The Iconic Abbey Road Audio Experience Is Coming to Cars—and Maybe Your Next Headphones

What’s maybe most exceptional in regards to the prized and fetishized sound of Abbey Street Studios is that to a sure extent it depends on varied bits of selfmade, one-of-a-kind gear that appears, to the untrained eye, prefer it may be extra at house in a quiet nook of the set of Physician Who.

“The very first thing I requested myself when Bowers & Wilkins approached us about Studio Mode is, how will we make it genuine?,” Mirek Stiles, Abbey Street Studios’ head of audio merchandise tells WIRED. “Abbey Street and its dad or mum firm EMI manufactured its personal compressors, suppressors, and the like, particularly through the Fifties and ’60s, so how will we seize that sound?”

Which implies that not solely did Bowers & Wilkins and Abbey Street Studios discover themselves making an attempt to seize the “sonic fingerprint” of a bodily room and import it into the digital area, however in addition they discovered themselves attempting to copy the consequences of distinctive, one-off spreaders, compounders, and different Heath Robinson-esque studio gear. This sort of gear at Abbey Street Studios is the stuff of professional recording legend—a lot in order that when one in all these artefacts turns into obtainable, curiosity is profound, and the bidding is feral.

Regardless of the plain and appreciable challenges introduced in bringing Abbey Street Studio Mode to market, Mirek appears uncomplicatedly proud of the outcomes. “A automotive cabin is such a small and unpromising surroundings. However I already had some instruments that I believed would possibly help—and what’s vital to an genuine sound is the recording gear within the studio and the methods the recording engineers make use of. As soon as the studio sound is mapped within the bodily sense, a variety of experimentation leads to a dependable components.”

I’ve heard Abbey Street Studio Mode in motion, and fairly frankly there’s no arguing with its effectiveness. A colourful and immersive person interface, nearly harking back to a display from Storage Band, permits a Volvo EX90 proprietor to dial by means of a 180-degree horizontal aircraft between “vintage” and “modern” studio sound, whereas vertical adjustment between the studio room and the management room can also be obtainable. The person can choose a place on both of those two axes to get the sound they’re happiest with and luxuriate in a visible show that feels streets forward of every other automotive in-car audio expertise obtainable.