“The Polestar 2 is a high-end electric car that represents the bleeding-edge of the automotive industry,” says Lars Carlsson, Dirac General Manager of Automotive Audio. “Polestar integrates one of the industry’s most advanced digital solutions – Dirac Unison active acoustic treatment – with a Harman Kardon audio system to deliver an in-car audio experience as exceptional as its driving performance.”
Polestar, Harman, and Dirac had their work cut out for them, as vehicle cabins are among the most acoustically-challenged environments due to the countless reflective surfaces, various seating locations and multiple speakers placed at differing distances from each occupant. These factors introduce significant audio issues, regardless of the speaker hardware, such as ringing, unclear bass, unequal sound quality across seats, and interferences between speakers.
By integrating Dirac Unison with the Harman Kardon system, the Polestar 2 eliminates these acoustical imperfections and provides drivers and passengers alike with a superior aural environment. Leveraging core principles across the fields of active noise control, sound field synthesis and room correction, Dirac Unison uses precise measurements to create an active acoustic treatment of the listening space.
Furthermore, the pioneering solution not only optimizes each speaker’s individual impulse and frequency response, it actually co-optimizes the impulse and frequency responses of all speakers within the entire sound system. This unique approach enables new degrees of precision while minimizing in-seat and between-seat sound quality variations.
Dirac Unison also features a completely new kind of bass management that automatically adapts to the cabin and speakers. By co-optimizing up to a certain frequency, sound systems can deliver a bass response that is more unified and tighter than previously thought possible in a vehicle.
Additionally, as the Swedish company states, Dirac Unison, which is integrated into Dirac’s proprietary automotive tuning tool, enables a completely new way of tuning automotive sound systems with unprecedented speed and quality-consistency across all individual cars within the model. Historically, automotive audio tuning has been a time-consuming and tedious process – to ensure that all vehicles within a model deliver consistent sound quality and aural experience. However, with Dirac Unison and the company’s proprietary tuning tool, automotive engineers can produce premium sound without sacrificing time and labor hours.
“Automotive manufacturers are increasingly relying on premium digital audio as a way to elevate their brand and competitively differentiate vehicles – and this will only become more true as cars become fully-autonomous,” continued Carlsson. “It is sophisticated digital audio that will allow the autonomous vehicle cabin to transform into a mobile home theater, conference room, and entertainment center – each of which is inherently reliant on exceptional sound quality.”
In addition to the Polestar 2, Dirac solutions have been leveraged by various Volvo models, including the XC90, which received the Best Audio System award at the 2016 Car Tech Awards. Since 2006, Dirac has worked with leading manufacturers such as BMW, Bentley, and Rolls Royce to elevate these world’s finest automotive audio systems to entirely new levels of performance and sophistication.
www.dirac.com
