Amid this climate, HARMAN, a Samsung company, is raising the bar for car audio, ensuring that the evolving living space that is the vehicle is equipped with the very best in sound and the sonic features that create a better in-car experience, readying it to serve as a platform for whatever users may demand of it.

The Shifting Nature of Car Audio

As the aforementioned changes take shape, our cars are set to become our secondary personal spaces alongside our homes. Thus, our vehicles will need to be sufficiently capable to begin to offer similar levels of accessibility and convenience as our homes offer now. And as users increasingly look to turn their cars into virtual meeting spaces, or utilize them as their own personal studios or hubs for recreation, high-quality car audio stands to play a fundamental role.

Harman Kardon for the Volkswagen Arteon R-Line (Photograph provided by Volkswagen)

The Industry Gets Behind HARMAN

As HARMAN branded audio solutions increasingly emerge as a top-tier solution for the industry, more and more auto companies are going all-in on the Samsung company’s audio tech.

A recent example is HARMAN’s new and growing partnership with Volkswagen through its Harman Kardon audio brand. After Harman Kardon premium audio was introduced to Volkswagen vehicles for the first time in the new Volkswagen Golf, its audio solutions are expanding to the Volkswagen Arteon and Volkswagen Arteon Shooting Brake models. Delivering a captivating mix of premium sound and artful design, Harman Kardon brings 12 high-performance loudspeakers and four different sound settings to these new Volkswagen vehicles, resulting in a consistently clear and exceptionally natural listening experience.

Harman Kardon for the Volkswagen Arteon Shooting Brake Elegance (Photograph provided by Volkswagen)

Since 2016 HARMAN’s B&O premium car audio offerings have been incorporated across the Ford lineup, including Mustang Mach-E all-electric SUV announced at the end of last year. In 2021, HARMAN’s first ever two-tier offering – the B&O Sound System and the B&O Unleashed Sound System – will be included in the new Ford F-150. Bringing never-before-seen features to the F-150, the B&O Unleashed Sound System offers innovative headrest and headliner speakers for transformative car audio experiences.

B&O Unleashed for the Ford F-150 (Photograph provided by Ford)

2020 also saw HARMAN brand AKG named as the exclusive audio system for the 2021 Cadillac Escalade. Sought after for its high-quality microphones and headphones that are used by leading musicians in recording studios and performance venues, AKG’s partnership with Cadillac will see its pure, powerful studio sound realized in a vehicle for the first time. AKG has provided Cadillac with a completely overhauled in-car audio experience through two levels of AKG Audio, the top level being the AKG Studio Reference system, which delivers 28 channels through 36 speakers that are powered by three amplifiers in the vehicle.

AKG for the GM Cadillac Escalade (Photograph provided by Cadillac)

Since that historic reveal, the AKG and Cadillac partnership has grown to include the first-ever all-electric vehicle from Cadillac – the recently announced Cadillac LYRIQ luxury crossover. At launch, LYRIQ will offer a 19-speaker AKG Studio audio system that transports passengers with signature AKG sound to enjoy their favorite music.

Going Beyond Sound Systems

But the part that audio plays in the driving experience is shifting in other ways too, and the car audio of today comprises more than just good-sounding music. In the era of electric and hybrid cars that run almost silently due to the lack of a traditional combustion engine, a need has emerged for these vehicles to produce their own synthesized sounds to ensure that they remain safe to those in their vicinity, particularly pedestrians. As a result, in 2019 the EU mandated that all newly produced hybrid and electric cars needed to make a sound while traveling under a certain speed,¹ while the US NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) is set to implement similar rules in 2020. As the industry looks to strike a balance between energy sustainability and safety, HARMAN is providing its HALOsonic suite of sound management solutions to create new sounds for hybrid and electric vehicles.

Another way that HARMAN is facilitating the broader development of car audio is by seeking to address the issue of peripheral noise. Based on HARMAN’s innovative HALOsonic noise management technology, Hyundai Motor Company and HARMAN released the world’s first active road noise cancellation system for a production vehicle on January 15 in Korea with the launch of the Genesis GV80 SUV. The Road-Noise Active Noise Control (RANC) solution reduces unwanted road noise by emitting soundwaves with an inverted frequency to that of the incoming noises. The Genesis GV80 also features an 18-speaker Lexicon Premium Sound System and QuantumLogic Surround (QLS), an authentic multi-dimensional surround sound technology, to inject unparalleled sonic excellence into the Genesis driving experience.

