Achi news desk-
New York –
It can be awkward to take a phone call while you’re driving and your family is in the car with you. If you’re listening to music it turns off and everyone has to stop and listen to whatever someone on the phone wants to tell you.
Infiniti, Nissan’s luxury vehicle division, has just revealed a feature in its A new full-size SUV that can allow everyone else in the vehicle to keep listening to whatever they want while the driver takes a phone call and there’s no need for headphones. Only the driver can hear the call and the person on the other end of the call cannot hear the music playing in the SUV.
It’s the latest trick in the increasingly competitive world of luxury car audio systems. Nowadays, there is almost no luxury car company that does not sport its high-end sound system with brands such as Burmeister in Mercedes-Benz, McIntosh in the dirty Jeep Grand Wagoneer SUV and Bang & Olufson in Bentley and Genesis cars, among others . . For Klipsch, renowned for its high-end handheld speakers, this is only the brand’s second appearance in a vehicle. The US$87,000 luxury pickup has a Klipsch Ram Tungsten stereo as standard equipment but even lacks Infiniti’s high-tech sound isolation system.
The system in the QX80, developed by Infiniti together with Panasonic Automotive and Klipsch, works through a combination of smart speaker placement and sound cancellation technology. The driver and front passenger seats have headrest mounted speakers. That’s not a new idea, but headrest speakers are usually found in convertible versions where music, phone calls and navigation instructions have to overcome buffeting wind noise. They are not usually found in large, quiet luxury vehicles like the Infiniti QX80.
Sound canceling technology, in simpler forms, is not new either. It generally works by using speakers to create offset sound waves to kill unwanted sounds. If you imagine sound waves as a line going up and down then imagine overlaying that with a second line that goes up and down in exactly opposite directions, you would basically get a flat band. In other words, no sound.
Sound cancellation in headphones and car stereos is usually used to wash out continuous background noises such as engine noise. It’s much more difficult with sounds like music, which change a lot from moment to moment.
2025 Infiniti QX80 during the 2024 New York International Auto Show. (Gabby Jones/Bloomberg/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)
Rather than relying on microphones to pick up sounds from the air, the optional Klipsch stereo in the 2025 QX80 reads the digital music track being played – as it’s meant to be played, anyway – and can use that to create offset sound waves from speakers around the driver’s seat. That creates a quiet bubble around the driver so that only the driver can hear a phone call or navigation prompts coming through the headrest speakers while others in the vehicle can listen to music in full . Meanwhile, the person on the other end of the phone call will not hear the music at all. For them, it will be just like talking to someone in a quiet room.
The redesigned QX80 won’t go on sale until next year, so I tested the system in a QX80 parked inside a building in Manhattan. A party with a live singer nearby made for a fairly noisy atmosphere outside the SUV.
I sat in the passenger seat of the new SUV while Panasonic executive Tom Dunn took a phone call from the driver’s seat. Pop music was playing on the stereo. I could hear Dunn talking but the voice on the other end of the phone came through, at first, as an intermittent quiet buzz. Dunn then turned down the call volume slightly and the other voice disappeared entirely, covered by country music.
I then stepped out of the SUV and walked to where an Infiniti spokesperson was on the phone about 20 feet away. I took his phone and spoke to Dunn. I could hear Dunn talking to me but not the music that was still playing in the car.
Earlier in the demonstration, I had already taken a call from the driver’s seat while music was playing, but I had thought that was, relatively speaking, the easy part. I had to trust Dunn, who was in the passenger seat at the time, to tell me that he couldn’t hear the person calling me. It was much weirder to be in the passenger seat later and not hear the call. It was confusing to be on the phone outside and not hear the music I knew was playing inside the vehicle.
The call masking feature only works if music is playing on the stereo. If there is no music playing other people in the SUV will still have to listen to your call but it will be quieter than in most other vehicles.
And anyway, everyone will still have to listen to the driver talk. But, if your call includes anything embarrassing, you can make sure you always answer “Yes” and “No” to everything. Your secrets will be safe.
