Why ‘Lexus’ is called as ‘driving music hall’

[Kim, Song-Yi] An audio is inseparable from an automobile. In other words, they have a lot in common, as both are the fruit of the combination of the highest technology and the fine machine.

Also, both a car and an audio are the necessaries while they are also items of personal preference. Price also has a wide range based on which products are chosen. Therefore, world-wide automobile brands are working with premium audio brands. The collaboration of Lexus and Mark Levinson can be a good example.

The recent major force in automotive branded audio market is Harman International Industries, Incorporated (HII). Sidney Harman and Bernard Kardon founded the predecessor to Harman International, Harman Kardon, in 1953. Since then, HII continued its growth based on merger and acquisitions. Under the company, there are more than 20 brands like Mark Levinson, Bang&Olufsen, Becker, Infinity, JBL, Lexicon, and Revel.

The tie between Lexus and Mark Levinson has started since the early 21st century. In 2001, Lexus engineers redesigned SC430 rear seats, since Phil Muzzio, a jazz musician, said that SC430 rear seat could not maximize audio’s advantages.

The amateur musician was also then president of Mark Levinson. Mark Levinson, the audio brand founded by Mark Levinson, has been acknowledged as the world best high-end audio equipment brand for 30 years. Muzzio enjoyed his performance records. When he turned on the audio, he did not satisfy with the sound quality.

For this reason, he decided to make the player by himself. In 1972, he founded ‘Mark Levinson Audio System’ at parents home garage located in Woodbridge, Connecticut. Starting with LNP-1, Mark Levinson had expanded his business. JC-2 was introduced in 1974, which had smaller size and simpler design than other competitive products.

In 2001, Levinson started to design automotive sound system only for Lexus. Lexus had been used Nakamichi, Japanese popular audio brand, since 2000 when the company was established to 2000.
As Lexus continued its growth, it could not avoid looking for the best audio. With this reason, Mark Levinson received a love call from Lexus.

Muzzio and his team took hand in the whole process, and Lexus gave full supports. When Lexus started to examine 2001 SC again, Muzzio found that the sound quality can be improved by designing rear-seat pad differently. As a result, audio volume increased by 5dB.

Meeting of Mark Levinson and Lexus gave quite big shocks to both audio manias and automobile industries, since they have unprecedented quality and performance. Muzzio said, “For this project, what I believe as success is clear, which a customer feels as if he is at the front seat of a concert, when he turns on music in his car. ”

Lexus and Mark Levion’s goal is clear- Make Lexus as an individual concert hall. They does not only make the sound quality better, but also minimize the weight of system, power consumption and even heat release. With the efforts, ‘Green-edge technology’ could finally be born.
The core point of the technology is to have double performance within the same power.

Based on sale markets, Lexus offers Mark Levinson as a standard or an option equipment. In terms of ES300h Executive, 7.1 channel with 835W output premium surround system is offered. 15 speakers are adopted. For dashboard, 90mm mid-range is used, and 16mm-tweter is adopted for both left and right side. 7×10㎝ mid-woofers are used for both front doors in order to make sound richer.

For the both rear doors, 25mm tweeter and 170 mid-woofer are used. For the rear-seat shelf, two 90mm- mid-range speaker is used as a bridge of tweeter and base sound. 200mm dual-voice serve woofer makes sound deeper by low frequency sound. Those 15 speakers ultimately make ES as a concert hall surrounded by bands.

This is why customers from all around the world have evaluated Lexus as a ‘driving music hall’.