Alpine IMPRINT Sound Processing

I have always been a noob when it comes to audio systems, especially in car entertainment systems. There would be days where you would just want to drive slow and enjoy the scene with some nice music playing through your audio system.

And this is the time where I would start to get really upset because the stock sound system from Toyota just plainly couldn't cut it. Add on with the vibration and wind noise coming in from all over the areas of the car, it makes you feel like you just want to drive to the nearest petrol station and torch the mutha fucking car.

So I drove to my audio guy and I told him I want all the vibration and wind noise gone from the car. Then for the next couple of months I learned new terms like Dynamat, chassis foaming, heat insulation, under body spray etc.

Great! So now that the car has a lot less vibration and wind sound, I can now crank up the volume and listen to some music right?

NOPE.

Instead of the singer's voice all that I could hear was her trying very hard to murmur something as though someone has shoved the damn microphone down her throat. Well, I couldn't quite make it whether its a microphone or a banana but yeah so much for the factory sound system.

I am determined to remove that damn microphone (or banana) from the singer's throat so I turned to my audio guy again and he recommended me this - Alpine IMPRINT.

In a nutshell, this is a technology which requires a microphone to be placed in six different locations inside the car, hook up the sound processor to a computer, closed all the doors and let the system tune itself out.

Alpine Imprint Audio Processor

Placement of the microphone

Measuring in progress

Measurements of all 6 locations completed

Frequency & Time Response Graph

(Before & After)

Think of this as a standalone engine management unit for your audio sound system if you will. You are able to tune every single channel and frequency there is available.

There are inherent acoustical challenges in every car and they are all different. For example, your window will deflect the sound produced by your speakers. The car's cushion will absorb some of it, couple it up with wind noise, cabin size and location of the speakers, the sound produced will not be optimal.

(Source: www.alpine.com)

Alpine's IMPRINT technology basically overcomes this by measuring the car cabin's acoustic response with a omni-directional microphone at 6 locations to provide time and frequency corrections. The end result is optimum sound quality regardless which location in the car you're sitting at.

I know there are still a lot of audio fanatics out there who still might not be able to accept this new way of tuning sound systems, however this technology has been around for some time and its not something new. Home theater audio systems has been using this technology for more than a decade, its only recently the technology has been made available to the automotive industry.

Alpine is not the only company that uses the MultEQ from sound technology giant Audyssesy in their Imprint architecture, Toshiba, IMAX, Onkyo, Denon, Integra, NAD, Marantz and Jaguar also uses their technology just to name a few.

I fired up a CD and I was in audio nirvana. It has a very nice wide sound stage and the clarity is amazing. I can now hear things I couldn't hear in my car before. With human effort it will take a lot more compared to the what the software can achieve in under 30 minutes, and the results won't probably come close.

Now I am a happy man because there isn't any banana or microphone stuck in anyone's throat anymore.