Swedish digital audio pioneer Dirac Research today announced it will demonstrate at CES 2019 how the digital audio solutions it has pioneered for mobile, home theater and AR/VR applications can, and will, apply to the automotive sound system of the future at Westgate Suite #630.
Dirac’s current suite of premium automotive audio solutions are used by leading manufacturers such as BYD, Bentley, Rolls Royce, BMW, Volvo – whose XC90 received the Best Audio System award at the annual Car Tech Awards – among many others.
Though today a leader in digital audio across nearly all product categories, Dirac’s origins are the automotive industry; founded in 2001, Dirac is one of the world’s first companies to apply highly-sophisticated digital audio technologies to the vehicle cabin to elevate the in-car listening experience.
“The future of automotive audio will result from leveraging audio breakthroughs in home theater acoustical room correction and subwoofer management, mobile soundstage widening, small speaker bass optimization, 3D audio, and more – categories where in which we currently lead the market,” stated Lars Carlsson, Dirac General Manager of Automotive.
“Each of these solutions, integrated properly, will play a critical role in defining a new automotive audio standard for the era of the autonomous vehicle,” Carlsson stressed. “How they can integrate to do this is what we will be discussing at CES 2019.”
In short, in the near future, autonomous vehicles will also be used as mobile home theaters, entertainment centers, and conference rooms – all of which are reliant on exceptional and intelligent audio.
“It is digital audio that will allow passengers seated around a central table to all hear the same high-quality audio, regardless of their distance to the speaker array; it will allow parents in the front seats to listen to the news while children in the rear to play games, with digitally-separated sound fields; and it will provide commuters a virtual reality-like meeting experience, with voices of conference participants emanating from specific directions, simulating a real-world meeting around a table. This is the future, yet the foundational elements of the aural experience already exist today.”
Dirac’s current suite of premium digital audio solutions includes Dirac Live and Dirac Live Bass Management, for home theater acoustical room correction and subwoofer management; Dirac Panorama Sound, for mobile soundstage widening; Dirac Bass, for small speaker bass optimization; and Dirac 3D Audio, for immersive 3D audio applications – amongst many others. These solutions are in addition to an existing automotive product portfolio that includes Dirac Unison, Dirac Virtual Center, and Dirac Live – a home theater-automotive crossover solution that already exemplifies this emerging paradigm.
“The next generation of automotive design is certain to be our industry’s most exciting yet – as we move from performance engineering to experiential engineering,” Carlsson concluded. “Dirac looks forward to improving vehicle audio and passenger acoustic comfort worldwide, and we see the coming changes to vehicles as both an opportunity and a challenge we gladly accept. As we continue to work with our valued partners and vehicle manufacturers on new audio solutions and capabilities, Dirac’s solutions will increasingly become central to creating a new reference standard for automotive audio that is key for the future.”
At CES 2019, Dirac will demo its pioneering mobile, home theater, and 3D audio digital sound solutions in its Westgate Suite #630, and will highlight how they can integrate to create the acoustic cabins of future autonomous vehicles.
Dirac’s automotive audio solutions will also be available for demo at Harman’s Las Vegas exhibition event. Those attending will be able to experience the performance upgrade achieved through the integration of Dirac digital audio.
To arrange for a meeting, email [email protected]. For hi-res photography, click here.
