Just 33 years after revolutionizing the car-audio listening experience with its Symphony Sound System in the 1983 Eldorado and Seville, Bose has teamed with Cadillac to advance the road-jamming art to the next level in the 2016 CT6. That first system installed speakers in four locations, each with its own amplifier and interconnected signal processing electronics. The new Panaray system boasts 34 speakers and four amps connected by a MOST data network plus low- and high-speed local area networks. But it’s not the hardware that earns Bose space here; it’s the technical innovation.
Let’s start with the distributed bass. Giant woofers are impractical in cars. They’re bulky, and they risk vibrating the trim. Much of Panaray’s rumble comes from two 8.2-liter acoustic wave enclosures mounted under the driver and passenger front seat carpet. Each features its own amp and four 2.75-inch speakers mounted in back-to-back pairs in magnesium housings so that their mechanical vibrations cancel. Little grooves around the outer edges of the speaker cones prevent distortion at the extremes of these cones’ large excursions. A 10-inch subwoofer and amp reside on the rear package shelf, and four 4-inch speakers in the doors complete the seven-channel bass contribution that also handles active powertrain-noise cancellation. (Each door speaker has a sealed enclosure to prevent sound energy from rattling things in the door.)
The other real acoustic magic comes from a pair of 2-inch UltraNearfield front headrest speakers. Think of these like a head-up display for sound. Just as projecting two images slightly offset on the windshield makes it look like one image is hovering out at the end of the hood, by building in tiny delays in the sound hitting each ear, Bose can virtually place certain instruments or voices anywhere in the car.
Think of these like a head-up display for sound, placing certain instruments or voices anywhere in the car.
Those headrest speakers have a lot of help in Cadillac’s $3,700 Panaray setup, but they work even more impressive magic in Bose’s new Small Vehicle Series system aimed at economy cars. Paired only with two 6.5-inch front-door speakers (claimed to be the lowest-frequency, loudest speakers of their size) and two A-pillar tweeters, this budget system provides unbelievable spacial separation of sounds with amazing clarity at high volume. It hits production in 2017 in an unannounced car, hopefully at a Bose-recommended price premium of around 2 percent of the car’s base MSRP—$300 on a $15,000 car—a sound bargain.
Another trick application Bose is working on for those miraculous headrests is called N-EAR—non-entertainment audio rendering—for enhanced safety and awareness of navigation prompts, safety warnings, phone conversations, and other non-music sound. Imagine if the nav’s “Prepare to turn left” prompt seemed to come from ahead of the left A-pillar and its “Now turn left” prompt sounded as if it were even with your left ear. An emergency braking warning could emanate from wherever the potential threat lies. Research is ongoing, but Bose believes that placing sounds where attention needs to be directed will shorten reaction times, reducing accidents or their severity. User adjustability will also allow drivers to compensate for reduced hearing capacity in one ear.
Sure, headrest speakers first appeared on the Pontiac Fiero and early Miatas, but those non-Bose setups lacked directional signal processing. Bose is now supplying the Miata (and Fiat 124) with a system that includes its magic headrest speakers and even a custom bass enclosure under the passenger footwell. The system knows whether the top is up or down and alters the equalization profile and output of every speaker to account for the sound-absorptive cloth top.
Lots of branded car audio systems are available, but none can throw voices quite like Bose.
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