If more speakers don't help, why do cars have so many speakers?

[Pancreas]

I have 2 Genelec 8030c on my desk setup. I was told by someone here that adding 1 or 2 more speakers would be useless unless the content you are consuming is surround and you would need a decoder, if so, how come vehicles have multiples speakers and you can hear surround effect even if music playing isn't surround made?

My car has 11 Bose speakers and subwoofer. Nothing can compare to that, not even my 2 Genelec. So if that works on cars, why wouldn't adding 2 more speakers improve sound experience in a small room?

 

[DJNX]

Upmixing is great.
You might be (very) disappointed though, if you have a reflective room, and you compare it to your car.

 

[blueone]

1. Vehicles have a relatively cramped interior space compared to residential rooms, with protruding seats and a weird combination of reflective (glass) and absorptive (padded) surfaces.
2. The normal environment of a vehicle is very noisy compared to a residential room. Due to tire/road noise and wind noise it might exceed 70db at highway speeds. A typical residential room has ambient noise in the mid-50s db range. Proximity is the easiest way to overcome ambient noise without resorting to headphones or earbuds (which are illegal while driving in many states in the US, for example).
3. Vehicles are usually more densely packed with listeners than residential rooms. A sedan with four occupants, for example. Good reproduction at every seat at reasonable listening volumes (e.g. 15-20db above ambient) would require very loud levels near just two speakers in the front of the vehicle, as we do for traditional 2-channel listening. Putting speakers near each occupant allows better sound distribution without resorting to a small number of speakers playing very loudly (which would be annoying).

Put this all together, and you need speakers in various locations throughout the vehicle's interior to ensure a somewhat similar experience at every listening seat, especially for high frequencies (>1500Hz). A subwoofer is needed because much of the vehicle's ambient noise while driving will be in the bass frequencies, and because most vehicles don't have appropriate space for large enclosures other than hidden dedicated subwoofers for good bass reproductions, especially at the required power levels to overcome road noise.

In a residential environment, in the near field or even 12 feet from the speakers these problems don't normally exist, and usually the only reasons for multiple speakers are for multiple subs to even out bass frequencies, or surround sound.

 

[Palmspar]

I have a bmw with harman kardon sound system.
With the center speaker and 2 subwoofers under the front seats the 2 front seats have the same listening experiance.
Without center and 2 subwoofers it wasnt

 

[egellings]

I have 2 Genelec 8030c on my desk setup. I was told by someone here that adding 1 or 2 more speakers would be useless unless the content you are consuming is surround and you would need a decoder, if so, how come vehicles have multiples speakers and you can hear surround effect even if music playing isn't surround made?

My car has 11 Bose speakers and subwoofer. Nothing can compare to that, not even my 2 Genelec. So if that works on cars, why wouldn't adding 2 more speakers improve sound experience in a small room?

In the case of auto sound, it's often for horsepower (many speakers, huge amplifiers) than it is sound quality. Don't know why cars bring out that sort of a mentality. I once saw a video of a preposterously overpowered sound system playing in a car with the owner standing outside of the car, and the metal roof and doors were visibly flexing with the bass part of the music, or should I say, sound effects. It's entirely possible that someone sitting in the car with that SPL could be physically injured by it after the eardrums get blown out.

 

[Devnull]

Because sound systems make the manufacturers boatloads of money

 

[Spkrdctr]

Because sound systems make the manufacturers boatloads of money

Winner winner chicken dinner!

 

[blueone]

Because sound systems make the manufacturers boatloads of money

I'm not seeing the evidence for "boatloads". Except for a relatively small number of luxury cars, there just aren't that models that offer multi-thousand dollar, or even one thousand dollar, audio upgrades, at least here in the US. I'd be surprised if vehicles with audio systems with $1000+ upgrades are sold on more than one million units per year out of the ~16 million unit market here in the US. Some do, like Porsches, Jeeps, some BMWs, Mercedes, Audis, Mustangs (but not Ford pickup trucks), etc, but on many popular vehicles the audio system is just a standard feature. Honda Civics, for example. The Cadillac Escalade, surprisingly, seems to be this way. Even if it is one million units, that's only $1B in additional gross revenue spread over a lot of models. I'm not thinking "boatloads" is really the case anymore.

 

[EERecordist]

1. Vehicles have a relatively cramped interior space compared to residential rooms, with protruding seats and a weird combination of reflective (glass) and absorptive (padded) surfaces.
2. The normal environment of a vehicle is very noisy compared to a residential room. Due to tire/road noise and wind noise it might exceed 70db at highway speeds. A typical residential room has ambient noise in the mid-50s db range. Proximity is the easiest way to overcome ambient noise without resorting to headphones or earbuds (which are illegal while driving in many states in the US, for example).
3. Vehicles are usually more densely packed with listeners than residential rooms. A sedan with four occupants, for example. Good reproduction at every seat at reasonable listening volumes (e.g. 15-20db above ambient) would require very loud levels near just two speakers in the front of the vehicle, as we do for traditional 2-channel listening. Putting speakers near each occupant allows better sound distribution without resorting to a small number of speakers playing very loudly (which would be annoying).

Put this all together, and you need speakers in various locations throughout the vehicle's interior to ensure a somewhat similar experience at every listening seat, especially for high frequencies (>1500Hz). A subwoofer is needed because much of the vehicle's ambient noise while driving will be in the bass frequencies, and because most vehicles don't have appropriate space for large enclosures other than hidden dedicated subwoofers for good bass reproductions, especially at the required power levels to overcome road noise.

