Interview: Bjarke Phil Bovbjerg Revved up The automotive industry is working to take more and more of the driving away from us. But what to do with all that tax-free time? Listen to music, of course. Dynaudio is working to give people a new, world-class sound experience on the road… L istening to music has been proven to reduce stress. That’s useful. Especially when driving – and especially, of course, when the car is moving very slowly. Stress can reach boiling-point when you’re stagnating in a traffic jam (read more about that on page 50) .But there’s an antidote: for it’s also when you can hear your music’s subtleties at their best. That’s why, at an automotive show in China, Dynaudio presented our most ambitious car system yet. We bought a Porsche Cayenne, ripped it to bits in Denmark, and used it as a test-bed to show where automotive audio can go next. Let’s sit down with Bjarke Pihl Bovbjerg, Head of R&D Automotive at Dynaudio, to find out what’s what… Dynaudio has been working closely with car manufacturers for decades. What’s different now? We’ve developed this system completely independently. We want to show what’s possible; how we imagine maximum audio performance in a car can sound. We’ve developed completely new high-end speakers for this project, as well as a never-seen- before high-end amp to control the intelligent sound system. What’s the goal? We see a market here that we want to enter with all our expertise. With developments such as autonomous driving and electric vehicles, listening to music in particular is becoming more and more of a real experience, and quality is becoming more and more important. We’ve always said that our automotive systems must be taken to the same heights as our home and pro products. So we need to set our flagship under sail and work towards our goal as the global leader in delivering incredible experiences to listeners behind the wheel. Mobility is undergoing a drastic change right now. Will an audio system developed for an internal combustion engine vehicle work at all in an electric vehicle? No. They aren’t two completely different systems, but you have to consider both types of drive. Electric cars are generally quieter, but this means that quiet noise is more noticeable, while in the combustion engine it’s masked. The less noise from the car, the more attention needs to be paid to the details – so there’s a need for good sound systems like never before. There’s also an additional challenge: we have to pay extreme attention to the weight of our components. The mantra here is always ‘weight, weight, weight’. There’s also sustainability to take into account… Absolutely. Someone who opts for a Dynaudio system will perhaps keep their vehicle a little longer than someone who changes to a new vehicle every three years. That would already be a point that definitely pays off in terms of sustainability. But it becomes more concrete when it comes to the materials used. During development, we already pay a lot of attention to ensuring that we can produce and build environmentally friendly vehicles in series production. Recycled materials are also finding their way into the speakers and we think about sustainability in all phases of our development. Soon, organic materials will be ready to be qualified for automotive usage – and we’ll use them. Are any musical genres hard to reproduce in cars? Simply put, there are no differences. Every style of music is equally complicated or easy to reproduce. Subjectively, however, there is one very crucial thing to consider: the most difficult style for us is the one the listener knows best and listens to most 60 Magazine 04
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