DVD-Audio in the car
Listening to DVD-Audio tracks requires special equipment — I installed Kenwood's KVT-915DVD in-dash DVD player with built-in monitor in my car. Now, I'd never heard DVD-Audio in the car before; even understanding the technical differences (on paper) between CDs and DVD-Audio discs, I was skeptical as to how much different it would sound from standard CDs in the car. Frankly, I assumed that I certainly wouldn't notice. I popped a disc in, and…
Oh my.
 Kenwood Excelon KVT-915DVD DVD/CD/MP3 receiver with 7" touch-screen control monitor and DVD-Audio playback. |
In the cozy environment of the car, DVD-Audio sounds absolutely beautiful. It was evident that for the first time, I was experiencing real dynamics in my music while on the road. It wasn't just a matter of louder and quieter: guitars sounded sharper, bass deeper, drums seemed to hit harder. And they all meshed together as a perfect organic whole. Everything I listened to, no matter how old the source material, had fullness and substance to it. The interplay between the highs and lows was immediately noticeable and scintillating.
In fact, I'd say that the difference in sound quality between DVD-Audio and CD is as dramatic as that between CD and cassette. When compared to CDs, cassettes sound noisy, almost muddy. CD signal is clean, clear, and usually quite forceful. Without any other basis of comparison, CD sounds like the perfect format for the car.
DVD-Audio has changed that notion for me. It doesn't necessarily sound any more "clean" than a CD. The information comes through as clearly and forcefully as it does with a CD. The difference is in the depth. DVD-Audio sounds significantly deeper and livelier — it's closer to "real life" sound. Listening to disc after disc, I felt enveloped by the sound in a way I never had before. Again, it's closer to vinyl.
CDs, by comparison, sound a bit flat and lifeless. While their sound may be clean, and while each part of the music is clearly discernable, it all seems to operate on the same dynamic plane; individual parts are translated in nearly equal measure. One doesn't get the illusion of a live performance that a DVD-Audio disc delivers. To put it in real-life terms, it's competent, but it lacks a certain amount of soul.
A word on surround sound
As I mentioned, many DVD-Audio discs will deliver surround-sound playback. The encoding is discrete, too, meaning that individual sets of information are sent to each of the system's speakers independently of each other. Right now, not many vehicles are equipped with the necessary speaker setup (center, front stereo, rear surround, and subwoofer) to reproduce true surround sound. Such setups, however, are growing in popularity (the 2005 Acura 2005 TL and RL and the Cadillac STS, for example, are outfitted with surround sound).
 A typical 5.1 set-up in a car. See our article on Multichannel Music in Your Car for more information on how to get surround sound in your vehicle. |
To experience surround sound, I popped in the DVD-Audio version of The Flaming Lips' modern classic Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, which was specifically remastered in 5.1 surround by legendary engineer Elliot Scheiner. The experience was sublime. There's nothing like the very first experience of the swirling sensation of hearing different instruments and phrases in a song coming at you from different directions. Even more impressively, this didn't seem like a gimmick; the engineering was such that it sounded like a perfect, organic whole, despite its novelty.
Surround sound isn't the only reason to get into DVD-Audio, though. As I learned from listening to older albums converted to DVD-Audio, stereo recordings sound just as spectacular. In fact, with older recordings, stereo playback is preferable, as that's the mode for which the musical imaging was originally created. Stereo DVD-Audio discs still churn out incredible depth and richness.
So how do I play them and where do I get them?
Sadly, DVD-Audio hasn't hit the mainstream yet. And most often, it's used with home systems. The equipment necessary to play it in the car isn't widely available (or budget friendly, for that matter), and, while several hundred titles have been transferred to the format, only a fraction of all available music can be found on DVD-Audio. Format changes are always difficult for the general public, especially in cases like this, where DVD-Audio discs look just like CDs; people don't feel motivated to make the change. Factor in digital formats like MP3, and the popularity of the iPod™, and DVD-Audio tends to get lost in the shuffle.
But anyone interested in the best sound available should seriously consider DVD-Audio. Even over factory speakers (which is how I heard it), it sounds spectacular. Want the wide-eyed experience of hearing music the way it was meant to be heard? DVD-Audio. Trust me.
