Car Surround

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It has been forever since people have been “pimping” out their car sound systems going all the way back when people added AM/FM radios to their automotives – changing over to cassettes and now CD’s, DVD’s and MP3’s.

It must have been mind-blowing when stereo started to take over from the flat monophonic standard of the day. I can only imagine that it must have been scary and exciting at the same time – giving you tingles down the spine. All of a sudden you could close your eyes and imagine your favourite band jamming in front of you over a stereo soundfield with the bass on the left, guitars on the right and the singer in the middle. Stereo does seem realistic – almost as you were right at the concert – the only difference being the lack of ambient information that surrounds you at the real thing. Thats where additional speakers will help you out. I think I felt the same tingles when first in a cinema with THX touching me in more ways than simple audio should Audio pornography!

Come to think about it – a car is nearly the perfect place for surround sound. You are constantly on the same spot – the sweetspot if you will. Its hard to find a car nowadays that doesn’t have a CD/DVD player – most having a processing engine and 4 amps with 4 speakers already situated in the corners of your listening area. Plus – since being relatively thin construction – you don’t have to think about basstraps – the bass travels safely through, limiting standing waves and extending bass response. So you have most components right there and to demonstrate that we are by far not the first people to think so – way back in the 8-track era, several manufacturers produced in-car Quad-8 players. Might just be time for a quad revival?!

First you’d need to figure out if you’d like to stay with the quad setup or go all out for the 5.1 setup (highly recommended as you would hear everything as the artist intended) and add the centre plus the point 1 – LFE channel. Those would need 2 extra amps and a player that supports sending out 6 different channels of information. With these extra channels you’d need to figure out their placement. Would you go for the sub in the trunk/boot option or will you put it somewhere inside the salon. If you put it in the boot – you can fit a far larger sub than anywhere else in the car, however lose some precious real-estate for your tents, sleeping bags or the dog. The other area could be the top panel of the rear window – but a sub there couldnt really be any bigger than 8 inces as it would be in the way of your vision – therefore illegal.

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It is a compromise either way. And then there is the centre channel which should have its own enclosure and placed somewhere in the middle of your dashboard. Yeah – not the easiest of challenges…you can get a bit of help from the following link…or you could get a surround system ready made with your next car – if your next car is a BMW, Mercedes Benz or a Porsche make sure to ask for a surround sound system as an extra.

So what can you listen?

SQ and QS are simple matrixed encodings, which were used on many quadraphonic LPs in the 1970s. In some cases, the CD releases of these recordings kept the surround information intact ready to play back on your surround enabled system

Compresed surround sound using either DTS, AC3 has been available in various consumer products for years so are the the more obvious choice. It works exactly the same as it would in your living room watching a film, playing games or listening to high fidelity surround music.

There are also a number of schemes for simulating surround sound from a two-channel recording. The Hafler circuit (feeding the back speakers with the difference between the front speakers) or “passive pseudo quad” as its also known as can be quite realistic. Many surround amps also use delays or reverbs to synthesise a rear channel.

Lately theres a new player in the car surround game in the face of DTS Neural Surround. They are taking original 5.1 recording and digitally encoding it till it becomes watermarked 2 channel stereo. Being perfect for playback on ipods, or your car stereo. If it is then played through a Neural decoder – you’ll end up with the same 5.1 mix. They are currently only available in the US where around 70 stations already broadcast in DTS Neural Surround. I’ve not had a chance to experience it to give my verdict but I think 70 stations cant be wrong!

PS! If you have DTS Neural Surround or any other surround system in your car – feel free to give us your thoughts.