A company that makes some of the most expensive headphones in the world just built car speakers thinner than a credit card. And they claim these speakers can make the inside of your car sound like a room ten times its actual size.
Warwick Acoustics, a UK-based audio company, has been working on a new type of car speaker for several years. The company is known for its electrostatic headphones, which cost up to $36,000 for a headphone system. Now it’s bringing that same technology to cars, and a luxury vehicle from a major automaker is expected to be the first to use it sometime in 2026.
What Makes These Speakers Different
Most car speakers use the same basic technology that speakers have used for decades. There’s a cone attached to a magnet and a voice coil. When electricity flows through the coil, it pushes the cone back and forth, and that movement creates sound waves.
Warwick’s speakers work in a completely different way. They use something called electrostatic technology. Instead of a cone and magnet, there’s an extremely thin sheet of material (called a diaphragm) placed between two metal plates. When an audio signal runs through the plates, it creates an electric field that pushes and pulls the diaphragm to produce sound.
The result is a speaker that measures just 1 millimeter thick. With its housing, the total thickness is about 12 millimeters. A regular car speaker is much thicker and heavier. Warwick says its speakers weigh about 90 percent less than standard ones.
Why Thinner Speakers Matter in a Car
The thinness is not just about looking cool. It solves a real problem.
In most cars, speakers are limited to certain spots: the doors, the dashboard, maybe the rear shelf. These locations are dictated by how much space is available. Regular speakers are bulky, so car designers have to work around them.
Warwick’s speakers are so thin and light that they can be placed in spots that were never possible before. They can go in the A-pillars (the posts on either side of your windshield), in the roof lining, or in other tight spaces. This opens up new options for where sound comes from inside the cabin.
And where the sound comes from matters a lot for how it sounds.
The 10x Soundstage Claim
This is the part that sounds almost too good to be true. Warwick says its speakers can make your car’s audio sound like it’s playing in a space ten times bigger than the actual cabin.
Here’s how the company explains it. In a normal car, sound waves bounce off nearby surfaces: the doors, the windshield, the seats. Your ears pick up these reflections and your brain interprets the sound as coming from a small, enclosed space. That’s why car audio, even in expensive cars, can feel closed-in compared to a good pair of headphones or a nice living room setup.
Warwick’s electrostatic speakers produce what the company calls “planar” or near-flat sound waves. These sound waves behave differently. According to Ian Hubbard, the company’s Chief Commercial Officer, the flat waves create a perception that the sound started much further away, up to 30 meters (about 100 feet) from your ears.
Your brain interprets this as being in a much larger space. So even though you’re sitting in a car, the music can feel like it’s filling a concert hall.
The company also says this technology reduces the need for heavy digital processing. Many high-end car audio systems rely on software to manipulate the sound and create a wider feel. Warwick says its speakers naturally produce that wider sound, which means the digital processing systems can be smaller, cheaper, and use less power.
No Rare Earth Materials
There’s another detail worth noting. Traditional speakers use magnets made from rare earth materials. These materials are expensive, they’re mostly mined in a handful of countries, and extracting them creates environmental problems.
Warwick’s electrostatic speakers don’t use any rare earth elements. The company also says it makes its speakers entirely from upcycled and recycled materials. In an industry where sustainability is becoming a bigger selling point, especially for electric vehicles, that’s a meaningful advantage.
Who’s getting these speakers first
Warwick hasn’t named the car brand that will be first to use this system. The company has only said it will be a “global luxury car maker” and that the debut is expected in 2026.
Beyond that, the company hasn’t dropped any hints. What we do know is that Warwick has been developing this automotive-specific technology for years, and it says production is close. This isn’t a concept demo or a lab prototype sitting behind glass at a trade show.
What this means for regular car buyers
If you’re hoping to see electrostatic speakers in a mainstream car anytime soon, that’s probably not happening. This technology is launching in the luxury segment, and it will likely stay there for a while.
Still, the specs work in its favor for eventual wider adoption. The speakers are lighter to produce than traditional ones, significantly smaller, and don’t rely on rare earth materials. If the first luxury partnership goes well, the path to mass production looks shorter than you might expect.
The bottom line
Warwick Acoustics is attempting something that hasn’t been done before in production cars: a full electrostatic speaker system built for the cabin from the ground up.
The claims are big. A soundstage ten times the size of the car. Speakers you can’t even see. No rare earth materials. And a real vehicle launch on the way in 2026. Whether the real-world experience matches the pitch, we won’t know until someone sits in that first car and presses play.
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