Everyone loves listening to music in the car. Whether you’re heading to work, picking the kids up from school or taking a road trip, it’s a great opportunity to shut out the world for a little while and immerse yourself in your favourite tunes. In fact, Mercedes-Benz recently commissioned a survey of 1,750 drivers and found that more than 76 per cent rated having a realistic spatial sound in the car as either ‘important’ or ‘rather important’ to them.

In a bid to take this treasured experience to new heights, Mercedes-Benz has teamed up with some of the world’s leading audio experts, bringing together Apple Music’s Spatial Audio with the multidimensional soundscape of Dolby Atmos® – plus the recording and publishing might of the world’s largest music label, Universal Music Group.

This high-powered partnership puts Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos® natively inside a vehicle for the first time, generating an immersive audio experience and the gold standard of sound.

Unheard of

By linking their vehicle to the Mercedes me App and using their Apple Music account, owners of eligible Mercedes-Benz vehicles fitted with the Burmester 3D Surround Sound System can access music that was specifically engineered to bring recording-studio sound quality right inside their car.

The first models to benefit from this technology in Australia and New Zealand are our latest all-electric SUVs – the all new EQE SUV and all new EQS SUV. Each of these is fitted with a premium Burmester 3D Surround Sound System as standard, with 15 speakers strategically placed around the cabin and a powerful 710-watt output.

The perfect harmony

But Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos® is much more than a high-quality output for pre-recorded music. It begins with the music production process. Universal Music Group is now using Mercedes-Benz vehicles as a quality gate; in other words, Universal’s recording artists can base their approval process on how their work sounds in a Mercedes-Benz and apply an ‘Approved in a Mercedes-Benz’ seal of quality to their music.

Universal even plans to set up a studio environment near the Mercedes-Benz plant in Sindelfingen, Germany, which itself is only a short distance from the global Mercedes-Benz headquarters in Stuttgart. The new studio will be based on the company’s own Studio C at Capitol Studios in Hollywood, which is a major global reference music studio for Dolby Atmos® mixing.

Ola Källenius, the Chairman of the Board of Management of Mercedes‑Benz Group AG, says the partnership creates a perfect harmony between hardware, sound experience, music content and streaming platform.

“Through this exceptional partnership, we are giving our customers the extraordinary in-car audio experience they expect from Mercedes-Benz,” he says.

“Our collaborations with Apple Music and Universal Music Group are truly unparalleled and set a new benchmark by adding music content and platform expertise to our Dolby Atmos®-capable Burmester sound system.

“Both Apple and UMG share our vision and values and, together with Dolby, we will create a seamless and unique experience for our customers.”

A musical revolution

It was Dolby’s audio technology that produced one of the very first revolutions in vehicle audio reproduction. Back when many cars were fitted with audio cassette players, Dolby’s noise reduction technology enabled high-end speaker systems such as those installed in Mercedes-Benz vehicles of the time to offer optimised sound reproduction. In a neat synergy, Dolby is once again part of a movement that will take this audio experience to even greater heights.

Oliver Schusser, Apple’s Vice President of Apple Music and Beats, says the high-quality sound reproduction in Mercedes-Benz vehicles was a factor in making their Spatial Audio feature available natively in a vehicle for the first time.

“Spatial Audio is revolutionising the way artists create and fans listen to music and it’s an experience that is impossible to explain in words; you have to hear it for yourself to appreciate it,” he says.

“Together with Mercedes-Benz, we now have even more opportunities to bring wholly immersive music to our subscribers all over the world.”

Discover the all-electric EQE and EQS SUVs.

By Steve Colquhoun