Silence is golden

Comfort is defined not only by the smooth, gentle movement of the chassis and suspension, or indeed a luxurious interior. Sound damping also plays a major role in making the ride as pleasant as possible for the occupants. In the new Audi A8, engineers have dug deep in their box of acoustic tricks and equipped some variants of the new flagship with the Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) system. 

The system sends targeted counteracting sound signals to the sound system’s speakers, thus eliminating bothersome frequencies – without completely masking the characteristic engine tone. Artificially generated sound cancels out the unwanted ambient noise with a precisely opposing soundwave. Couched in simple terms – the soundwave of an undesirable noise takes the form of a mountain; the ANC system generates the exactly opposing valley, and the two waves cancel each other out. All the relevant information flows into the sound system’s amplifier. 

So, for example, the engine control unit provides the current engine speed data. Four microphones in the car’s headliner compare the information with the interior noise, before five woofers generate a counteracting sound in fractions of a second. 

Active Noise Cancellation is available in combination with the plug-in hybrid model and other engine variants. In addition to this, active engine mounts block the transmission of vibrations to the bodyshell. Phase-offset counterimpulses generated by the active system considerably improve the smooth-running characteristics and cancel out vibrations completely unobtrusively. Thanks to ANC, active engine mounts and a host of other systems, the Audi A8 sets new benchmarks in comfort – despite many of these technology highlights working silently and invisibly behind the scenes.