News on the street is that China is trying to one-up the world of car audio by putting 47 speakers in the Nio ES9 SUV. Wait, what?
Matt wrote a Morning Dump that was about the state of the Chinese auto industry, but had a passing mention of the ES9 and its speakers. Liyan Zhu:
Can we talk about how you even do a 47-speaker sound system?
I had the same question. Nio says the car has a “NIO LYRA 9.2.4.8 Sound System The 47-speaker system is built on a native 9.2.4.8 layout, including 9 surround units, 2 subwoofers, 4 overhead speakers, and 8 headrest speakers.” That’s 23 speakers, and the graphic doesn’t really illustrate where all 47 speakers are. I suppose the answer is that the speakers are everywhere. If one of these speakers blows, will you even notice?
Jason wrote about Febreeze’s new cabin air filters. Anonymous Person:
As George Carlin famously said, “Take two things that haven’t been put together before, put them together, and some schmuck will buy ’em!”
Or as Dave Attell puts it:
“I hate when you go over to someone’s house and they’ve got that ‘Glade air freshener’ smell. Who are you fooling? I know you did something smelly! And it happened right before I got there.What, did the doorbell ring and you sh*t your pants? What happened? You have a scary doorbell!
Or if you go into, like, a public restroom and thеy have that lemony Pine-Sol smеll in there. ‘Ooh! Is there a lemonade stand in here somewhere? I didn’t know you could make lemonade with corn niblets! What’s going on down there?’ It always smells like lemons and a$$holes!
Now, I know that sounds like the title of the next Harry Potter book, but it’s not! ’cause two smells together just reek!
Even your most favorite smells, like cotton candy. I love it! And Scotch whiskey, yum-a-dum-dum! But cotton candy and Scotch, that’s a weird funk. It’s like, ‘Oh, man! Did someone just f*ck a clown in here? I mean, really! Was there some clown-f*cking in here tonight?’“
The Bishop wrote about some big bubble Pontiacs. Tony Sestito has a fun story:
Oh, I’ve been waiting for this one!
These (and the more attractive Monte SS Aerocoupe) were squarely on my radar when I became of driving age in the late 90’s. I knew about the Monte first, as a good friend who owned a Monte SS clone clued me in on those, but I later found out that Pontiac had their own flavor of these, and set out to find one, because I am that kind of weirdo.
Coincidentally, my dad and I stumbled upon one on the side of the road for sale. We stopped to look at it, soaking all the weirdness in. It had been modified, with a detachable Grant steering wheel and a “built” Chevy 350. It was slightly scruffy inside and out, and they wanted $5500 in 1998 money for it (roughly $11k now), so we got back in the car and left. It sat there for a couple of years before someone bought it.
Later in the early 00’s, I was working as a parts slinger at a local auto parts store, and a coworker had an aunt that had one sitting in her backyard that she wanted to sell. I again offered to buy it, but she “knew what she had” and wanted some absurd price for it, so I passed yet again. And it needed a rear window, which were unobtanium, even back then. And no, it’s not the same rear window as the Aerocoupe.
Shortly after, I bought a 1979 Trans Am instead, which I still have. That also sorta has a bubble of a back window. Same vibes, especially since mine was silver-on-red, but a better car you can actually get parts for.
It’s wild to me that GM even let these things out the door, and even crazier that they basically did nothing performance-wise to them at all. Such a weird footnote in Pontiac’s storied history.
In other news, Jason’s Reliant is for sale again! You’re enablers, like StillNotATony here:
Hey Mercedes, is Sheryl still looking for a car to impress people with?
Have a great evening, everyone!
Top graphic image: Nio
Can someone with the headrest speakers chime in on how that goes. I have this crazy idea that it will act sort of like a headphone and reduce spatial awareness. Am I being old man or does it have that effect?
This amount of speakers makes everything expensive to replace and I’d be leery with kids or dogs. I also like to take the passenger headrest off, so my daughter can see better out the front in her car seat when we drive. I think I couldn’t easily do that in this scenario.
I was on a plane that had them. I was excited but after a bit it felt like a gimmick and I put on headphones. Plus–at least this system–you had to keep your head perfectly centered and still or you couldn’t hear anything. Turns out I move my head around a lot more than I thought. Maybe it doesn’t matter as much in cars where you are hopefully not trying to follow dialogue in a movie.
I know it’s marketed as everyone can listen to their own music at once. I can see the usefulness if someone wants to sleep but aside from that it sounds like the next evolution in our misguided (to me at least) quest to eliminate shared experiences from our lives.
We play a lot of kids’ music in the car that gets switched off as soon as the kids are dropped off at school. Still, we quote lyrics out of context and have inside jokes based on these songs. As annoying as they may be, I’d never want to give them up.
I agree with this take 100%. My 3-year-old demands that we listen to the Charlie Brown Christmas album at all times in my car. So we roll around town to the jazz styling of Vince Guraldi. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
If one of these speakers blows, will you even notice?
You could take out a dozen and you’d still have 31 more than you need.
What do all of those speakers weigh, with those magnets? And people complain about weight gain in new cars.
Irrational speaker exuberance.
