If walls could talk, the studios inside the Abbey Road recording studio would be positively shouting with stories. Its legendary spaces have seen artists from The Beatles to Amy Winehouse record some of their biggest tracks, as well as iconic film scores from Star Wars Episode II to Barbie in the giant orchestral Studio 1.
The success of the studio is about more than just the space though. The engineers at Abbey Road have innovated recording technology since the 1930s, and it was the original birthplace of stereo recording.
Premium audio manufacturer, Bowers & Wilkins has had a long relationship with Abbey Road, with its speakers long used inside the mixing rooms of the studios. But over the past five years, they have been working together on a rather unique project to bring the sound of Abbey Road to an in-car entertainment system.
The Abbey Road Studio app will feature in the new flagship Volvo EX90 electric SUV. The car features a top-of-the-range Bowers & Wilkins sound system and the app, which will roll out in 2025, allows passengers to adapt the sound using components of the Abbey Road Studios ambience and tech.
The Abbey Road app
The design of the app is incredibly simple. The display features a mixing desk and a live room, and the sound is changed by moving a horizontal slider to change the spread of the sound, and a vertical slider representing the spatial treatment to include more or less of the reverb from the rooms. That vertical slider can also be moved to the left and right like a needle, changing the tonal treatment between the vintage warm sound and the modern dynamic sound.
As you move your sliders around the illustration of the mixing desk and live room changes too. The speakers move in and out as you adjust the spread, and more of the live room comes into view as you increase the spatial value. Perhaps the cleverest though, is how the mixing desk and instruments change between classic vintage models and modern versions as you change that tone.
There are also four preset values at the top of the app, should you just want to jump into a certain type of sound – intimate, open, energised or expansive. The changes in the sound are pronounced and there's also the option to hear your music quickly with and without the effects to compare.
What's really interesting is that the app is constantly taking live data from inside the car to optimise the sound. With the Abbey Road set to give that live room effect, a clap inside the car echoes as if you were in a giant recording studio. This means that the sound can adapt to your driving conditions and ambient noise, to make it sound perfect every time.
Rock star sound
The Bowers & Wilkins sound system in the Volvo EX90 is already one of the best sounding systems on the market but I was surprised how much difference the Abbey Road app could make to the listening experience. I had the chance to sit in the car while the system was demoed through a number of different tracks and as the sliders in the app were moved, the experience completely changed. So much so that you can even hear the difference on the video below.
It might not be something you want to play around with constantly, but as with any good sound equaliser, it allows you to tweak the sound to exactly how you want to experience your music. While the app is currently only available in this one flagship Volvo, there's every chance it will make an appearance in other places in the future.
As the app has been developed as a partnership between Bowers & Wilkins and Abbey Road Studios, it could conceivably become available in the future on tablet or phone devices to fine tune the sound on B&W headphones or speakers. In the meantime though, the Abbey Road studio is just another reason to buy the Volvo EX90.
