Presto Possibile - The world's fastest high-end speakers

The sound in the Bugatti Chiron comes from Accuton high-end loudspeakers

"Any car should have more watts than horsepower." I have always and without exception chosen my vehicles according to this motto ever since my driving test. In the early days it was relatively easy to align my automotive life to this maxim: my first Fiat Cinquecento only had 17 hp. My second dream car was a white Renault R4 - with a proud 23 hp. In it, a Grundig radio was driven by a cassette recorder, which I had hooked up to the car battery though suicidal DIY-wiring - with the effect that the number of revolutions of the audio cassette always correlated with the speed of the vehicle a little. Temps perdu ...

The fastest high-end loudspeaker in the world: the Bugatti Chiron (Image ? Bugatti)

But how, for Carl Benz's sake, does one apply my old "more watts than horsepower rule" to a vehicle whose engine releases no less than 1,500 hp - in words: one thousand five hundred?

We are talking about the Bugatti Chiron, which is limited to 420 km/h (!). My Cinquecento’s speed limitation was guaranteed naturally by headwind and road inclination. With tail wind, in the slipstream of a truck, and with 20 to 30 seconds’ start, 100 km/h were absolutely possible - a speed the Chiron reaches after a mere 2,5 seconds.

The fastest high-end loudspeaker in the world is controlled for road use at 420 km/h (picture ? Bugatti)

So you’ll see: the Bugatti Chiron will never stand in my garage, if for no other reason that I can't find a suitable car radio with over 1,500 watts. The 2.4 million euros you’d have to invest for the car at a minimum – excluding any additional equipment of course - I can ... uh ... save. Somehow the basic conditions are not right either. Because, as SPIEGEL explored the Chiron driver so beautifully: "On average, he owns 63 other cars, plus various helicopters or private planes, a yacht, and five mansions.” I don't have a helicopter ...

German Audio Competence on German Autobahn

Yet I once did sit in a Bugatti Chiron; not to drive, but to listen to music.

Indulging in leather and music ... (Picture ? Bugatti)

And that's a truly concertante experience, because the Chiron features the accumulated acoustic experience of one of the world’s most renowned loudspeaker manufacturers. Thiel & Partner, based in Pulheim near Cologne, better known under the Accuton brand name, provides fine audio inside the fast Bugatti. And there is a simple reason for this:

For many years accuton has been building the finest loudspeaker chassis for the listening rooms of demanding hi-fi enthusiasts. And I certainly belong to this clientele of "noble ears". The unit prices of the Accuton gadgets can range from a few hundred euros all the way to five-digit figures. The finest materials such as aluminium, ceramics, or diamond membranes are used. No wonder Bugatti became aware of the high-end forge in Pulheim when they looked for adequate acoustic experts for the world's most expensive sports car.

The Flying Living Room - The Difference Between Car Hifi and Normal High-End

Not everyone who is able to design first-class high-end systems for the home living room will have understanding of in-car hi-fi, in-car high-end or rolling concert halls. The challenges for high-quality music enjoyment in the car are fundamentally different from those in the listening room. Dirk Vaehsen, who was responsible for developing the audio system for the Bugatti Chiron at Accuton, explains:

"In modern passenger cars, the density of technical elements is extremely high. There's just not enough room. The result is an exciting technological challenge for high-quality music reproduction. The installed loudspeakers cannot be locatable. Rather, an imaginary stage should be created in front of the vehicle on which the musicians and not the loudspeakers can be heard."

