clips on the stereo with a small screwdriver instead of turning the black discs exactly 90 degrees. I also opted to not remove the glove compartment lights as in the guide, but to instead drill tiny holes into the fotwell cover and screw it through there (the fussy material will cover the holes if you ever choose to remove the system).

The fiber loop itself was fairly easy to figure out and my unit worked with the dension suggested switch settings, the only hard part was to connect the short orignal stereo cables and putting the stereo back without bending the extra fibre cables, bending them to the breaking point is probably not a good idea so be careful.

If you’re like me and just want the bluetooth audio to work, keep in mind that you have to shut the car ignition of and on again (not just restart the pcm) for the settings to take effect. Navigating the menues felt weird to me since I had only used the FM radio before installing the unit but they are supposed to be operated in the same fashion as the CD player.

All in all, I couldn’t be happier, it’s not much money to spend for such a great upgrade to an already amazing car.