Lexus, Mark Levinson Unprecedented Audio

What Makes Unprecedented Audio?

08/29/2007 -- The partnership between Lexus and Mark Levinson was created with an unremitting goal: exceed the customer's expectations by creating a unique listening experience. This could only be accomplished by reconnecting listeners in an emotionally satisfying way with their favorite music or movie through truly unprecedented audio.

What makes unprecedented audio? In order to facilitate the listener's emotional connection, Mark Levinson acoustic engineers create the auditory illusion of the original performance. To do so, they emphasize specific sonic attributes that frame a wonderful audio experience. These attributes include stable three-dimensional imaging, high resolution, harmonic richness, natural dynamics, 360-degree spatial envelopment, and musicality.

Three-dimensional, stable imaging is a playback system's performance attribute that convincingly conveys the location of each performer across the "soundstage," both left to right and front to back. The perceived location of the performer should be fixed and consistent throughout the audio piece. The psychoacoustics, or perception of one's spatial auditory acuity, must seem natural and lifelike. Because directional cues principally come from higher frequencies, a key to creating stable imaging is equal, unobstructed path lengths between the tweeters and the listener's ears.

A system's ability to extract the smallest acoustic detail and nuance from a recorded musical or cinematic performance determines whether it exhibits high resolution. This "high-definition audio" reveals auditory cues such as the activation of the pedal during a piano concerto, a singer taking a breath, or the individual utterance of an audience member.

Harmonic richness allows for the full reproduction of an individual instrument's or vocal's particular harmonic structure or overtone. The richness is refined to such a degree that instead of hearing a piano or an acoustic guitar, a discerning listener could identify a Bosendorfer from a Steinway, or a Martin from a Gibson.

The contrast between the softest musical passages, or solo acoustic instruments, and the loudest orchestral crescendos describes natural dynamics. An essential characteristic in creating the illusion of a live musical performance or the full theatre movie experience, natural dynamics is the most identifiable attribute of live music while being the most difficult to reproduce either in a home or an automobile. Cinematic special effects make the reproduction of natural dynamics even more challenging.

When a listener feels the sensation of being acoustically surrounded in a given space, as if at a live concert or movie theatre, they are experiencing 360-degree spatial envelopment. This is a virtual creation of a live-performance venue or an engineer's control room where the passenger cabin is realistically filled with ambient sound or specific instrumentation in front of, to the sides of, and behind each of the listeners.

Musicality is the total measure of the playback system's ability to communicate the emotional essence of one's favorite music or cinematic storyline. It immerses the listener in the entertainment experience, transcending all considerations of the system entirely, while conveying the intent of the artist without coloring it. Musicality allows all of the other sonic attributes to blend together in recreating the sensation and emotion of the original auditory event.

Lexus and Mark Levinson accomplish the key sonic attributes of unprecedented audio via four cooperative steps that set the vision, define the execution, integrate the components into the Lexus vehicle, and that sets the stage for the Mark Levinson engineers to voice the system.

Setting the vision for a new Lexus model's sound system includes defining what the sound system should accomplish. This process is an inspired creative collaboration between the Lexus model's chief engineer and his staff along with the Mark Levinson acoustic engineers. For the all-new LS luxury sedan, the objective was the best OEM system on the market worthy of the "Reference" moniker, establishing a performance and sonic benchmark. To accomplish this, careful attention was paid to optimize every system detail, and performance targets had to be benchmarked and forecasted against the competitive set. The sonic attributes necessary in volume, bass, and a number of other targets had to be determined. Ultimately, the type of auditory experience that should be brought to the consumer had to be decided.

Once the vision for a new vehicle is established, the sound system is conceptually conceived and quantified. The research and development "roadmap" is reviewed to determine what technology is on the horizon and what state of the art tools will be available for the next generation system. The system's components and their specifications are decided upon in order to reach the performance targets. To achieve the desired performance, the needs of new technology invention or the evolution of existing technology are decided upon. On the new LS, three-way system architecture in the front was required to create a magnificent front stage by providing stability and replication of natural dynamics. The 19-speaker total was determined not by a desire for numeric superiority but as a condition of attaining the system's "vision." Also, every speaker type in the LS, with the exception the tweeters that were designed specifically for the 2006 GS sport sedans, was developed specifically for the vehicle.

At this point, the system starts to take shape and come to light, while the foundation for execution is decided. This collaborative development between Lexus engineers and the Mark Levinson design team determines the physical location of all the components in order to maximize the pre-voicing acoustic performance. Takeshi Yosida, the LS' executive chief engineer, had all the engineers responsible for designing the vehicle's packaging come listen to the sound system to understand why they would perhaps have to work twice or three times as hard in order to achieve strategic goal set for the sound system. The sound-system components are also optimized for size and weight, quality, ease of assembly during the auto's manufacturing process, and testing and validation. The optimization of space down to millimeters of angles is done in order to create the best "stage" for the system. Every motor, or magnet, in the new LS is made of neodyminum, allowing them to be much smaller than standard ceramic magnets while still providing the necessary performance. Test specifications are also confirmed as well in areas of environment and lifecycle.

Once the sound-system has been fully integrated into the vehicle, the voicing process is completed. This fine-tuning is where art meets science and the sonic attributes are confirmed. Objective listening is conducted with output test measurements by a six-microphone array, which is strategically placed at different times in all seats in the vehicle. Additionally, Mark Levinson acoustic engineers perform subjective listening, bringing their extensive auditory experience to balance the objective sound. Testing is made with both mock vehicles in a laboratory setting and out on common roads and test tracks to evaluate how the system performs in real-world conditions like road and wind noise. Final performance benchmarking is also done on late pre-production vehicles.

The surround sound system in the new Lexus LS luxury sedan was the first to match the "reference product" tradition established by the Mark Levinson home products. It was a system that built upon a continually evolving partnership between Lexus and Mark Levinson that ceaselessly recreates itself to achieve an unprecedented audio experience. A relationship that makes one of the quietest, non-resonate vehicles on the market into the one of the best "listening rooms" on wheels.

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