Quote:
Originally Posted by Propagator
Not even close. What Porsche does is piping in the actual engine noise. They might play with the acoustics of the piping, but the source of that noise is still undeniably your own engine, and it is fully mechanical. This has been done by virtually everybody for many years, including BMW.
And that video is about creating sound for the Audi eTron, which is a fully electric car that does not have an intrinsic sound. This is one part a pedestrian safety issue, and another part driver feedback issue. However, they are not making it sound like an ICE, rather they are creating some futuristic motor noise. Given that the only noise you can have with an electric car is a fake noise, it might as well sound good.
The Active Sound is a totally different story. This approach has a potential to completely take out the acoustic quality of an engine from the driver enjoyment equation. Noise is such an integral part of the character of an engine, and yet none of that will matter if this becomes common place. Nothing stopping a Camry from sounding like a Ferrari. How's that ok?
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VW use speaker technology in the GTi and R models and Audi have been running the same system on the the new MQB platform A3 although not on any model on sale yet.
VAG and BMW used to use the piped in noise but as technology has advanced they have now started to do it electronically.
It's the future, smaller more efficient engines giving the torque and horsepower we want but not the sound we want. The manufactures give us the full experience by artificially giving the sound into the cabin.
I suspect we will see this technology filter down the ranges pretty quickly as the results are quite impressive. It fooled me and I'm no professional but to fool the likes of Chris Harris and other pros no easy task.
Just have to wait for Ford to launch their 200bhp 1.0 litre, 3 cylinder eco boost with optional V8 soundtrack.
Cheers
Lee