I picked up a home theater receiver awhile ago with DPLII, along with other digital surround decoding modes. There is a music mode, that works very well for casual listening, which I use often.

Anybody know why this type of enhancement isn't common place in car CD players? All cars seem to come with at least 4 speakers. The chip supports a "phantom center" channel, so no additional speakers would be needed.

I'm surprised that this hasn't become a hot feature in the car world. The chip seems cheap; supports subs; and gives more space to the sound source - plain 2 channel music. A car sure can use all the help it can get when it comes to making the passenger compartment sound bigger than it is.

Car audio has given us screen savers, and razzle dazzle displays of various kinds and colors. It seems that better (or maybe more flexible) sound options and color displays that coordinate with the existing manufacturer's lighting scheme would be of far more benefit than a display showing that a cd is spinning.

Things like Dolby Digital, DTS, Pro Logic II, DVD audio, etc. are common and cheap in the home audio world.

Anybody know if, or when, some of this newer sound technology is coming to car audio?

 

Currently, there are DPL , DSP, and DTS processors available for car audio. Newer technology like DPL2 would follow in a couple of years. Car audio is a whole different animal than home audio, and it takes time for engineers to adapt the technology to the car environment. When was the last time your living room traveled down the road at 70mph?

 

imaging would be the biggest concern for that i would guess. ideally, i would like to sit in the middle of the car and immerse myself in the music, but we know it's not possible (is it?). this is posted quite often on car audio boards, and most ppl respond with the answer "music is recorded in 2-ch so getting a system to play 4+ channels would be useless if you're listening to only cd's."

altho i tend to agree with that, i have a little theatre in my p5, so i would still opt for surround in my car.