Dynamics to the point of excess – both from the engine and from the loudspeakers (Image ? Bugatti)

Let me say it in my own words: with the fastest loudspeakers in the world, you can drive directly into the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra at up to 420 km/h. Of course, Dirk would strongly disagree here. After all, the stage is riding along. Well, let's put it another way: with the fastest high-end loudspeakers in the world, the entire Concertgebouw Orchestra fits into the passenger seat of a sports car. No, I'm afraid this picture is off like Miles Davis' syncopation. Let us let the master speak again, Dirk Vaehsen:

"In the listening room at home, the loudspeakers are set up in such a way that they form a more or less exact triangle with the listening position. This creates a virtual stage behind the loudspeakers, some of which extends far beyond the dimensions of the listening room. However, this sound image “snaps into place” only in the so-called "sweet spot", i.e. at the listening position, which can be larger or smaller depending on the loudspeaker system. A hi-fi enthusiast moving around in his living room will experience this beautiful listening panorama breaking down.

In the car, the listening position is clearly defined: the listener sits in the driver's or passenger's seat. This makes it possible to adjust everything perfectly to the seating position of the driver or front passenger and to achieve a three-dimensional representation of the performance inside the vehicle.

However, while loudspeaker chassis’ in the high-end home hi-fi sector define the state-of-the-art in fully-fledged floor-standing loudspeakers, modern passenger cars often have less than 1/10th the available volume. The volume for a subwoofer can be as small as 3.5 liters, coupled with the requirement to hear adequate bass ranges at over 300 km/h. Here, conventional loudspeakers cannot be used if the performance in the passenger car is to reach state-of-the-art levels. Unconventional parameters, architectures, and materials are needed, which we develop with a variety of simulation tools and our experience. In addition, demand for sophisticated interior design is rising, from which we have developed technologies for invisible sound systems".

The finest concert hall in the world - the technology of high-end loudspeakers

Accuton installed nine of these “invisible” loudspeakers: four tweeters, three mid-range drivers, and two woofers. Nine drivers isn't much. Some car DIY-enthusiasts who will install a lot more into a VW Golf. But quantity is not the deciding factor. Each of the nine loudspeakers built into the Chiron was developed exclusively for this car, so the entire audio system is perfectly matched to the requirements of this vehicle.

High-end loudspeaker chassis from Accuton in Bugatti - Part 1 (Picture ? Accuton)

The four tweeters - two at the front, two at the rear - are probably the absolute highlights in this system: their domes consist of diamonds each 1 carat in size. They form a deep black "sphere section surface", which forms the centre of the tweeter chassis. Their colour is achieved by a wafer-thin coating of graphite. The diamond dome is incredibly hard, and is therefore able to reproduce high and even the highest tones extremely "quickly" and distortion-free. The distortion is less than 0.05 percent. These cut diamonds are suspended in pure silk, driven by titanium voice coils, which are in turn guided in a neodymium magnet system with low tolerance that provides I excess of 2 Tesla field strength, generating a sound pressure level of 95 dB (at one watt).o

High-end loudspeaker chassis from Accuton in Bugatti - Part 2 (Picture ? Accuton)

The midrange drivers are mounted behind partially perforated leather to blend in unobtrusively with the Chiron's ambience. Two midrange drivers are placed in the doors, the third at the rear between the seats. This third midrange driver, together with the two rear tweeters, forms a rear system, widening the stage presentation when listening to music and - also a specific requirement of mobile concert halls - improving speech intelligibility in phone calls and for navigational guidance. The stage for the voice announcements is moved slightly backwards virtually and is thus better separated from the music. For this purpose, accuton developed and patented a DSP scheme tailored exclusively for the Chiron.

High-end loudspeaker chassis from Accuton in Bugatti - Part 3 (Picture ? Accuton)

This audio system is completed by two woofers. They are hidden inconspicuously behind the seats. Since there was only little installation space available here, both loudspeakers were installed in a compound arrangement. This largely compensates for the forces generated by the long-stroke (+/- 12 mm) membrane suspensions, and the interior trim of the Bugatti is less stimulated. This avoids humming and rattling noises. Quite the change from my R4...

