Audi immersive audio: EVs provide ‘opportunity and challenge’

Electric cars provide “an opportunity and a challenge” for the development of top-end audio systems, according to Audi’s sound and ascoustics engineers.

The in-house team that also leans on suppliers such as Bose, Bang & Olufsen and the recently-added Sonos suggests EVs can lead to better noise reproduction.

That’s because there’s less outside noise heading into the cabin from an engine, something that makes it easier to showcase the frequencies being produced as part of the audio reproduction.

“Electro-mobility is an opportunity and a challenge at the same time,” says the team coordinator within the sound and acoustics department, Tobias Grundl.

“It’s an opportunity because you can now make things audible … that so far were impossible. So, the sound really reaches a new dimension … a new quality inside the cabin.

“This is a huge opportunity we see with electromobility.”

But Grundl cautions of the challenges with insulating the cabin and ensuring the audio from the speakers is the focus.

One big challenge is also ensuring the sound system does not add too much weight to the car.

“With electric vehicles weight affects range, so we’re working on [speaker] magnets made from various other materials,” says Audi sound and acoustics engineer Michael Wisniewski, adding that the entire speaker design was under review.

“All of this is what we can optimise.”

Grundl suggested bass and mid-range frequencies were part of the focus with optimising audio systems for EVs.

One area the feeling of bass could be improved is with ‘shakers’, which look like speakers but emit no sound. They typically sit under the seats to enhance the feeling of the bass by pulsing with it.

Bentley – which like Audi is part of the Volkswagen Group – recently introduced shakers or “active bass tranducers” under the seats of its Flying Spur SUV with the top-end Naim audio system.

Audi is also working on the tech.

“Definitely we’re looking at it,” says Grundl. “If you get that right. If these shakers are really well done, if they can do the job they’re supposed to do then we will use them. We’re working on this.”

Autonomous tech is also playing its role. And the intense focus on “immersive” audio is readying Audi for an era when drivers will have less driving to do and more time to interact with the onboard entertainment.

Audi demonstrated the concept of “immersive in-car entertainment” in 2019 with a concept system set up in an A8 limousine.

The car can use its active air suspension, seat vibrators, ambient lighting and the ventilation system to bring depth to a movie or TV show. Audi has also flagged the idea of using virtual reality (VR) goggles in future, possibly even utilising the movement of the car.

“The car will be your office, your living room, your cinema, your entertainment platform. It will be all of that of top notch quality,” says Grundl.

He says by 2024 or 2025 Audi will have an immersive system in a production car.