In-vehicle audio has come a long way from the days when folks – well, young men mainly – would weigh down the back half of their cars with heavy and cumbersome speakers.
Pumping out enough wattage to power a pub gig, these speakers would ensure the car could shake and rattle as it rolled.
It was as much about cranking Public Enemy or Yngwie Malmsteen at full tilt as it was about letting everyone else on the road know who had the biggest system.
It was a blast to sit in such a vehicle for a short period and experience the rib-rattling audio boom, but one grows up.
In 2025 audio in vehicles is a key focus from tech companies that want to extended beyond home and business.
At the top end are Dirac and Denon, both members of the Audio Foundry, a group that “empowers members to bring disruptive ideas to life in automotive audio and acoustics”.
Dirac works with the likes of Rolls Royce, Bentley, BMW, Volvo and Polestar, and at CES 2025 earlier this month it teamed with Denon to showcase audio using a Tesla Model Y as the platform.
In its pitch to auto manufacturers, Dirac says that a premium sound system composed of 20 channels across 23 speakers requires “at least two months of professional tuning with an experienced engineer to achieve the desired sound”, but that its innovations meant “a better result with enhanced sound performance can be achieved in 3-7 days”.
“Dirac provides you with tools, frameworks, and algorithms for professional audio development and audio optimisation. Supporting all levels of sound systems, our solutions enable carmakers to achieve perfected sound faster, more easily, and more consistently across vehicle models.”
For car makers Dirac says this means vehicles get to market faster and at a lower cost, have a consistent signature sound across portfolios, and that there is limited need for prototypes.
Ecoustics checked out the prototype sound system, “which combined some of the stock Tesla speakers and amplification with custom speaker drivers and Dirac surround sound processing to create an impressive and fully immersive sonic experience”, in Las Vegas.
The site said the system can be integrated with Denon’s Adaptive Acoustic Technology (AAT), thus allowing each passenger to set their own audio preferences.
The review said the Dirac-Denon-Tesla sound system “offered cabin-filling immersive surround sound, thanks to Dirac’s spatial surround processing and custom transducers from Tymphany as well as Sonified by Trèves exciters in the headrests and headliner to enhance the height and spatiality of the image”.
The bottom end was “full without being boomy or overbearing. Details in the music were clear and articulate. Compared to the basic ‘immersive sound’ effect in the stock Tesla audio system, the Denon/Dirac immersive effect offered a huge improvement in clarity”.
“Rather than demonstrate Dolby Atmos-encoded music tracks, the Dirac/Denon team chose to highlight Dirac’s immersive surround upconversion technology, which creates spatial sound from standard two-channel (stereo) music tracks. The development team said the system can also easily accommodate Dolby Atmos decoding for any automotive clients who choose to deploy their technology.”