2019 Toyota Avalon: Redesigned & Ready to Rock
Clarifying Clari-Fi & QuantumLogic Technology
“What Clari-Fi technology does is, it lives in the amplifier and it’s working in the background, essentially analyzing the bit rate of the track that’s being played through the system,” Roche explains. “It’s looking at that and trying to improve the bit rate and the quality. In layman’s terms, Clari-fi takes an analog signal, evaluates it digitally, and then enhances the sound.
“The example that I always use to explain this is, imagine if you’re watching a YouTube video and your data connection isn’t very strong, it’s gonna buffer, and the quality of the image is gonna be diminished,” he continues. “So, your experience is diminished because you are not gonna see the details. And so what we’re doing is the complete opposite of what the buffering is doing. We’re flipping that around and we’re trying to elevate the audio quality back to a point where you can experience those more minute details that you might lose when the compression happens.”
To further emphasize the benefits of this bar-raising technology, Toyota provides an iPad loaded with Clari-Fi and a few random music tracks. The app allows me to turn Clari-Fi on and off with the press of a button. With Clari-Fi turned off, it’s like layers have been stripped from electro-pop hit that I’m listening to. The delivery is clear, but the song sounds flat, like you’re listening to it underwater.
When I engage Clari-Fi, every track sounds like remastered versions of songs that I thought I knew well. But now, I am hearing what sounds like new layers of music that were not there before. If you told me five minutes ago that I would soon be willingly listening to a Daft Punk song for more than two seconds, I would have laughed. Instead, with headphones on and Clari-Fi engaged, I now understand the global appeal of their electronic music.
Back inside the Avalon, I give the surround sound another test, starting with it turned off and all of the treble and mids and bass completely in the middle, so nothing has been adjusted for the demonstration. The delivery is smooth, clear, and loud without any hint of a rattle or vibration or outside static.
‘We’re trying to elevate the audio quality back to a point where you can experience those more minute details that you might lose when the compression happens.’
I engage the QuantumLogic Surround and instantly recognize that the sound is focused more on the center channel and is using the 14 speakers to produce a cabin-filling listening experience. To the average car enthusiast, this stereo is mind-blowing, but even hardcore audiophiles will be impressed with its versatility and its ability to further increase the sound quality of audio output.
“In this particular vehicle, we have the new High-D 12 amplifier, which provides an exceptional amount of power in comparison to the previous generation’s system,” says Roche. “It also allowed us to add a couple elements that are not available in any other Toyota, like QuantumLogic Surround, which is a Toyota first. In essence, it’s actually recreating a 7.1 listening experience. So, when you have the surround mode off, you will get much more of a traditional stereo-listening experience that you’re used to. And when you enable the QuantumLogic Surround, the center channel and the speakers act as an immersive listening experience.”
Even with the Clari-Fi and QuantumLogic Surround tech engaged, there is still more ways to get the music even more crisp and immersive. For instance, a digitally-mixed track will sound much better than a more traditional studio-recorded track because the QuantumLogic Surround handles the surround aspect much better on a digitally-mixed master track or an electronic track.
“The way we process the sound when it’s going through the surround processing or amplifier does change some of the volume levels on the speakers, so that it has the capability to provide more of an immersive listening experience,” says Roche. “And that’s how you can control sound waves, to some degree. We can’t move the speakers, so we have to do what we can, which is volume level, frequency curve, and other tasks that the speakers are asked to perform in this particular feature.”
“Every vehicle that we design with Toyota is designed uniquely,” adds Roche. “The Camry system is designed different than the Avalon, and this particular system is only available in the Avalon. So, whenever Toyota announces new vehicles, we will launch new systems. But keep in mind, this is Toyota’s flagship sedan. So, from a vehicle standpoint, this will be the best-sounding Toyota theoretically because it’s the largest, it has the most features. Typically the higher grade vehicles have a little bit more features, and then as you go from an Avalon to a Corolla, the Corolla’s feature set is going to be significantly less than the Avalon because of the price point and the features available.”
Continued: The Cost of Perfect Acoustics
