The 2010 Jaguar XJ with Audyssey: ‘A listening room on wheels’
Matt Jones has been on the Jaguar/Land Rover audio team for nearly ten years. As the Technical Specialist for Audio Systems he was responsible for the team that spent more than three years developing the sound system found inside the all-new 2010 Jaguar XJ.
What brought you to car audio?
I studied Electrical Engineering at the University of Birmingham where I became involved in providing student entertainment and stage production. Afterwards, I became the Technical Manager at Birmingham’s largest nightclub and then a nightclub designer. This led to producing work at radio stations and sound production for major tours in theaters. Eventually I figured I probably needed a proper job and so enrolled in the Jaguar graduate scheme. I’ve been here ever since.
What kind of R&D went into creating the audio system for the XJ?
When the Jaguar team sat down in late 2006 to plan the new XJ, we made a conscious effort to start from a clean slate. We started from a simple proposition: What would a customer expect from the best car audio system in the world in 2010? We quickly calculated that those expectations weren’t going to come from competitor vehicles. They were going to come from customers’ experiences: the last time they saw a concert or went to the cinema. We realized we needed an advanced system and new technologies to make the car a continuation of their home theater. Through discussions with our audio industry contacts, we were introduced to Audyssey and they accepted our invitation to the UK to explore the possibilities of using their technology in our cars. Three days and one demo car later I was sold and, importantly, so was the rest of the Jaguar Engineering organization.
We were so impressed, in fact, that Jaguar purchased the technology for all three levels of the vehicle’s audio systems from the standard 400W / 12-speaker system, to the B&W 1200W / 20-speakers surround system. Every sound onboard passes through Audyssey MultEQ XT: the navigation, the cell phone system and the indicator sounds.
How has car audio changed from the days of AM/FM radios and tapes to premium entertainment systems?
Car audio is totally linked to what people experience and expect at home. In the past they just wanted a radio. Today we’re working with the “playlist generation.” Our customers expect to be able to listen to everything: any radio station (AM, FM or Sirius), anything in their entire music collection, any content on their iPod and, now, DVDs. And they want the best possible audio quality all the time. So we’ve made the 2010 Jaguar XJ a listening room on wheels.
Talk about some of the challenges in creating “a listening room on wheels.”
It’s important that a vehicle delivers perfect sound while standing still and traveling at 150mph down the Autobahn. One real challenge comes in compensating for different road surfaces that affect the sound experience. We needed to make a car sound beautiful over smooth California highways and rough Belgian cobblestones. So we engaged DVC technology, which actively monitors cabin noise and masks those sonic changes at different speeds and over different roads.
The major issue with a vehicle is that you have four equally important occupants, seated in the four corners of the vehicle, very close to the speakers. The redeeming feature is that we know exactly where people will sit. Producing a “sweet spot” that encompasses each of the passengers simultaneously was a major challenge, but one that we have finally solved.
What kind of response has the XJ received?
The vehicle is amazing. I’ve been lucky enough to attend some of the press and customer events and the comments are always positive. People love the design, the way the car drives and the technology that leapfrogs it into a new era.
On the audio side, we focused on impressing customers, not audio industry folks. We even brought in the Jaguar finance team, who were blown away by the demo car. We knew we were on the right track when we won internal mindshare and the subsequent awards all around the world have confirmed our hopes. Audyssey has been absolutely integral to that success.
Where do you see car audio going in the next decade?
As people spend more time in vehicles they’ll continue to expect to play a wider range of media at the highest sound quality possible. They will want personalized radio stations and access to all their favorite music and programming, no matter the source – USB, iPod, AM/FM, Sirius – they will want to play any track, anytime, without having to worry about where it comes from.
Car audio will continue to track what’s happening at home. After all, car audio is a consumer electronics system in a car. We’ll also see efficiency improvements. Everyone is concerned about the miles per gallon and a big, inefficient system with heavy speakers will use more fuel or shorten the range on a hybrid. That’s why the XJ system uses lighter, rare earth neodymium magnet speakers that sound better and are far more efficient than previous models. Greener cars can and will sound excellent.