Lexicon for the Genesis GV80 (Photograph provided by Genesis)

Blazing the Trail

But HARMAN’s work with prominent car brands isn’t the only demonstration of its industry leadership. Recently HARMAN brands have received a number of awards from iF Design – one of the world’s largest and most highly acclaimed design competitions. In addition to 20 award wins for consumer products, HARMAN brands also took home five awards for car audio design.

Harman Kardon received an award for the sophisticated yet highly functional design of the sound system it delivered to the new Volkswagen Golf, and also picked up an iF award for its work on the Polestar 2 sound system. B&O was also awarded for the “elegant and unbridled” premium in-car sound system it designed for the Ford Mustang Mach-E.

As the role our vehicles play in our lives looks set to expand and deepen, car audio stands as an area that will fundamentally shape and enrich user experiences going forward. At the forefront of this trend, HARMAN is providing some of the world’s most iconic car brands with a whole new standard of in-car audio and sonic capabilities, while stamping its leadership and innovation on the industry more broadly.

¹ https://ec.europa.eu/growth/content/electric-and-hybrid-cars-new-rules-noise-emitting-protect-vulnerable-road-users_en

Samsung Newsroom spoke with Dr. Sean Olive, Acoustic Research Senior Fellow for HARMAN International, where he has worked since 1993. He directs the Corporate HARMAN X Sound Quality Group, whose research has mainly focused on the perception and measurement of sound reproduction including loudspeakers, room acoustics, automotive audio, headphones, and smart speakers.

Dr. Sean E. Olive, Senior Fellow, Acoustic Research HARMAN INTERNATIONAL

Q. What are the current music listening trends especially amongst a young generation and how does the context of listening to music influence our experience?

Music today is heard under many different contexts and environments often serving as an accompaniment to daily activities such as exercise, commuting, work, and shopping.

Among Millennials, digital streaming of music has become the preferred means to listen to music. They listen to 75% more music on a daily basis than Baby boomers.¹ A 2016 study from Northwestern University found that when it comes to music discovery, young people value convenience the most, favoring music services that are available across many platforms for easy access.

Moreover, new channels of digital music distribution such as music apps have made it easier for consumers to access a deeper catalogue of music from different artists and genres than ever before. Millennials in particular like to select their own tracks and tend to jump across platforms to hear the songs they like, and will skip songs they don’t like after hearing a few bars. We’ve moved from listening to entire albums from the same artist to listening to individual tracks from multiple artists across different genres, which has not only significantly affected our experience, it impacts how music is created, recorded and distributed.

Q. Does the equipment matter when we’re listening to music or does a great song suffice?

Good equipment can’t fix a bad song or performance but it can make it sound wonderful. Good equipment allows us to hear all the notes of the music from the lowest pipe organ note to the highest overtones of the piccolo accurately reproduced with correct spectral balance and dynamic nuances. There is nothing more exciting than to experience a Beethoven Symphony reproduced through your audio system at home at concert levels without strain or compromise.

Q. What are some practical tips on how we can improve the quality of the music we listen to on a regular basis, including improving our listening experience?

For headphone listening, the fit and seal of the cup or ear-tip is critical to hearing good bass. If sound leaks out of your ear you are less isolated from background noise and will hear less bass.

For loudspeaker listening, proper placement is critical to achieving balanced sound and stereo imaging. The stereo speakers should be equidistant from the listener at an angle of ± 30 degrees in order to hear instruments properly distributed between the speakers. Moving them 1-2 meter away from the walls can reduce excess bass or muddiness. The speakers should be angled towards the listening spot with the tweeter at the same height as the ears of a seated listener.

Q. What does a listener need to pay attention to when they choose the device on which they listen to music?

Many speaker systems, particularly portable Bluetooth systems have limitations in how much bass they can reproduce particularly at higher volume levels. To hide this fact they will sometimes add extra upper bass, or for active speakers, they will reduce the bass as you turn up the volume making it sound thin and anemic. Apart from that, listen to tracks with instruments that cover the entire spectrum and listen for how smooth and even-balanced the sound is. The spectral balance should be smooth and even and sound neither bright/dull, or too full/thin. When you turn up the volume, the balance shouldn’t change significantly or get harsh and fuzzy (an indication of distortion).

