Fraunhofer IIS – New sound for CES 2013
January 2013 – With the rising focus on sound in the consumer devices, we decided to stop in and see what was new at Fraunhofer IIS from Germany when were were at CES this year. Fraunhofer, best known as the inventor of the MP3 format rolled out two major announcement at the show. These announcements were an update on AAC and also for the automotive sector.
They released the new version of the AAC codec to the Android OS. The codec is now native tot he V4.1 known as Jelly Bean and support 5.1 surround sound in addition to stereo processing. The core codec is part of the HE-AAC and DASH specifications. The codec is optimized for streaming services and provides AAC Enhanced Voice. This makes possible VoLTE/VOUP solutions possible – using this new license-able codec for 3G & 4G applications. The software only solution is targeted at DSP applications on a general purpose CPU. The new codec is a full bandwdith core that uses a constant bit rate. This is being referred to as the AAC-ELD codec (Enhanced Low Delay) or full HD Voice codec. It is currently implemented in iOS since version 4.0 in addition to the Android releases, and is utilized in Apple’s Facetime product.
Fraunhofer 3D sound with B&O and Audi
Their second announcement was an adoption of their product by engineering high performance sound leader Bang and Olufsen ( B&O) in to a new concept vehicle by Audi. They demonstrated the system in the Audi Q7 crossover. The Q7 vehicle had 23 active loudspeakers with more than 1500 watts of amplification power, driven by a newly designed 23 channel DSP Most amplifier. The vehicle used loudspeakers that have been selected for the architecture of the interior of the car and create ta sonic image of a concert hall. The configuration is:
• Two loudspeakers in the dashboard center (tweeter and broadband)
• Two tweeters in the dashboard (left/right) with acoustic lens technology
• One mid-high loudspeaker in each A pillar
• One tweeter in each A pillar
• Two loudspeakers in each front door with a woofer and a midrange
• Three loudspeakers in each rear door with a woofer, midrange and a tweeter
• Two surround loudspeakers in each D pillar, consisting of a tweeter and broadband
• One closed subwoofer box in the spare wheel compartment
The new 3D sound system is based on a 3D analysis built on psycho-acoustic knowledge of the listening experience in a vehicle.. This analysis enables the intelligent distribution of the input signal to the speaker array in the car creating a realistic spatial 3D sound image. The systems is adjustable for the level of 3D intensity with a control panel in the Audi Multi Media Interface. This technology is being licensed on a standard per-end point unit pricing model.