The high quality of this overall system is not only the result of the certainly high-quality individual chassis, but above all of the skilful tuning of the overall system. This integration into the acoustic "Gesamtkunstwerk" also makes superfluous a torture device hobby craftsmen use to adjust their frequencies: an equalizer. In the accuton system, only treble, bass, midrange and balance are individually adjusted. Chief developer Dirk Vaehsen points out that he alone spent more than 100 hours in the Bugatti Chiron for the final tuning by ear and eye. Despite the computer-assisted chassis development in Pulheim, perfect sound is only possible by conscientiously listening by trained ears. He's probably right.

Listening experience - music on the road

The sound system in the Bugatti Chiron is not designed for any specific musical style. In fact, rock sounds as dirty as it was recorded, classical music as powerful as composed, and jazz as delicate and precise as it was played. The resolution is astonishing, the dynamics dizzying, the mood highly emotionalizing.

Listening to music is vital to my survival. There are no moments in life more beautiful than sitting quietly in an armchair and "seeing" music with my eyes closed. In a car, of course, this is not recommended. When driving, the music must not reduce concentration on the road. But here, too, music plays an important role: it can calm us down, keep us awake and concentrated, and it can sweeten the pleasure of admiring the landscape you are driving through and the smell of fresh grass with the roof or window open.

As BMW puts it: “Dynamik beginnt im Kopf“ ("Dynamism begins in the head"). I'd like to accentuate: "Dynamism begins in the ear". More cruising pleasure through dynamic music reproduction!

Music therapy today has many studies that prove music can have an effect on the current state of health of the listener. The general effect of specific music is overlaid by the experiences of the recipient. While one person remembers his first childhood love with Sch?nberg, another will remember the horror of joint concert visits with a strict father. While one composition may calm one listener, it will make another almost aggressive. In the good old cult novel Clockwork Orange, the first-person narrator Alex is regularly incited to violent excesses while listening to Beethoven's Ninth. I really don't want to meet him with requisite music in a Chiron on the motorway...

If you want to get a little more into the connections between music and psyche, I’d like to recommend a wonderful little book by Thomas Richter: "Warum man im Auto nicht Wagner h?ren sollte. Musik und Gehirn." (Why you shouldn't hear Wagner in the car. Music and Brain).

So, there can be no universal music tips. Individual experience and preference is too important. A journalist once recommended Chinese music to me: "un matin sur le fleuve" (Sony MK 36705) and he combined this listening advice with a beautiful summary "Without music in the car my life would have been different. I would have refused to drive long distances."

My own preferences for "music on the go" have changed over and over again. At the moment I am often surrounded by the very calming sound clouds of Orlando & Die Unterl?sten. There are three wonderful CDs in this series. Of the old dead heroes, perhaps Tim Buckley is recommended calmly, brightly and clearly.

But more and more, African music is played in my car, for example from the great Vusi Mahlasela. This is music to relax, feel-good-music to sing along to (if the passenger seat is empty - or else will be emptied quickly). Blues from Mali also lifts up the mood and calms the pulse down.

Then, of course, there is the great "program music of traffic" for all the critics of individual automotive traffic, for example Duke Ellington’s public transport anthem "Take the A-Train", or even "Walkin'" by Miles Davis. ;-)

While writing this little article, however, I am listening to Kraftwerk, whose "Autobahn" I never hear on the autobahn: I own this classic of electronic music on vinyl only.

By the way: the Bugatti Chiron, which costs more than two million euros, doesn't have an integrated record player either. But every car probably has some shortcomings ...

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This article was first published in German on the Czyslansky blog: https://www.czyslansky.net/presto-possibile-die-schnellsten-high-end-lautsprecher-der-welt/

Note: I am a consultant for Accuton and other high-end companies. As a passionate music listener, however, I have an incorruptible ear ??

You can also convince yourself of the acoustic quality of the accuton system in the Bugatti Chiron: At the Munich high-end trade fair from May 9 to 12, 2019 in the M.O.C.. You will find the Bugatti in Hall A 3.1 in the Accuton Gallery. Taking the Chiron for a spin won’t be possible, but maybe you'll be offered a listening session.