Ferrari 612 Scaglietti Gets Bose Audio Upgrade
For more than fifty years a Ferrari’s music came from the engine compartment, and while this has hardly changed with its new lineup of V8- and V12-powered supercars, the Italian marque is starting to get just as serious about in-car audio performance as it does about producing a melodic exhaust note.
To that end top-tier audio supplier Bose has teamed up with Ferrari on the prancing horse brand’s four-seat 612 Scaglietti. An ideal car to consummate the relationship, the 612 Scaglietti is the largest Ferrari ever made, and with that delivers up the most accommodating interior in the automaker’s lineup; acoustically beneficial.
In keeping with Ferrari’s development and production methodology, the new Bose system has been custom-designed for the car, first tested in the audio manufacturer’s automotive design labs and then fine tuned while circling the Italian brand’s Fiorano test track and surrounding area.
The relationship between Ferrari and Bose makes a great deal of sense. Not only do many of Ferrari’s customers enjoy Bose audio equipment in their homes, from the brand’s popular Wave clock radio line to full home theatre systems, but thanks to similar relationships with more mainstream automakers Bose is also the most recognized audio manufacturer in the U.S., according to J. D. Power and Associates 2005 Automotive Component Branding Study released in October.
Bose supplies OEM audio systems for other top-tier marques such as Maserati, Maybach and Porsche, as well as those less vaunted but nevertheless premium brands including Acura, Alfa Romeo, Audi, Cadillac, Hummer, Infiniti, Lancia, Mercedes-Benz and Saab. Bose also puts its name on entry-level brands, including Buick, Chevrolet, GMC, Honda, Mazda and Nissan, although systems available in these are not made to the same tolerances as those in available to its higher priced partners. The audio system that comes standard in every new 612 is among its finest.
Creating one of its best audio systems to date didn’t come without challenges. While the 612 is large for a Ferrari, its performance-oriented cabin is hardly as spacious as a large executive sedan’s. Most vehicles aren’t capable of traveling at the 612’s 300 km/h (186 mph) velocity either, therefore the system had to be sufficiently powerful to compensate for associated engine, exhaust, tire and wind noise. Most important, however, is that the sound system would need to be lightweight, in keeping with Ferrari’s performance priorities.
For instance, each of the car’s nine speakers incorporates a neodymium iron boron magnet instead of a more conventional ferrite magnet. The coin-sized neodymium iron boron magnet puts out all the power and dynamics of the ferrite magnet albeit from a much smaller size and lower weight.
To optimize the sound of those nine speakers Bose engineers studied the 612 interior’s inherent acoustics and general layout, taking more than a thousand individual acoustic measurements resulting in a highly efficient sound system. Bose chose a PowerND woofer on the rear deck and an Nd Richbass woofer in the passenger side footwell, each powered by dedicated two-state switching modulation amplifiers, while the remaining speakers get power from a digital amplifier that includes patented AudioPilot noise compensation circuitry and six channels of custom equalization.
