In January, Lexus and SCPS, a creative technology studio in Los Angeles, collaborated to produce one of the world’s most radical audio experiences, a new 2021 Lexus IS 350 F SPORT that can play a vinyl record while traveling up to 80 miles per hour. The reason for even attempting the project was simple: if Lexus could go all in on creating the ultimate sport sedan, then surely there was a way to craft the ultimate listening experience. And to boot, Lexus teamed up with DJs and producers Madlib and Kaytranada, who collaborated for the first time to record two new singles to crank on the one-of-a-kind vinyl system.
“Our team at first looked at me like I was crazy when I said we could build this,” says Don Wertz, a creative account manager at SCPS, which creates innovations for Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters. “No one knew exactly how we would come up with something that would actually play vinyl in a moving car—but we love a challenge, and had to give it a shot.”
Vinyl is widely considered to produce the best audio quality, its physical grooves creating a warmer, richer, deeper sound for music. But making a record player that can play in a moving car has historically been difficult. In the 1960’s, chart-topping musicians were seen installing turntables in their personal vehicles as passion projects, and automotive companies even included them in select models. But none of these record players actually worked while driving—or at least that’s the assumption. There’s no record of their success, and when SCPS sourced a vintage record player for a car to check it out, it performed even worse than the tabletop versions they had been testing. “In our research, all the ads and reviews of turntables in cars said ‘Yeah, they work well,’” says Wertz. “But we never found anything that referenced a record player actually working while the car was in motion.”
Needless to say, the SCPS team faced numerous challenges to create a record player that works while a car is driving. First, they needed it to overcome bumps in the road that cause the needle to jump off its track. Also, when a car speeds up, slows down, or turns, the movement creates g-forces that knock a rotating record off-kilter—so it would need extra stability. Finally, there was the question of where to put the thing. The challenges were daunting.
Yet SCPS did have one advantage—they were putting their record player in the 2021 Lexus IS 350 F SPORT, a sleek sport sedan with a 311-horsepower V6 engine and an optional groundbreaking sound system powered by 17 Mark Levinson® speakers, with the company’s QuantumLogic Surround technology, to maximize the listening experience. The sedan’s suspension offered an incredibly smooth ride. And its speakers, with 1,800 watts of power, would create the ultimate musical experience when paired with the vinyl. Using the Lexus IS as their foundation in the project, SCPS knew they had a chance.
“Lexus obsessed over every detail to improve the performance, control, and handling of this car,” Wertz says. “So we had the perfect setup.”
The SCPS team went to work. The first question was: Where to put it? Initially, they tried a vintage record player that operated vertically, wedged next to the driver’s seat. But that didn’t work. So, the team turned to the glovebox, which proved to be a tight squeeze. “The inside of the Lexus IS F SPORT is designed and built so efficiently that there’s no wasted space,” says Wertz. “Everything is designed to fit perfectly together, and it does. But we found just enough space, about four inches tall and 13 inches deep, that allowed us to get a full-size record player in there.”
Next, they began building the record player. Taking parts from different turntables, they pieced together prototypes. The SCPS team figured the record player would have to absorb any possible movements to prevent the player from skipping. As a result, they tried to house it in fluid and elastic casings like silicon beds, memory foam, and different types of viscous materials—enabling it to move with the car. But, surprisingly, that only made the records skip more. Ultimately, the team realized they needed to go in the opposite direction: to reduce all movement as much as possible. “Anything we did to reduce road movement just ended up magnifying it,” Wertz says. “So we decided to try something different.”
Wertz and the team began creating a record player that would remain rigid—but not too rigid—within the glovebox. Luckily, the Lexus IS F SPORT is outfitted with an independent double-wishbone-type suspension in the front and independent multi-link-type suspension in the rear, matched with coil springs and gas pressurized shock absorbers. In other words, the car is built for performance, and yet it’s also refined for an impossibly smooth and stable ride.
Basing their plans off the Lexus IS F SPORT dimensions, SCPS created a custom-built turntable on a 3D printer, and then modified it with additional carbon fiber and machined aluminum. After more test drives and iterations, the team discovered two components were crucial to making the record player work. First, through trial and error, they were able to design a tonearm that put the exact right amount of pressure tension on the needle at all times. (If the pressure was too light, the needle would skip. If it was too much, it would smash the record.) Second, they used a rotating “stepper” motor that moved consistently throughout its full rotation, no matter the forces exerted on it. It did this by circling through some 200 “steps” in one rotation, essentially breaking down the larger movement into tiny precise ones. “If you go over a railroad track at 100 miles an hour, the record may skip a little bit,” says Wertz. “But otherwise this thing is going to crank out music.”
Paired with the optional Mark Levison® audio system, which was developed specifically for the 2021 Lexus IS line, the listening experience may be as pure as it gets. Lexus has collaborated with the Mark Levison team for years, because they’re one of the best audio makers, but also because each car requires its own setup to create the perfect speaker system.
“The speaker placement in every car is unique,” says Savion Thompson, Mark Levinson’s Lead Acoustic Engineer. “We can spend hundreds of hours measuring and testing in order to get it right.”
Designing a vehicle’s audio system is a delicate balance between allocating space for speakers and other automotive essentials, like the placement of control buttons and the way the seats hold the driver. And the challenge is only made more difficult when designers start to factor in variables like road noise.
“Our speakers need to have specific designs to perform multiple functions, like noise cancelation or in-car notifications,” says Thompson. “But the real difference with Mark Levinson is that we try not to change the sound. We focus on purity and removing any unwanted noise, all in an effort to return to the honest simplicity of pure sound.”
To cap off the project, Lexus invited record producers and DJs Madlib and Kaytranada to collaborate and produce two new tracks for the Lexus IS Wax’s record player. The songs were pressed onto vinyl with the help of VMP (Vinyl Me, Please), a monthly record subscription club that curates and creates vinyl packages for users with the aim of creating a tangible music experience. Madlib’s “Hear It” is on the A side and Kaytranada’s “BackstABS” is on the B side, select VMP subscribers will receive the exclusive 7" vinyl as part of their subscription.
In February, Madlib got a chance to take the car for a spin in L.A. “When I make music, I usually do it in headphones, so I hear everything clear…and I take it to the car, test it out. Every time. That’s the big test. To have the turntable in a Lexus? That’s beyond.”
Over the years, SCPS is regularly tasked with creating some innovative pieces for film and music videos. But nothing compared to the challenge of crafting the mobile record player—or the satisfaction of listening to it while driving, especially with the record collaboration from Madlib and Kaytranada.
“This is definitely a top 10 in terms of challenges we’ve taken on,” says Wertz. “And man, the result is epic. The record player in the Lexus IS F SPORT is the most amazing sound and driving experience—it’s truly a game changer, on all levels.”
Learn more about the Lexus IS Wax Edition here.
This story was produced by WIRED Brand Lab for Lexus.
