I listened to Dolby Atmos on a Libyan SUV: Is it the future of automatic audio?
My editors argue that you cannot call Atmos “Catmos” in your car. Anyway, CATMOS is the latest implementation of Dolby’s object-based surround technology. I talked about it before How well can it be that you can add height to a movie sound in a theatre?how most Medium and high-end soundbars There are ATMOS features and methods Even some headphones It’s built in. But in the car?
Well, yes, actually. These days, it is the place where most people listen to music the most. With its fixed listening position, it is also a great place to create convincing surround audio, and the system is designed to incorporate and compensate for exactly where the speaker is. Both are impossible at home, and even the theatres are less concentrated.
One of the biggest issues with most car audio fidelity is ambient noise. One way to reduce that problem significantly is to remove the engine completely. High-end electric vehicles will be the best case scenario for mobile surround sound systems. For that reason, I was invited to Libian and Dolby to hear about the Atmos-enabled system of 18 drivers, which is close to 1,000 watts. R1S Water It was an event in Venice, California, and is 15 miles from where I live. It’s LA so I was shy after 2 hours and I was all ears.
Atmos-to-go
With Atmos (right side), sound designers want to be able to pinpoint exactly where in the theater, Atmos Theatre, and the sound “appears”. This includes overhead, or in fact, almost every place in the entire film’s space.
Back up the moment I’ll talk about Atmos. It’s an attractive technology, and its “object-based” approach offers another way to mix film and music. A traditional method of audio mixing, which has existed for decades, has been to assign a sound or instrument to either five surround channels or subwoofers. This is also known as 5.1. Three in front and two on the back or sides. Some films have more channels, with seven channels becoming fairly common, allowing side channels and rear channels.
Atmos is a function that treats sounds and instruments as “objects” and changes everything. In the mixing process, the sound designer can move the object anywhere, and the Atmos encoder can be understood where in the physical space the sound designer intended. For example, theatre Atmos decoder can create a virtual map of the system’s speakers and translate “door creek in the left corner.” This accuracy was difficult, if not impossible, before Atmos. Designers may want to place the sound in a specific location, but there is no way to adjust what it means in a 50 or 500 theatre with a 5 seating theater.
Libian R1S SUV.
This more accurate way of moving the sound makes the height speakers much easier to use. Now the sound is more convincing to “land” from behind the screen, on top of your head, and somewhere behind you. Rightly, it’s very immersive. If the theatre doesn’t have high speakers on the ceiling, the Atcos still works and the decoder shunts the sound towards the side. So, it’s still going past you, but it’s not as convincing as it’s a more elaborate system. The Atmos Decoding process is “smart” and you can basically understand and adjust what the speaker and space are and do your best with what it had.
Built on the same platform and sharing most of the parts, the R1T is essentially the same as the R1S minus the rear roof. You’ll also lose two speakers on the audio system.
The double-edged sword in this case means that Atmos can work on a much more elaborate system, at some level anyway. Therefore, there is also a single unit soundbar and an Atmos TV. They have upward speakers at best – and more often there is extensive processing to simulate sound at that height with different levels of success.
It brings us back to Atmos in the car. All listeners are in known locations, high speakers may be present, and all modern cars, especially SUVs, are auditorium-sized anyway, making having rear speakers easy.
Rivian Premium Audio with Dolby Atmos
Location of the driver for the Libian R1. The woofer is found on tweeters such as doors, pillars, etc. The subwoofer is located on the trunk above and behind the right rear wheel.
2025 R1S Gen 2 I boasted a Dolby Atmos system with 18 drivers. This was driven by amplification of 960 watts. Most of these speakers were fairly typical, with some arrangements on the dash, including the central central channel, the door woofer and the trunk subwoofer.
The less common one is a tweeter on the roof, under a glass roof. Because the R1S is a huge vehicle, it can be considered a high speaker for almost everyone. If these are tall enough to be ear level, you won’t be able to see the windshield.
Like most electric vehicles, the R1S has few knobs or dials. Almost everything is controlled via a touchscreen.
To get a real ATMOS experience, you need Atmos-encoded content. To this end, the in-car entertainment systems include Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music, and audible. During my demo I listened to a few tracks, like Ariana Grande’s seven rings and Harry Styles.
The truck that made the most of Atmos was Pink Floyd’s money. The iconic cash register began clearly behind the rear passenger side door, then proceeded above the dashboard and around the interior. The actual instrument filled the space like traditional stereos struggled with (this Atmos mix was a painstaking approval by the band). Although we can’t fully judge the sound quality based on a pre-selected music demo, the treble was pretty overall, with the bass punching, especially on the Styles track.
Note the location near the grab handle for one of the height speakers. The “sky” in this image is literally sky, as seen from the panoramic roof.
Though there are sides of the car that are suitable for surround sound, and other aspects that aren’t. I mentioned road noise above. Considering that the R1S is electricity, I think there is less road noise, for example. My Miata. The other is positive and negative. On the one hand, engineers know exactly where the potential listeners are and roughly how many. Everything is not a trivial challenge, let alone the fact that they spread out near the “wall” and the distance that is very different from the speakers. The R1S mix is biased towards the driver and passenger seat, but this isn’t too surprising as I always have at least one of them. The real listener continues to work, and the height speakers are back there, but not so much. If you do, a cheap seat.
A-pillar and dash driver.
Based on my three songs demo, I can’t say where the Libian system between the high-end car audio systems I’ve heard stacks up (this is quite a few). However, I can say that the surround side was more pronounced and natural-sounding than what I’ve heard before. So, perhaps unexpected for some, it was one of the better Atmos demos I’ve heard outside the theater.
Settings screen. There was no chance to ruin the sound during the demo.
They roll me, they’re curious
Libian is not the only company that includes Dolby’s in-car entertainment. There are also ATMOS systems installed or planned on the model Cadillac, lotus, clarity Chinese car manufacturers li. One obvious trend among all of them is that Dolby Atmos won’t be cheap. Rivian’s R1S vehicles are in the “premium SUV” class and cost over $100,000 (which, to be fair, is the cost of most of these big electric trucks). The premium audio system is paired with a glass roof as part of the $2,500 Sound + Vision package. You will need a subscription to one of the above-mentioned streaming services and a Libian Connect Plus subscription. This also includes data connections, allowing you to turn R1 into a hotspot. It’s a shame that there’s no Apple CarPlay or Android Auto for such advanced vehicles.
The rear seat (or technically the middle row), the listener has some control over what the pilot and co-pilot are listening.
Is it worth it? I only had a short demo in a stationary car. Needless to say I’m a cheap and broken writer too (Buy my book!), spending around $100,000 on a vehicle, but spending $2,500 on some great sound audio, not to mention the glass roof that you can’t imagine getting into a truck like this is about 2.5% It seems like a reasonable add-on to the total price. So, perhaps?
Do you watch Atmos on a low-end vehicle? perhaps. Automotive companies have been partnering with audio companies for a long time, but these days they are usually Bose or some flavor Hermanautomakers know that there is a better sound and profit opportunity. Will they pay for additional engineering and tuning to make Atmos work properly? Or are you just working? While high-end brands may be like that, it is very unlikely that you’ll see an ATMOS system with high-speed speakers like Nissan.
Again, if there is demand, who knows? I’m sure there are executives who love Atmos and want to put them in a more budget-friendly car. A kind of modern Pontiac GTO – Instead of the giant V8, there’s Catmos. (You’ve been fired. –ty))
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