High-quality automotive audio systems: are they worth the money?

As luxury vehicle manufacturers learn more and more about new technologies and features to move their vehicles, we have seen an increase in branded high quality audio systems. You are probably familiar with some of them at least: Mark Levinson and Lexus, Meridian and Land Rover, Naim and Bentley, Burmester with Mercedes and Porsche, and now, with the announcement of the very beautiful 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee last week, we’re seeing McIntosh launch an automotive partnership once again.

Prior to his partnership with Jeep, McIntosh worked directly with Harley-Davidson, Subaru and Ford on branded audio systems; the latter is exclusive to the Ford GT 2005-2006. It has also offered state-of-the-art automotive audio systems for a while, and has existed as a company since 1949.

The Jeep Grand Cherokee system is called the MX950, due to its 950 watts of 17-channel output. It uses 19 McIntosh-designed speakers at 12 locations throughout the cabin. Considering Woodstock with McIntosh amplifiers and the Grateful Dead’s sound wall, the company definitely knows how to provide an immersive experience.

When a company designs audio components for home use, items like size, weight and cost are often less of a concern than performance, accuracy and aesthetics. In a state-of-the-art home audio setup, you can have amplifiers that weigh 100 pounds per channel and speakers that weigh three times as much. In a vehicle, where weight affects everything from overall performance to fuel economy, it won’t fly, so audio companies need to be creative.

For McIntosh, this involves taking advantage of some patents he has for environmental equalization in home theater equipment, which digitally compensates for the design of a room (or cabin of a vehicle) and its LD / HP speakers (low distortion, High power). These technologies are combined with the company’s Class A / B amplifier designs to create a system that looks and sounds like the iconic glass-faced, blue-glowing device that made McIntosh famous.

Other brands, like Britain’s Naim, have taken a similar approach in their design processes, but with some changes. Naim systems for Bentley cars go through a multi-stage design process. First, Naim takes measurements from the Bentley cabin and executes them using a proprietary algorithm to obtain a starting point for speaker placement and system design. Then he works with his sister company, French speaker maker Focal, to specify the ideal drivers for each application – a convertible will have different needs than an SUV, for example.

Naim then adjusts things on its amplifiers – Class D on its vehicle systems and on its Mu-So wireless speaker, that we reviewed earlier – to measure the distortion characteristics as accurately as possible. From there, Naim engineers work from these designs until they come up with something that not only sounds nice to the ear, but that shows the characteristics of a Naim system – sacrificing some of the main figures as total harmonic distortion (THD) for something nice .

The story is similar with Burmester, a German company that started in automotive systems designing the Bugatti Veyron sound in 2005. It partnered with Porsche in 2009 and Mercedes-Benz in 2013. Its engineers work with Porsche and Mercedes from the early stages of vehicle design – years before its public debut – to optimize things like speaker placement and integration with its electrical system. This was the case with the new S-Class, where Burmester worked to integrate drivers into the vehicle’s front seats. These units provide physical feedback to the listener, adding another layer to the experience – something that Mercedes-Benz calls the 4D configuration.

Experience is the keyword here too. To make someone pay up to $ 10,000 in addition to the asking price of an already expensive vehicle, an audio company must provide something more than a pleasant sound. The Fender audio system in a Volkswagen sounds great, but it doesn’t offer a unique experience. These state-of-the-art audio systems are trying to involve you in your music and, speaking from experience – like a home hi-fi nerd – they are very successful.

“We understand that customers don’t just want great sound,” said Charlie Randall, president of McIntosh Lab, in a statement. “They want to have a complete sensory experience. Which is why it was so important to leave no stone unturned to deliver a true McIntosh entertainment system for the Jeep Grand Cherokee L. We are excited to bring our brand to a whole new group of people. who may never have tried McIntosh before. “

The last part about bringing customers into the group is also an interesting aspect of the branded audio trend. Getting someone who doesn’t know audio at home before to sit down, listen to systems and spend all kinds of money is understandably a big increase. But getting someone interested in your brand’s home audio offerings, if that person has already experienced it in their cars, makes more sense. It’s a conversion rate that companies can’t really quantify, but they all seem to think it’s a real thing.

Like the audio industry in general, the world of branded automotive audio can be surprisingly complex and subtle. Sometimes, it is difficult to justify with regard to price. $ 300,000 is a lot for a pleasantly optional Bentley Continental GT, but Naim’s flagship home amplifier – the Statement – costs $ 100,000 and that doesn’t include speakers, power supplies, cables and so on.

Some people are likely to enter the new Jeep Grand Cherokee L Summit, turn on the McIntosh MX950 and never really think of it as anything more than a means of listening to the radio. Others will find excuses to take long trips to nowhere and raise their favorite music to ear bleeding levels, simply to revel in the wealth. What are you?