Automotive News - February 11, 2008 - (Page 33) FEBRUARY 11, 2008 • 33 30 25 187 8 21 24 100 5 JOE WILSSENS PHOTOS John Cameron, in foreground, a sound system technician at Alpine Electronics of America, prepares an equipment rack that will allow acoustic engineer Jay Krusac to record in-vehicle sound measurements in a special chamber at the company’s testing center in suburban Detroit. In-car audio gains studio quality Leslie J. Allen lallen@crain.com When it comes to in-car audio, as the aftermarket goes, so go the automakers. If that adage holds up, look for automakers to start pumping up their sound systems with technologies that simulate a live studio or concert experience. A trip to the Alpine Electronics of America testing facility in suburban Detroit offers a glimpse of the future. In one room, Alpine has set up what looks like a combination home theater and living room. Warm, subtle lighting plays on comfortable big chairs amid ideal listening conditions. The next room is a laboratory with cars parked in it. There, Alpine engineers are attempting to replicate those perfect listening conditions in a not-soperfect environment. “The car environment is very challenging for accurate sound,” says Jeff Vogel, Alpine’s senior manager for marketing and business development. Besides competition from wind and road noise, audio systems must deal with echoes from broad expanses of glass. music is compressed, says Ted Cardenas, director of product planning for the mobile entertainment business group at Pioneer. “If you’re listening to something every day, you don’t realize what’s missing until you experience the difference,” he says. The convenience of carrying one’s whole music collection in a small device is undeniable, he says, but that convenience comes at a price. “Unfortunately, we’ve taken a step back in terms of the sound quality,” he says. Pioneer recognized that there is a generation of young people out there who do not listen to music on CDs at all, says Chris Kehring, a brand manager at Pioneer. “They’ve just lived with compressed audio their whole life,” he says. Evaluation center supervisor Jeff Markham prepares to generate electromagnetic fields as part of Alpine Electronics’ effort to replicate studio or concert-hall sound inside vehicles. SO, YOU’RE A NUMBERS GUY? 30 years of automotive marketing that sells 25 years management continuity 187 dealers and dealer groups 8 manufacturers - Tier II 21 franchises - Tier III 24-hour campaign turnaround 100 percent results driven 5 minutes to realize you’ve made a great business decision Low-cost premium sound SRS Labs Inc. says that by using software to process the audio signal, it can replicate a premium sound experience in an inexpensive vehicle. The optional premium sixdisc CD changer on the Subaru Impreza comes with SRS Circle Surround sound technology. At last month’s International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, SRS demonstrated how it can create an immersive audio experience in a Subaru that sells for less than $21,000 fully equipped. The surround sound processing “elevates the sound stage” so that regardless of speaker placement, the sound appears to come from high in the vehicle. It also produces deeper bass. Premium stereo normally requires extra speakers, more powerful amplifiers and other hardware that can add upwards of $2,000 to the price of a vehicle, according to Edmunds.com. SRS uses software rather than hardware to create better sound. “So the cost is minimal,” says Tim Westman, SRS Labs account executive. “It brings that premium sound to the mainstream.” c the sense of overall sounds and the positioning of the instruments and singers. STEVE WITT Alpine Electronics of America “ We’re trying to create the sound stage Sound filters In the 2007 model year Alpine introduced Imprint, a technology that aims to replicate the studio experience. It does so by taking hundreds of measurements of a car’s acoustical environment and using digital signal processing to identify anything that affects sound, such as a vehicle’s carpeting and seating material or the location of speakers. It then applies digital “filters” unique to each model. That means one trim level would generate a different set of equalization filters than another. Imprint is available only in the aftermarket, but Steve Witt, Alpine’s vice president of marketing and product planning, says the technology could hit the original-equipment market by the 2010 model year. ” “We’re trying to create the sound stage … the sense of space, sense of overall sounds and the positioning of the instruments and singers,” Witt says. “Can we actually overcome the challenges in the car and create a musical experience in the car that is accurate to the way the artist wanted us to hear?” Alpine developed Imprint in partnership with Audyssey Laboratories, founded by Tomlinson Holman, the inventor of the THX sound system. At its root is Audyssey’s MultEQ distortion-reducing home theater technology. As compact discs slowly give way to compressed audio from iPods and other digital music players, audio specialists are looking for ways to get back the sound quality offered by CDs. Quality booster Last month, Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. introduced a feature called Advanced Sound Retriever on about a dozen of its car stereos. The system analyzes sound waves from compressed audio files and recreates and restores the sound to near-CD quality. Most people don’t realize how much sound fidelity degrades when grahamadv.com The numbers don’t lie. Call Graham today. 800.776.7336 http://grahamadv.com http://Edmunds.com http://grahamadv.com
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