Lincoln Aviator: Music to Your Ears

The all-new 2020 Lincoln Aviator brings Lincoln’s design vision to life, while elevating beauty and performance, as the brand’s newest SUV. Its spacious, airy cabin accentuates horizontal lines, minimising visual clutter to deliver a soothing sanctuary. But it brings something extra special for the audiophiles and music enthusiasts, too. 

Those seeking a truly unique audio experience will want the thrill that comes when listening to theavailable Revel™ Ultima™ 3D Audio System. Revel Audio Systems are exclusive to the Lincoln Motor Company and have been designed in conjunction with the vehicle, through the optimisation of speaker placement, tuning, amplification and calibration the vehicle itself. This particular sound system re-creates an authentic concert-hall experience by immersing occupants in rich, superior sound emanating from a network of 28 speakers – including eight in the headliners – finely tuned to the Aviator interior.

Along with Traditional, Audience and On Stage listening modes, the Revel Ultima 3D Audio System incorporates even more advanced audio technology, such as channel Class A/B and Class D hybrid amplifier Clari‑Fi, which improves the quality of digitally compressed music such as MP3s and streamed music. Clari‑Fi technology is always on, and seamless to the user, restoring the music details lost to the compression process for poor recordings, without affecting uncompressed sources, ensuring a perfect listening experience no matter the decibel.

When not blasting the best of operatic arias, with Aviator, you’re never too far from a classy performance. Bringing the sophistication of a symphony orchestra directly into the vehicle, Lincoln collaborated with the world-renowned Detroit Symphony Orchestra to record musical vehicle information alerts. From an open fuel door, to a door left ajar, lowering the power liftgate or even an unbuckled seat belt, the informational chimes serve as noncritical, soft-warning and hard-warning chimes.

The symphonic chimes – recorded for about 30 features in the vehicle – were selected from literally hundreds of musical combinations, and are a blend of marimba percussion, violin and viola. Non-critical chimes are played pizzicato, which means to pluck the strings on the violin and viola, or played marimba, which is a deep-toned xylophone. Soft-warning chimes are played arco, which infers the playing of violin and viola strings with a bow; while hard-warning chimes are also played pizzicato, but with the first two notes repeated to convey the increased urgency.

The Aviator is undoubtedly a machine to get you in the mood for music, and with every gear change, you can be tickling the Piano Key Shifter ivories. Rather than buttons alongside the centre stack in a traditional push-button shift, Lincoln Aviator has a horizontal orientation (inspired by piano keys) to shift gears. Each button is engineered in a different size with a different tactile feel to help differentiate between each button, making it easy to find and switch gears. Engineers even studied the force deflection curves to make sure the keys have a premium feel for the driver.

Complementing the musical undertones, and helping to create a tailored sound experience in the all-new Lincoln Aviator, Active Noise Control (ANC) uses microphones in the cabin to detect specific unwanted sounds and sends opposing sound waves through the vehicle’s speaker system to reduce, or cancels, low-frequency noise, and enhances specific sounds inside the cabin. 

This feature helps to electronically cancel unwanted vehicle noises (fuel combustion engine-related moans and drones), but enhances desired sounds (such as the growl of the engine under hard acceleration). When vehicle is in Excite Mode, the ANC system further enhances the performance exhaust sound note to align with the overall driving experience. The result is a customised quality cabin environment. 

“The all-new Aviator is a three-row large premium utility that embodies Lincoln’s design vision, while delivering on tenets of beauty, gliding, human, and sanctuary,” said Sami Malkawi, Regional Manager, Lincoln Middle East. “Specifically for the sophisticated listener, Aviator recreates an authentic concert-hall experience, ensuring our most discerning of customers with the keenest of ears can be immersed in a rich sound that is superior in quality and clarity.”