Alpine is reviving its ultra high end F#1Status brand with a new system that it calls, “the pinnacle of car audio.”
The new AlpineF#1Status achieves the greatest high-resolution in car audio to date. It is the first in the industry to offer 384kHz/32bit playback, which is more than 17 times greater than CD playback (at 44.1kHz/16bit).
Alpine said the system, “… allows listeners to experience music details that were previously exclusive to a live performance, such as the breath of the artist and subtle interactions with instruments.”
The F#1Status includes a head unit, digital audio player, audio processor, two 4-channel amplifiers, two 7-inch mid bass drivers, two 3-inch midrange drivers, two 2-inch tweeters and a 10-inch subwoofer. The system configuration is fixed except for the option of a second subwoofer kit with a 4-channel amp and a 10-inch subwoofer.
The system goes in sale this fall. It will be featured in a demo vehicle that will tour the US in summer 2022.
The F#1Status brand was retired a while back so why revive it now? Alpine’s Steve Brown said, “Digital music recording quality has always been compromised by file size storage and transfer limitations. These issues have been solved with faster networks and increased storage capacity. Now, it’s possible to transfer full 384k/32bit files and play them back uncompressed. This makes possible, for the first time, a system that can play back recordings virtually identical to the original music, as the artist intended. Alpine saw this as an opportunity to redefine what’s possible in the vehicle sound space, tapping into our decades of experience to create a new car audio benchmark.”
The system’s speakers use carbon fiber reinforced plastic and cover “a wider range than ever before,” said Alpine.
There are actually four sound processors embedded in the AlpineF#1Status that run up to 1GHz/64bit, which allows it to perform time alignment adjustments with a precision of approximately 0.9mm, an improvement from the current 7.2mm in car audio products.
On the controversial subject of high res audio, Alpine said that limiting audio to the range of human hearing (up to 20kHz) “compromises the original sound wave, creating a reproduction that differs from the original.” With high resolution audio you achieve “a richer expression in high tonal ranges, expanding the sense of detail and depth of the music. Additionally, high-resolution audio reproduction is clean sound with minimal distortion, even when the music is played at high volumes.”