That many drivers in that tight a space is a time domain and phase relationship torture chamber.
The comb filtering might convince an atheist that Satan exists.
You need just three drivers:
Subwoofer. Only one – dual voice coil. Bass is omnidirectional below about 70-80 Hz. Loose suspension. Huge diameter. Sealed enclosure (ported if you must…) – this is an air pump, basically.
Smaller point-source (coaxial or “whizzer cones”) or full-range left and right channels.
That’s it. Time smears less. DSP can’t fix everything.
Pick well. Use a LOT of power – especially for that sub.
I mean, they’re all air pumps… just that the sub looks like one.
But completely agreed. The amount of…stuff… to even kinda make 47 drivers (that clearly aren’t a line array) work is nuts and introduces its own problems.
Well, maybe not completely. I like isobaric subs for cars. Not so huge diameter, a L O T of power needed, but class D is cheap and fine for subs.
Isobarics are really interesting- speaker design is fantastically complex.
I even like the little Bose subs – compact and covers a broad spread (top end gets a little too localizeable, IMHO). Ported chamber into ported chamber, IIRC.
This shows a lack of knowing how things work.
What sounds better? A Single top of the range Subwoofer or 4 cheap ones? The single sub every time. What sounds better, a set of 2 way speakers or a set of 3 way ones? The 2 way speakers every single time.
Assuming that you have $x to spend, it’s better to get less, but higher quality speakers with higher quality crossovers than more, lower quality, drivers.
I’m not an audiophile like I used to be and have never been an expert on it. But I feel confident that I could make a car sound better with 7 speakers than 47 every single time, given the same budget.
4 smaller ones are likely to have sharper transient response and be more efficient (higher SPL at 1w/1m), but neither of those are everything. Especially with subs. You have lots of Class-D watts. And all of the other frequencies are coming from smaller, faster drivers.
But multiple small drivers can’t overcome physics and tolerances to cleanly act like one big one. It can be mostly good enough if you need to do it for packaging, but I would always default to the fewest speakers possible. Phase gets messy.
The one extra speaker that might make sense is a center speakers between the passenger and driver – this can put your head in the middle of the soundstage where otherwise you would be off on the side – although I think most implementations end up with mirrored sound stages on each side of the car…. Only really matters with some classical, jazz, and 70s/80s rock where they tried to place instruments and effects from left to right.
Best review of cotton candy AND scotch ever.Two tastes that should never combine unless you are a drunken clown.
At my dentist appointments I’m always asked what flavor tooth polish they should use. I tell them I’m holding out for bourbon flavor. They always agree, and yet it has been over 15 years and still no bourbon flavor!
Hey now – if the Reliant was good enough for Princess Anne, it should be good enough to impress anyone! I believe she owned eight of them over the years.
In the top image it looks like each seat headrest has four speakers, so if “9.2.4.8 layout” implies 8 headrest speakers, then front and back pairs of seats must each have their own 9.2.4.8 assortment.
That leaves one speaker unaccounted for.
I think I see in the graphic an extra woofer in the trunk and some spare speakers in the dash, probably for hands-free phone calls.
“9.2.4.8 Sound System The 47-speaker system is built on a native 9.2.4.8 layout, including 9 surround units, 2 subwoofers, 4 overhead speakers, and 8 headrest speakers.” That’s 23 speakers, and the graphic doesn’t really illustrate where all 47 speakers are”
That usually represents channels, not speakers, at least that’s how it is in home theater. I have a 5.1.4 system in my house and i have a lot more speakers than that if you count all the woofers and tweeters.
Yeah my meager 3.1.2 system actually consists of 14 individual drivers. If I add back the two surround speakers to get to 5.1.2 I’d have 18 drivers in play. It’s all along the front wall though, and I didn’t really feel the extra channels really made things better, but still might if I get bored some Saturday.
Your .2 is height speakers? Adding extra channels i guess depends on your a/v source.
For 4k and Atmos audio I’m 5.1.4. For other music and vinyl I’m 2.1. I don’t use the height and surround channels for non Atmos music.
Yes I have upfiring Atmos modules on top of my mains. This is for home “theater” type of listening. (don’t @me about how upfiring drivers aren’t proper, I don’t care) Vinyl is stereo only in “pure direct” mode through my Yamaha AVR, I do tend to just leave the AVR in whatever mode it’s in for streaming through Tidal. Tidal does have Atmos albums available but finding them is a PITA, and I rarely see something I want to listen to in that format.
47 speakers but how many microphones.
At least 47, since speakers all work as microphones.
Congrats on the COTD Liyan. When I read 47 speakers my immediate thought was that it was ludicrous. When I got to the comments yours was at the top, saving me from having to say anything.
That happens to me a lot. I read an article, think of a perfect comment, scroll down to comment and see that somebody beat me to it. 🙂
It only sucks when I don’t read the comments first and I say the same thing several others already have.
What really sucks is when you post what you thought was a super witty comment, then someone comes along and makes the same joke, but does it way better, and wins COTD for it! Dammit! Why didn’t I go the clown-f*cking route!
I cannot take full credit for today’s comment.
But I sincerely thank George Carlin (RIP) and Dave Attell for their inspiration!