Swedish digital audio company Dirac is expanding its partnership with Blackberry by integrating the company’s Opteo and Virtuo software optimization solutions into the new BlackBerry QNX Sound platform, giving audio designers and engineers more freedom to create in-vehicle sound experiences.

According to Dirac, vehicle manufacturers will be able to consolidate all audio and acoustic functions seamlessly across entire vehicle lineups using pre-integrated and pretested core technologies. Dirac’s automotive audio solutions are currently used by automotive brands Rolls Royce, Volvo, Polestar, Genesis, NIO and BYD, among many others.

According to Hendrik Hermann, Vice President Automotive at Dirac, the collaboration also demonstrates Dirac and BlackBerry QNX’s shared belief that audio experiences will be a key differentiator in the age of software-defined vehicles that can offer subscription-based upgrades through over-the-air software updates.

“Through our integration into QNX Sound, Dirac’s turnkey solutions allow manufacturers to seamlessly and cost-effectively upgrade any vehicle’s sound system with unparalleled immersion and performance,” Hermann says. “This presents automakers with an opportunity to bring a new, value-add feature into their vehicles, while opening up new revenue streams through subscriptions services and other on-demand upgrades.”

Working alongside BlackBerry QNX, Dirac has now integrated a fully scalable Dirac plug-in, featuring all of Dirac’s industry-leading audio optimization technologies, into the QNX Sound platform. The company’s say this will empower original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) with easy access to Dirac solutions that maximize fidelity and immersion and offer the flexibility to continually enhance and refresh the in-car audio experience for owners.

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The Dirac plug-in will feature the Dirac Opteo digital sound optimization solution, which upgrades the sound performance of automotive audio systems using technologies such as MIMO mixed phase correction, mixed-phase impulse response correction and other patented technologies. It will also feature Dirac Virtuo, which leverages the industry’s most sophisticated audio algorithm to envelop drivers and passengers in high-quality immersive sound, according to Dirac.

John Wall, senior vice president and head of QNX at BlackBerry, calls Dirac software a “key part” of the QNX Sound platform, which is designed to provide every tier of OEM with a complete out-of-the-box library of automotive acoustics tools.

 “That library wouldn’t be truly complete without the industry’s leading car audio optimization tool. Together with Dirac, we are excited to make premium audio available to more drivers in more vehicles than ever before,” Wall says.

Vehicle speakers often interfere with each other to cause distortion and reduce audio clarity – and systems with more speakers create greater interference. A car cabin’s shape and materials can also lead to unwanted sound coloration, resulting in muddy, booming sound that makes it difficult to discern where sound is coming from.

According to Dirac, the company addresses these challenges by enabling all the speakers in a car to work intelligently together and co-correct each other’s impulse response. Dirac’s optimization solutions remove the unwanted effects of the cabin and create ideal loudspeaker responses for maximum fidelity, unparalleled bass performance and immersive sound based on stereo content. With Dirac, sound is richer, more balanced, more dynamic, more immersive in every seat.  

This shared initiative marks an expansion of the companies’ existing collaboration, which began at CES 2023 with the integration of Dirac Opteo into the QNX Acoustics Management Platform.

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