HUAWEI'S TUNING EXPERT

Deputy editor Andy Madden (WHF UK) talks reference rooms, golden ears and subwoofer solutions with the Chinese company's in-car audio tuning expert

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I think it’s fair to say Huawei probably isn't the first brand that springs to mind when you think of in-car audio, or in-car anything for that matter. That is unless you live in China. You see, as part of the tech giant's huge portfolio of offerings, which includes everything from smartphones to wearables, data communications to cloud networks, it also offers complete in-car solutions.

We are talking about everything from amplifiers to head units, with the entire system driven (pun intended) by Huawei's own operating system (which some of you might be familiar with) - HarmonyOS.

We were invited to one of Huawei’s facilities in Munich, Germany to meet with Lars Goller, Chief Automotive Sound & Acoustics Advisor, to talk about Huawei's tuning process, the challenges associated with in-car systems and to have some brief hands-on time with one of its latest systems flown over from China.

Lars has years of experience in the audio industry with brands such as Gamut Audio, Bang & Olufsen and Harman International all listed on his CV. He was brought in by Huawei in 2022 to help improve the systems already in place, and to evolve the master tuning process which is designed to extract the very best out of each sound system.

“I was the first in the acoustics department at Huawei at the end of 2022. We started building things and looking at what they did in China, and we are now righting a lot of things to get more quality in the control process.”

A point of reference

One example of getting the right processes is something I'm familiar with - getting a reference room sorted. Lars is keen to build a set-up where engineers can experience high-quality sound, and then take their learnings from that environment and apply them to the car.