Porsche 991 Musicar Tweeter Upgrades – Dynadio Esotec MD 102

I love car mods. And I especially love car stereo mods. My car came with the Burmester Stereo option (a step up from the Bose which itself is a step up from the factory offering). Overall I have been very happy with the Burmester’s performance. However, having pulled out various components I knew there was some room for improvement. When Musicar began offering their custom tweeter upgrade – built on a Dynaudio Esotech MD 102 platform – I knew I had to try it.

The speakers and custom mounting bracket are first class quality. Installation is straightforward and, with the exception of one tricky clip, quite painless. The MD 102’s are definitive upgrade over the Burmester ribbon tweeters. Vastly improved sound fill, elimination of the piercing harshness that plagued the ribbon tweeters at high volumes and, overall, a higher level of detail. Don’t get me wrong- the Burmester tweeters are excellent. But the Dynaudio tweeters are exceptional.

Check out my install video with some additional thoughts & testing:

Everyone universally agrees that this upgrade is a “necessity” for those with factory or Bose stereos. But I’d recommend it as a solid upgrade to anyone with a Burmester system as well (worst case it’s easily reversible). I think I mentioned in my previous 6-month review that the Burmester didn’t give me the tingles. Well I got some now. Thanks Nick & Musicar!

All that being said, part of me now feels like a shark that’s smelled blood. I’m shopping around for possible subwoofer and amplifier upgrades. Sigh. I think it would be fun to be able to listen to all the stereos I’ve tweaked with over the years. I’m sure I remember some being much better than they really were.

The Lego Millennium Falcon (The Big One… Finally).

I truly hate to be the bearer of bad puns but… My ship has come in!

That’s right kids! 7541 pieces of Lego goodness. 

I have been trying to get my hands on the new Lego Millennium Falcon since they launched in September (I was actually in Disneyland the day the were available for preorder). Long story short: no dice. I kept my feelers out hoping to run across one, and I even had a special place on top of a shelf reserved should I find one. However, as Christmas approached things began to look hopeless.

But then I ran across an ad on KSL. Falcon for sale at cost. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Even though I was half certain I was going to be robbed and beaten I reached out and, thankfully, the deal went down and Christmas was saved (for both the buyer and seller- but I’ll spare you the gory details).

Epilogue: There is now a Lego Millennium sitting happily on top of my shelf. Eventually I will have the courage to start building it with my kids.

The Hughes’ Hues (And Other Bad Bulb Puns) – Philips Hue

I’ve done it! I’ve embraced new technology that someone else didn’t convince me I needed. I wasn’t badgered by an ad, accosted by solicitations or even gently harassed. I just woke up one day and decided that there must be a better way. And there was. This is my story:

I’m really just a guy who didn’t want to put up Christmas lights on my house. They have blown off for two consecutive years. The installers damage our gutters, shingles and often the lights themselves. I  didn’t want to deal with the hassles again. But I didn’t want to be a complete Christmas looser either. I had planned to get some colored bulbs and pop them into my eve lights. But then I remembered that there were some cool wifi lightbulbs that changed color. A quick Google search later and I was pretty sure my adventure would start with a box of Philips Hue Lights.

Installation info: Really straight forward. Plug your bridge (this links with your lights) into your router. Install the bulbs, make sure the power is on, download the Hue app. Link with your bridge. Search for the bulbs (app setup). Sometimes you need to enter in the bulb’s serial number for the Hue app to find it. Then start changing colors!

After the novelty wears off you’ll want to set up some rooms and then you can link bulbs to those rooms. You can adjust bulbs individually or all together. You can also apply filters called ‘scenes” and set up your own color pattern and save it as a scene.

Other features include timers and routines allowing you some basic automation tools. At some point you can start to play with Hue Labs were you’ll discover your lights can do just about anything you want. “Dance for me! Dance!”

So bottom line? I Feel good about my decision to do the absolute minimum to elevate myself above the Christmas grumps like Scrooge and the Grinch. The lights work well and they are a ton of fun to play with. I can’t wait to change the colors to pink for Valentine’s Day, Green on St. Patrick’s Day, Pastel colors for Easter, and any other obnoxious things I can think of 😀

Porsche 991 Steering Column in Leather. Thank you, Nick Murray.

Let me guess? You had standard steering column trim and you felt great about it. But then you watched one of Nick Murray’s YouTube video and found out that you needed a leather steering column to be happy. It happened to me too! I tried to ignore the feelings at first but every time I hopped into my car there was this plastic part staring back at me. I finally bit the bullet, ordered the leather part and installed it.

My experience and the installation process are detailed in the video below. In summary: it took nearly three months to get this thing installed, despite the fact that the actual installation was fairly easy. For the most part I’m happy with the results and I agree with Nick that the leather on the steering column makes a nice visual difference. As with almost everything I buy for my car I can’t say “it was worth it” and sleep well at night.