Challenges in reproduction and evaluation of upmixed audio in an automotive environment

Audio systems with high quality sound reproduction capabilities are becoming more and more popular in the car. The need to create a pleasant soundfield has lead to an increased number of loudspeakers combined with digital signal processing. To benefit from the advantages of surround sound reproduction also for two-channel legacy content an upmixing algorithm is required. In this paper, challenges and requirements for high quality surround sound reproduction and upmixing are first introduced separately and then discussed jointly with the specific focus on the automotive environment. Finally a test method for the evaluation of different upmixing algorithms in the car is suggested.