[extreme_torque]

Ever since I bought my Mazda 3 with Bose Audio here in Australia, my appreciation of a good branded audio system has gone from "I hardly care" to "absolutely essential" in a short span of few months. To me having a good audio system is the most important feature in a car, much more important than a sunroof or powered leather seats etc.

My first brush with a branded car stereo system was in a friend's Lexus CT200h with a 17 speaker Mark Levinson audio in Ireland. It was the first car audio system I heard which could play "Beats For My fan" with true base fidelity. I still remember the first thing he did before he even went to his home in Ireland after driving all the way from Netherlands to get his car, was to come to me first and let me sample the stereo. My current car has a 9 speaker Bose Audio system and is the one and perhaps the only thing that I look forward to when I think about driving my car.

So while binge watching youtube today, I came across the new Cadillac CT6 and then its insane 34 speaker Bose audio system. Apparently GM and Bose go back a long way back and as per Mr Bose you can design a better system for a car than you can for a home **hint: watch the video in the link**. In their own words this is their most advanced audio system to date and it happens to be riding in a car. While Cadillac is not here in Australia, I envy Americans who can simply walk into a Cadillac dealership and sample this thing. I cannot begin to imagine how it would sound like given 9 speaker audio in my budget sedan sounds so good.

Have a look:
http://www.boseadvanced.com/discover

[Altocumulus]

Wow, brilliant. They even have speakers inside the headrests. It is actually insane.

Off-topic : Sharing the same surname 'Bose' , I always wished Dr. Bose was some distant relative of mine who would oneday come and tell me to choose any speaker or sound system. This would have been there for sure

[gkannan]

I wonder why anyone needs 34 speakers in a car. Sounds totally absurd.

[Rudra Sen]

Originally Posted by gkannan

I wonder why anyone needs 34 speakers in a car. Sounds totally absurd.

Not really. It's a standard these days. All the so called luxury cars are designed for totally different audio experience.

For example for S Class - "The Burmester High-End 3D-Surround–Soundsystem provides its unrivalled listening experience by virtue of 24 high-performance speakers and 24 separate amplifier channels with a total output of 1.540 watts."

Check this - http://www.burmester.de/en/automotiv...z/s-class.html

[extreme_torque]

Originally Posted by Altocumulus

Wow, brilliant. They even have speakers inside the headrests. It is actually insane.

Off-topic : Sharing the same surname 'Bose' , I always wished Dr. Bose was some distant relative of mine who would oneday come and tell me to choose any speaker or sound system. This would have been there for sure

There are also speakers in the door sills for all you care! This thing is pretty darn insane. With Panaray, Cadillac have gone all out.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

"I hardly care" to "absolutely essential" in a short span of few months. To me having a good audio system is the most important feature in a car, much more important than a sunroof or powered leather seats etc.

Agree with this. I am not an audiophile of any sort(my handle was meant for something else ) except for being a bass lover. So much that I have lived with two cars having factory audio which actually sucks. But after experiencing the Burmester in the S-Class, I was bowled over by the soundshow it provides, especially at the rear. Due to the nature of my job, I used to spend two hours in its backseat for a few days and believe me, that was the best sound experience overall till date for me. Though I cant technically describe it, the sound is very well balanced and one cant trace down the sound to a single speaker. Now its itching to upgrade the audio in my car because of that, but I bet any upgrade wont come close to such a setup.

[extreme_torque]

Originally Posted by gkannan

I wonder why anyone one need 34 speakers in a car. Sounds totally absurd.

Its not like they had 34 in mind when they started. It happened along they way as they designed the system. While it may sound like an exercise in excess but trust me once you have lived long enough with such a system in your car, you CANNOT go back.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by gkannan

I wonder why anyone needs 34 speakers in a car. Sounds totally absurd.

It's a marketing tool and an important differentiator. If you compare models in the same segment, cars are getting increasingly similar in terms of space, features, power etc.

The styling and features like these become major differentiators. To the common man, all cars are the same - such things can tilt the purchase decision.

Lower down the food chain, it's also why Tata invested so much time, effort & $$$ in the Tiago's sound system.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by GTO

It's a marketing tool and an important differentiator.

I feel you've hit the nail right on the head!

The first thing that came to my mind is the race between manufacturers to provide more number of gears in an automatic transmission. 8 speed, 9 speed, 10 speed etc untill some companies had announced recently that enough is enough! There is no use going further and further with the number of gears.

Do i believe a world class audio system is required in cars? Absolutely yes. But will a 34 speaker system bring a world of difference compared to a well tuned 15 - 20 speaker system in such a confined space as in a car? I believe it won't.

By the way, does Bose even make their own car speakers? Read somewhere that their car audio in Audi and the likes were rebranded speakers from other makes.

[gkannan]

I have heard a BOSE OE setup in a luxury car but don't remember the brand.
It was de-iced and reinstalled with an active 4 way setup and sounded way way better.
I saw the Bose drivers used in the car and they were flimsy paper cone drivers.

[navin]

Originally Posted by gkannan

I wonder why anyone needs 34 speakers in a car. Sounds totally absurd.

Firstly when they talk of 34 speakers they count individual tweeters, woofers and midrange speakers as separate drivers.

In the old days putting these many speakers in a car was fraught with risk. Today with advanced DSPs able to control exactly what each driver will reproduce this is not so difficult.

Lastly if you have ever been to a live music show (Rock concert or western classical) you will find yourself surrounded by more speakers than you would think necessary. Each group of speakers is designed to perform a separate function from stage monitors, to the front stage to bass bins to sound reinforcement and so on.

In the late 70s and early 80s trying to emulate Phil Spector's "Wall of sound" philosophy I hooked up 10 pairs of speakers (if I were to compute each driver as separate there might have been about 52-56 individual drivers) driven by 20 channels of amplification (10 stereo amps) and this was just in my bedroom. The results were not too bad though on occasion I did hear some complaints from the neighbours. And this was way before the advent of DSPs.

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

So while binge watching Youtube today, I came across the new Cadillac CT6 and then its insane 34 speaker Bose audio system.

Bose has been at the forefront of psycho-acoustics and DSP technology. As far back as 1984 they partnered with GM and Delco to engineer car stereo systems that compensated for the car's acoustics. Later Chrysler partnered with JBL and Ford with Infinity (JBL and Infinity were not part of Harman International then). see Post #23 here
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/car-en...tml#post121077

There are some white-papers authored in the early 80s by Dr Amar Bose and his crew in the AES library on the use of DSPs for room correction and specifically for auto-sound.

This system and other systems like this is an evolution of all those years of learning.

Originally Posted by gkannan

I saw the Bose drivers used in the car and they were flimsy paper cone drivers.

I agree. Bose does use some rather ordinary drivers. A cousin of mine bought a pair of Bose 301-SII for $300 in 1984-5. A year or so later my cousin called me and said he is getting no bass but instead he is getting some 'crack-whack' noise. I found that the foam surround of the woofers were gone. Anyway I asked around (there was no internet) and ordered a pair of replacement woofers from a company called A&S sound. While I was at it I figured I might as well get 2 pairs of tweeters (the SII used 2 tweeters for each speaker) as well. Total cost for all 6 drivers was $20. Each woofer cost me $7 and each tweeter $1.50!. I added the cost of the cabinet and the single capacitor they used for a crossover and I don't think the speakers cost more than $50/pair to build.

So my cousin had paid $300 for what was effectively $50 worth of parts at retail costs (Bose's costing would have been half that at best)! The rest is research and marketing and some very nice profits.