Mcintosh Group and Alps Alpine Join Forces in Automotive Luxury Audio Strategy

McIntosh Group Inc. and Alps Alpine have teamed up to deliver transcendent, luxury audio systems to the automotive industry. This announcement also signals that the McIntosh Group is returning to the automotive industry – bringing solutions from McIntosh Labs and Sonus Faber to vehicles. The partnership means that those automotive solutions are delivered by Alps Alpine in select vehicles.

One of the key technology demonstrations in automotive audio at CES 2020 was promoted by Continental and audio specialist Sennheiser. The two German companies presented a "speakerless" audio system for the vehicle interior, which Sennheiser claims is able to generate immersive audio by exciting surfaces inside the vehicle to produce sound. The Continental actuator solution - Ac2ated Sound - reduces weight and space by up to 90% in comparison to conventional systems.

The level of interest in adding a premium audio system as an option at vehicle purchase increased from 2017 to 2018 in both the US and Western Europe. In the new 2018 Premium Audio Report from the Strategy Analytics’ In-Vehicle UX (IVX) team, consumers in the US, France, Germany, Italy, and the UK were surveyed in respect to their interest and willingness to pay for an in-vehicle premium audio system. Bose was the preferred brand, while Sony gets the most recognition among consumers.