Lexus gives car owners a fake engine sound choice as a noise app is developed

MISS the days of having a V8 growl as you start the family car? Lexus’ new SUV gives you a sound option and soon you can pick the noise coming from your car.

Fwd: 2014 Lexus NX has technology that makes fake engine sound inside the car

WANT the sound of a V8 but the fuel economy of four-cylinder car?

You could soon be able to make any car sound like something it’s not, like a Formula One racer, even if it’s a hybrid.

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Car makers have gradually been introducing synthesized car sounds into their cabins because strict noise laws have forced tail-pipes and engine roar to be quieter.

For example, some European performance cars have a speaker mounted under the dashboard to mimic a louder engine note.

But Toyota’s luxury division Lexus has taken the idea a step further and given drivers the option of a volume dial for their fake engine sound.

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One of the engineers responsible for the new car says in the future it will be possible for customers to download their favourite sounds via a phone app and then upload it to their car.

“In the future it will be possible for any sound to be downloaded from the internet,” says Kei-Ichi Nishiyama, assistant chief engineer on the new Lexus NX softroader which goes on sale in Australia in October.

He said the car won’t currently allow customers to add their own sounds “but in the future it is my idea to have the customer choose the sound. I would like to do that. But for the moment there is no plan.”

This technology was expected to be applied primarily to electric cars because they are otherwise silent and characterless.

But with sales of electric cars still minuscule — and conventional cars becoming quieter and more efficient — the fake sound technology is moving mainstream.

Meanwhile, the same car company is trying to improve the sound of music inside the car — by filling in the gaps that occur when original music files are compressed from CD quality to an MP3 file.

The world’s premium car sound makers have been trying to combat the massive shift to downloaded music and songs streamed over the internet or via satellite radio.

An MP3 file, or similar, loses about 90 per cent of its original sound quality when it is compressed.

But a new system created by Harmon in the US “reads” the MP3 file milliseconds before it’s played and then restores what it believes are the missing notes and finer detail.

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In an example where the technology was demonstrated while switching between the two formats, the sound quality was almost as good as the original — and significantly better than the MP3 file.

Until now the technology has only appeared on the HTC M8 phone and a special type of JBL home speaker.

The maker says this is the first application of the technology in a car.

“People aren’t buying CDs in big numbers anymore, they’re mostly downloading MP3 files or streaming,” said Phi Phung, from audio company Harman.

“This has a detrimental affect on sound quality so we’ve come up with a system that puts the detail back into the music.”

For now, the system is only available on a luxury SUV from Lexus due on sale later this year priced from $60,000, and only on the optional 14-speaker, 980-watt top-end sound system.

But the company expects the audio technology will become more widely available on more affordable models in the coming years.

This reporter is on Twitter: @JoshuaDowling