Here's How the Polestar 3 Will Treat Audiophiles to a Majestic Sound Experience

The Polestar 3 has a starting price of $83,900. Spec it just a bit better, and the cost rises quickly above the $100,000 threshold. That's a lot for a luxury-oriented CUV. It made us wonder, a couple of months ago, if paying so much for one would be worth it. But since it will compete with the likes of the Tesla Model X, Mercedes EQS SUV, and BMW iX, we can't blame the young automaker for sticking such a generous price on its all-electric wagon-y Polestar 3.

Besides the many features available on this battery-electric vehicle (BEV), the brand remained true to its roots and decided to tap Dirac – another Swedish innovator – to calibrate the sound system in the Polestar 3. It sounds simple, but it is not. This effort is meant to give owners and their passengers more calibration possibilities while ensuring that quality is and remains top-notch.

The Dirac Opteo Professional suite will work with the 25-speaker 1,610-watt Bowers & Wilkins sound system to deliver a "clear, balanced, and immersive sound experience that's consistent across every seat of the vehicle." This software maximizes sound performance through measurement-based digital optimization, which theoretically should be able to address most acoustical issues that the hardware may cause.

Dirac uses a patented mixed-phase impulse response correction technology to make the car's sound system perform as if it was carefully arranged in a home. It's a great way of minimizing the constraints of the car cabin, where speakers might interfere with each other because of poor positioning.

What Dirac's Opteo Professional will do for the Polestar 3's Bowers & Wilkins sound system is it will allow the sounds to flow precisely as the artist wanted them to, make sure the details are richer, enhance the bass to feel tighter and deeper, and eliminate the constraints of the complicated sound staging that is the vehicle interior.

The Dirac digital solution meant for audiophiles will also allow those with less experience listening to every instrument or vocal note to experience a concert-like sound experience. If everything works out as intended, you'll never hear a muddy sound from a Polestar 3 Bowers & Wilkins speaker.

Setting up a great sound system for a car interior that's balanced and powerful is not a task many can do. But Dirac's use of digital signal processing upgrades the sound system performance and allows it to overcome acoustic challenges that are inherent in cars. As such, the system faithfully reproduces any content without any unwanted colorations and without requiring any hardware upgrades.

If you're thinking about Dolby Atmos - the benchmark for theaters - as you're reading this, then you should know that Dolby Laboratories has helped artists find ways in which they can make sure the music is reproduced faithfully across various sound systems. Each instrument or vocal can be placed anywhere in three-dimensional space in the recording thanks to Dolby Atmos, effectively complementing Dirac's software.

Lastly, Dirac General Manager of Automotive Audio, Lars Carlsson, is so confident in the partnership with Polestar and Bowers & Wilkins that he said the Polestar 3 will have a sound system on par with high-quality home theater ones. That's a bold statement, and it only makes us more eager to get behind the wheel of a customer-ready Polestar 3.