CES 2024 Automotive Audio (The Good News)

The Consumer Electronics Show has become a showcase of products of the future, and this year’s content was stronger than ever. The automotive sector in the West Hall was filled beyond capacity, with Mobility spilling into the North Hall. Roger Shively reports on how hardware-dependent development is shifting to software. How Artificial Intelligence has found a practical role. How it all changes car audio systems.

At CES 2024, BlackBerry announced the launch of QNX Sound, an innovative development platform that decouples audio and acoustics software from the vehicle hardware to give audio designers and engineers complete creative freedom to deliver new and exciting in-vehicle sound experiences. The new BlackBerry QNX Sound platform is expanded with Dirac's full suite of software optimization tools.

Over the course of three days and two nights, June 8–10, the Audio Engineering Society’s 2022 International Automotive Audio Conference in Dearborn, MI, served as a great event for everyone in the automotive audio community to reconnect. The event also featured a full track of sessions promoted by the AES Audio Product Education Institute (APEI). This report, written by Roger Shively, the AES Conference Chair, reviews the most important presentations topics discussed and the exciting demonstrations by companies such as Dolby, Fraunhofer, Dirac, Tymphany, and DSP Concepts, among many others.