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EDN Europe's Editor Graham Prophet posts a selection of comments and insights prompted by the many items of industry news and rumour that cross the editorial desk or are gathered on his frequent travels to interviews, press conferences and events around Europe - and further afield - and somehow never find their way to the magazine or the web site, recovering some of the information otherwise lost in the noise level...

Friday, November 09, 2007

Car audio software package impresses

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I’m generally not a good subject for audio demos. On many occasions I have found myself sitting in audio demonstration suites while some leap forward in – say – amplifier technology assaults my eardrums. Those conducting the demonstrations will enthuse about the massive improvement in the quality of the sound that I’m supposed to be hearing. Often, I find it best to smile and nod. In some of these tests, if I’m honest, I can’t perceive much difference in the “before” and “after” versions. At other times I can say that while I can hear a difference between “A” and “B”, as far as my ears are concerned, either A or B is perfectly acceptable.

So I wasn’t expecting much of a demonstration at the Paris Automotive Electronics Congress by Paris-based company Arkamys. The company has previously worked in the professional pre-production of sound for recorded music and cinema tracks. In the car-audio world it offers a DSP equalisation package that runs in the head-unit of a car stereo, and that enhances the “sound stage” of the reproduced content. The company “tunes” the package’s settings and co-efficients for a given model of car, and the speakers fitted to it (this takes two or three days). Once the package is running in the signal path, it can perform functions such as compensating for the “lateralisation of sounds resulting from the position of the speakers in the bottom of the doors.” This means that the apparent source of the sound is lifted to appear more defined, and right in front of the driver/listener. Localisation of instruments and performers in the sound stage is improved, with benefits in clarity, intelligibility and “spaciousness”. The software can also allow economies in build costs by producing “virtual tweeter” sound from a single wide-rage transducer, and it can process stereo content into true 5.1 sound. Or so the company claims.

From what I wrote in the first paragraph above, you can picture me heading down to the sub-basement car park to sit in Arkamys’ demo Peugeot, thinking sceptical thoughts.

But… for once with an audio demo, I can say, “it works”. The sound of the OEM fitment of the Peugeot didn’t strike me as bad to begin with – but when the software cut in, I have to admit, I did hear the programme more distinctly in front of me, and I could identify a clearer separation of instruments and performers. And the claimed increase in clarity is very apparent.

I can see an immediate benefit to this technology, even if (like me) you don’t care all that much if you can point straight at the lead singer or the bass player (sitting now on the dashboard, just left of the speedometer). In most cars, even the more up-market ones, as speed increases you need to increase volume to combat increased road and wind noise. This keeps the content audible but is tiring over time. I could imagine that the increased clarity and directionality of the sound that has passed through this DSP package would lessen the need for the increased volume and make listening over a long trip more pleasant. As I only experienced it in a conference hotel car park, I’d need to try that thought out for real – but nevertheless, score one for Arkamys: an audio demo I’m impressed with.

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