Pioneer began shipping today its SPHERA indash receiver, the first product of its kind, at a price of $1,300.
The SPHERA is the first aftermarket spatial audio in-dash receiver to feature Dolby Atmos playback in Apple CarPlay. It is able to work in millions cars through the vehicles’ existing speakers to produce immersive audio.
With SPHERA, drivers can stream music, audiobooks, and podcasts in Dolby Atmos from many popular streaming services for a better audio experience.
“SPHERA marks a significant milestone in our mission to ‘Move the Heart and Touch the Soul’ by making immersive spatial audio in the car more accessible,” said Larry Rougas, Revenue & Growth Officer and Executive VP at Pioneer Electronics (USA). “By integrating Dolby Atmos into a platform that supports the way people drive today via Apple CarPlay and using our exclusive Autotuning technology to calibrate the system to any vehicle interior, we are effectively setting a new benchmark for what is possible in aftermarket vehicle entertainment.”
The SPHERA receiver includes a 10.1-inch HD capacitive display with Pioneer’s Quick Swipe interface along with wireless Apple CarPlay, wireless Android Auto, and Bluetooth connectivity.
Dolby Atmos is a form of spatial audio that uses up to 128 audio objects. An object can be the singer, and another the bass guitar or drums. Each is recorded as their own separate audio track that is assigned to a 3D position based on the playback time.
Pioneer is able to produce Dolby Atmos in millions of cars by using Pioneer’s former Auto-EQ/Auto-Time alignment technology, which has evolved to what it calls Pure Auto-Tuning. When the SPHERA radio boots up, it takes you through a step-by-step guide, calibrating your vehicle’s audio system. The Auto-Tuning looks at how different sounds and frequencies bounce off or are absorbed in the cabin of the car. It acoustically analyzes how the different materials of the car interact with each audio source point. The SPHERA then applies this in real-time to adjust the Atmos/Spatial audio content to work with as few as four speakers, moving the audio objects in real time and applying the audio corrections required.
Dealers offering SPHERA at launch include Best Buy, Crutchfield, CarToys, and other authorized dealers
For more information about Pioneer SPHERA, visit usa.pioneer.com.