In a residential environment, in the near field or even 12 feet from the speakers these problems don't normally exist, and usually the only reasons for multiple speakers are for multiple subs to even out bass frequencies, or surround sound.

Good observations. I'm disappointed that Dolby ATMOS is entering such a poor listening environment. The car makers believe the Dolby brand will make their vehicle more valuable to the consumer than the cost of the parts and licensing fees.

 

[ta240]

Isn't part of the benefit with car audio that the system was designed specifically for that space? No manufacture of speakers, amps, surround decoders or even room correction software are going to have the detailed information about your home space that they have when designing a car system.

 

[raindance]

Isn't part of the benefit with car audio that the system was designed specifically for that space? No manufacture of speakers, amps, surround decoders or even room correction software are going to have the detailed information about your home space that they have when designing a car system.

You'd think, right? It would make sense, wouldn't it! I have a recent Acura MDX (base model) and it features great gobs of boomy bass overlap between the sub and main speakers, basically the low frequencies were not equalized at all. There's no low bass but lots of upper and mid bass boom. The tweeters and center speaker in front are about 6-10dB too loud, making it super harsh. The tone controls on the head unit only allow cuts of around 2-3dB for treble, the center speaker is not adjustable, and the equalization settings are not accessible to the user at all.

Oh, and each source is eq'd to someone's subjective taste at the factory, so FM radio and satellite radio have this monster bass boost and then satellite radio also has a huge treble boost. The CD player is thin and flat sounding.

Then they decided to use the sound system for noise cancelling also, so whenever you are driving the music gets modulated by the noise cancelling signal and gets this hideous grainy character as a result.

 

[blueone]

You'd think, right? It would make sense, wouldn't it! I have a recent Acura MDX (base model) and it features great gobs of boomy bass overlap between the sub and main speakers, basically the low frequencies were not equalized at all. There's no low bass but lots of upper and mid bass boom. The tweeters and center speaker in front are about 6-10dB too loud, making it super harsh. The tone controls on the head unit only allow cuts of around 2-3dB for treble, the center speaker is not adjustable, and the equalization settings are not accessible to the user at all.

Oh, and each source is eq'd to someone's subjective taste at the factory, so FM radio and satellite radio have this monster bass boost and then satellite radio also has a huge treble boost. The CD player is thin and flat sounding.

Then they decided to use the sound system for noise cancelling also, so whenever you are driving the music gets modulated by the noise cancelling signal and gets this hideous grainy character as a result.

It depends on the vehicle manufacturer and which model how much the manufacturer spent on characterizing that model's interior and custom equalization and drivers. Some invest a lot, some just take off the shelf parts and who-knows-what for tuning.

Deep bass still takes a pretty decent-sized subwoofer, and some cars just don't have space for the proper enclosure. Perhaps the MDX is like that.

Not only are vehicle audio systems used for noise-cancelling, on our Audi the system is used for augmenting engine noises.

 

[DMill]

I'm not seeing the evidence for "boatloads". Except for a relatively small number of luxury cars, there just aren't that models that offer multi-thousand dollar, or even one thousand dollar, audio upgrades, at least here in the US. I'd be surprised if vehicles with audio systems with $1000+ upgrades are sold on more than one million units per year out of the ~16 million unit market here in the US. Some do, like Porsches, Jeeps, some BMWs, Mercedes, Audis, Mustangs (but not Ford pickup trucks), etc, but on many popular vehicles the audio system is just a standard feature. Honda Civics, for example. The Cadillac Escalade, surprisingly, seems to be this way. Even if it is one million units, that's only $1B in additional gross revenue spread over a lot of models. I'm not thinking "boatloads" is really the case anymore.

Most come in “packages” now. The Jeep wagoneer with a McIntosh sound system comes to mind. Something about spending close to $100k on a Jeep bothers me though.

 

[blueone]

Something about spending close to $100k on a Jeep bothers me though.

This is a discussion my wife and I have had. She is a Jeep person, and I don't get it. Maybe the Wagoneer, but a Rubicon? I don't think so.

 

[Palladium]

Because sound systems make the manufacturers boatloads of money

And drivers are cheap at wholesale prices.

 

[Devnull]

I'm not seeing the evidence for "boatloads". Except for a relatively small number of luxury cars, there just aren't that models that offer multi-thousand dollar, or even one thousand dollar, audio upgrades, at least here in the US. I'd be surprised if vehicles with audio systems with $1000+ upgrades are sold on more than one million units per year out of the ~16 million unit market here in the US. Some do, like Porsches, Jeeps, some BMWs, Mercedes, Audis, Mustangs (but not Ford pickup trucks), etc, but on many popular vehicles the audio system is just a standard feature. Honda Civics, for example. The Cadillac Escalade, surprisingly, seems to be this way. Even if it is one million units, that's only $1B in additional gross revenue spread over a lot of models. I'm not thinking "boatloads" is really the case anymore.

Just looked at the Chevy website at a Colorado and an Equinox because that's the last 2 new cars friends have bought. The Bose upgrade for the Colorado was 500, the Bose upgrade for the Equinox was 1150 bucks. The wholesale price of the drivers minus the cost of the standard drivers, the labor and wiring are fixed costs, means easy money for the factory. Net profit percentage on options is about twice what the profit percentage is on the base price of the vehicle.

I'm curious about how much money Bose or whoever nets for the use of their name per vehicle.