Okay, so I last week I was on my way to lunch with a colleague and they remarked that the stereo sounded quite nice. They then asked who made them for Acura and I really couldn't respond.


Clearly, went to Acura's webpage later and noted the reference to "ELS" being named for Elliot Sheiner and Panasonic, as well as DTS Neural.


If memory serves me, I thought that Acura/Honda at one point used Alpine or some other mainstream audio company. Not sure, though.

 

My second Gen TL had a factory Bose system. Not sure if they ever used Alpine.

 

I could be completely wrong on this, but I believe Alpine makes the hardware, but the acoustic tuning is ELS. At least I believe that is the case for the 3G TL.

In my wife's 2012 sonata, the stereo equipment is made by one company, but if you go into the settings on the nav screen to play with the stereo settings, it says "tuning by ...."

I don't think ELS makes any actual parts. Can anyone confirm?

 

Generally, manufacturing has been done by Panasonic. Alpine did/does much of the hardware design and the 'under the skin' mechanical bits are/were shared with their aftermarket stuff (or visa versa). ELS replaced Bose as the 'name brand' on the hardware back in 2004 with the TL. ELS probably specs the speakers and handles final tuning and EQ if necessary. In the case of Krell in the RLX, I think they interface with the Alpine/Panasonic unit but spec the amps and speakers.

 

^^ And by 'specs the speakers' I mean they choose from existing OEM suppliers. I believe we're mostly using Pioneer.

 

Pioneer, Alpine and Panasonic are all good, well known brands. Doesn't overly matter who of the three makes the hardware for Acura, I'd argue, as what our cars have isn't "top tier" sound systems from the factory.

The els just come from the guy who sets the bass/mids/highs.

 

Panasonic makes the ELS headunit and speakers in the TL from 2004+, 2007+ MDX, RDX and I believe the new RLX. The RL from 2005-2008 def had bose in them, not 100% sure on the later years.

Alpine makes the Navigation part of the system, they used to make the DVD drives that were used in older cars.