Lexicon SL-1

Q. HARMAN launched Lexicon SL-1 recently. What are HARMAN’s expectations for the launch?

Musicians are probably familiar with the Lexicon brand, which invented digital reverberation. This is truly a unique loudspeaker in that the sounds radiated from it range from a narrow focus for an intimate sound to a very broad omnidirectional pattern without a significant change to the timbre of the sound. This gives you the option of hearing a very focused sound or a very spacious sound depending on the choice of music, room acoustics or personal taste. The so-called stereo sweet spot can also be beamed to wherever the listener chooses to sit.

Q. With technological innovations in audio technology, can more people become audiophiles and learn to appreciate high quality audio production and subtle differences that elevate the music to another level?

It is clear from HARMAN’s sound quality research over the past 25+ years that most naive listeners can hear and appreciate better sound quality when given the opportunity to compare different products side by side whether it’s loudspeakers, headphones or lossless versus low-bit MP3 music. With the decline of brick-and-mortar audio stores replaced by internet sales there are fewer opportunities to test products side by side. So, we have to figure out how to educate and reach more consumers on what is good sound, better communicate the benefits, and make it easier for them to find and achieve critical listening. The opportunities are huge since audio is consumed everywhere (car, home, cinema, work, gym and on-the-go). For example, we are working on a consumer-focused version of our listener training software called “How to Listen” that we hope to make available soon.

Q. How can you meet the balance between professional level sound quality and popularization?

HARMAN makes audio products for both professional and consumers. The sound quality targets are essentially the same. Any film, television, or music track mixed on a JBL professional monitor or AKG headphone should sound much the same on our higher quality consumer products. The differences mainly lie in the industrial design, features and user experience.

HARMAN Luxury Audio Studio in Munich, Germany

Q. HARMAN recently opened a luxury studio in Munich, Germany. Could you tell us a little bit about the studio and the features of the studio that you want people to know about?

Dedicated to the Art of Listening, the new Luxury Studio celebrates and showcases HARMAN’s award-winning luxury audio brands through a uniquely immersive approach.

HARMAN’s Luxury Audio Group boasts five prestigious brands—JBL Synthesis, Mark Levinson, Revel, Lexicon and ARCAM—which together deliver the most advanced high-performance audio systems available anywhere in the world. The HARMAN Luxury Audio Studio was designed to serve not only as a billboard for these remarkable, award-winning brands, but to offer HARMAN’s customers and partners the opportunity to interact with them in a wholly original way.

Resembling a musician’s loft, the studio contains a stereo lounge with a vinyl record wall and a conference room. Everything in the studio was designed using materials chosen for their acoustic properties, with vintage layers and textures throughout the space. Completing the studio is a state-of-the-art JBL Synthesis 7.4.4 home theater with Dolby Atmos® to be used as a testing ground for HARMAN’s latest products while providing a luxury in-home experience certain to impress audiophiles and audio professionals alike.

Q. Is there any HARMAN technology applied to Samsung products?

Yes, one example is the new AKG Headphones like the N5005 and N700, and Samsung Galaxy Buds. These new products are designed to conform to the HARMAN Target Curves, which is based on HARMAN X’s research into listener sound quality preferences. The sound profile is very precise and refined, and preferred by the majority of listeners we’ve tested.

In addition, there are already ongoing collaborations between Harman and Samsung in Lifestyle, Professional and Automotive spaces. HARMAN’s expertise, technologies and markets are a natural compliment to Samsung’s so it only makes sense that such collaborations continue.

Q. What will the future look like in the way we listen to music?

We listen to music today more than ever, and this will continue. Autonomous driving is one example where humans will have more free time to actively listen to music with full attention. As we better understand the science of how music and our mode of listening affect our health and wellbeing, we will become more aware and motivated to become active listeners.

¹ Digital Music News : Millennials Listen to 75% More Music Than Baby Boomers, Study Finds (June 2, 2016)