When the Lucid Air arrives next year, it’s the first vehicle to offer Dolby Atmos sound inside. The EV carmaker announced today that its Surreal Sound system will offer passengers the immersive sound experience as standard in the Air Grand Touring and Air Dream Edition models. It is an optional addition to the Air Touring and Air Pure finishes. In addition to the luxury EV, you also need a high-res music subscription that provides access to Dolby Atmos Music – such as Tidal. Lucid Motors plans to throw free streaming with both the Grand Touring and Dream Edition within six months.
The Lucid Air is equipped with a lineup of 21 speakers that can handle the directional sound of Dolby Atmos. Front, rear, side and height speakers are placed on the inside of the car so that passengers can “feel” the movement of everything they are listening to. The Surreal Sound system also uses directional acoustic signal for notifications, alerts and other warnings. Things like blind spot detection and warnings about the unpinned seat belt, for example, come from the direction of the possible problem. To customize the speaker setup for Atmos, Lucid introduced it with the famous Capitol Records Studio C as reference design.
“The biggest difference is the placement of overhead speakers,” said Derek Jenkins, senior vice president of design. ‘Along the inner pillars of the vehicle, we place the speakers very carefully to optimize the full upper surrounding area. The alignment with the upper and lower speakers is critical to creating the dimensional experience. ”
While Dolby Atmos has been around for years, it exists primarily as an A / V platform within the living room. In 2019, Dolby launched its immersive high-resolution audio platform Dolby Atmos Music on services such as Amazon Music, Deezer and Tidal. Of course, you need a more expensive hi-fi streaming plan to access the content and a competent speaker system to make the most of your investment. With Atmos Music, however, Dolby was ready to offer listeners access to sound with more clarity and depth outside their homes.
“The most important entertainment in a car is mostly music,” explained Tim Pryde, director of music at Dolby Laboratories. “Until Atmos Music, Atmos in a car was something we experimented with, but it never really took off because there was no content like today.”
Pryde said that while Dolby has been working in car audio since the ’70s and’ 80s, the company’s efforts have mostly focused on improving the overall sound quality of both content and stereo headphones. Dolby Atmos can give you the feeling of being inside everything you watch or listen to by virtualizing dimensional sound through a surround sound setup or even with a single soundbar or speaker. It becomes a very different scenario when you are in a small enclosed space like a car.
Lucid Motors
“With a car, you have a cabin with which you can place these discrete speakers around you,” Pryde said. “They can really give you an immersive experience because you’re literally in the middle of them.”
Now that vehicles are equipped with more screens, Atmos is of course also a viable option for movies, programs and games during a ride. Lucid Motors plans to investigate this as the automotive industry progresses to autonomous driving.
“As we move further and further towards assisted driving and then the complete autonomy of vehicles, the opportunity for streaming video, games and any other kind of visual content will only increase as in your home,” Jenkins explained. “We’re looking at the kind of future through the opportunity that Atmos offers for immersion.”
The initial deliveries of the Lucid Air are expected to begin in the second half of this year. The base model Air Pure starts at $ 69,900, while the Air Grand Touring, the cheapest finish of Dolby Atmos standard, starts at $ 131,500. The company currently accepts bookings online and at ‘studios’ in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, San Jose, Newark (California), Miami and West Palm Beach.