The 16-store Car Toys chain based in Tacoma, WA has completed demo rooms for the Pioneer SPHERA head unit, the first aftermarket car radio to allow Dolby Atmos playback.
Pioneer’s recently introduced $1,400 SPHERA radio brings Dolby Atmos to a vehicle with as few as four speakers through CarPlay.
The demo rooms measure about 12 feet across and include Pioneer “Z Series” speakers, and “D Series” amplifiers and vented 10-inchd subwoofers. They were designed by leading Car Toys merchandiser and car audio competition champion many times over, Jeremy Boyd.
The demo rooms are located in the Puget Sound region in Washington and the metro Denver area in Colorado. The last room of the 16 was completed last week.
Jim Warren of Sound Distributions, parent to the above group of Car Toys stores, said the rooms are leading to higher ticket sales. “Customers are excited and sales are strong. SPHERA itself at $1400 is typically getting married with a matching amount of speakers, amps and subs – with labor and accessories we are seeing lots of nice tickets being built.”
Pioneer Director of Marketing David Lux said, “Car Toys is the first retailer we are partnering with to build a dedicated SPHERA listening experience like this, and we think it’s a model the whole category can learn from. The easiest way to sell an immersive product is to let people hear it, so we’d welcome any retail partner who wants to bring that same experience to their customers.”
“When you actually hear it, it’s quite extraordinary. You would think there are 16 speakers,” Warren said.
He added that he hopes other suppliers will join Pioneer in offering Dolby Atmos.
What is Dolby Atmos
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 x,y, z axis info. This data instructs the vocals or drums, say, to move in space where they are optimized based on the music being played and the physical audio system.
Dolby says, “Traditional stereo music places sounds along a flat, left-to-right line. By adding metadata for height (the z-axis), artists can place a sound to float above your head or swirl around you.”
Dolby Atmos’s strength is that the software is already out in the market. “90 of the top 100 songs on the Billboard charts are all recorded in Dolby Atmos. Years ago, we would get a new technology, but there was no software for it, like DVD players, but no DVDs, and 4K. The software material always came late. But in this case, Apple is so involved with the recording studios and Dolby and they really helped push it,” Warren said.
Apple has used Dolby Atmos for its Spatial Audio system for its headphones and AirPods since 2021. It supported the format by offering Dolby Atmos encoded songs in Apple Music without creating a more expensive subscription tier. Apple started paying artists and labels higher royalties for songs available in Spatial Audio, which created an incentive to record in Atmos mixing. Apple’s total catalog includes tens of millions of songs.
Features of the Pioneer SPHERA
The achievement of Pioneer’s SPHERA radio is that it brings Dolby Atmos to most vehicles. (See more here). 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.
Note:
Sound Distributions is the parent company owned and operated by Ed Weber and Angela Carroll. Sound Distributions owns and operates all of the Car Toys locations in the Puget Sound and Denver metro markets. Sound Distributions also owns and operates the Car Toys Business Solutions commercial upfitting center in Portland, Oregon.
