The all-new 2017 Acura NSX includes an advanced, user-friendly suite of audio and connectivity technologies controlled by a 7-inch Display Audio capacitive touchscreen interface with intuitive touch, swipe and tap control motions. The Display Audio system is supplemented by steering wheel mounted controls to put access to features and functions at the driver’s fingertips.
Audio and Connectivity Features
- 290-watt Acura Premium Audio System with eight speakers
- Speed-Sensitive Volume Control (SVC)
- Seven-inch Display Audio system touchscreen
- HD Radio®
- Radio Broadcast Data System (RBDS)
- Apple CarPlay® and Android Auto™ compatibility
- Siri Eyes Free®
- Bluetooth® HandsFreeLink®
- Bluetooth® Streaming Audio
- Pandora® compatibility
- MP3/Windows Media®
- SMS Text Message function
- USB audio interface
- MP3/auxiliary input jack
Optional Technology Package Features:
- 580-watt Acura ELS Surround® Sound System with nine speakers
- Acura Satellite-Linked Navigation System™ with Voice Recognition™
- Acura HD Digital Traffic™
- Next-generation AcuraLink® connected-car system
- Front and rear parking sensors
- Available SiriusXM Radio®
Acura Premium Audio System
Every NSX includes as standard a 290-watt Acura Premium Audio system with FM radio and eight speakers, including a powerful subwoofer, which has been engineered to be lighter than comparable systems found in competing high-end sports cars. Portable electronic devices can be connected to the system wirelessly via the Bluetooth HandsFreeLink, or hard-wired through the USB and input ports. The audio system in the NSX also supports the Radio Broadcast Data System (RBDS) technology standard that allows digital information to be received from FM radio broadcasts including radio station identification, current time, radio station ID call letters and, if available, musical artist and song title.
Display Audio Touchscreen
The seven-inch Display Audio touchscreen is capable of displaying rich graphics and allows the driver or passenger to operate the high-resolution touchscreen in identical fashion to a smart phone or tablet through tap, pinch and swipe user inputs.
The available Technology Package adds Acura Satellite-Linked Navigation System with Voice Recognition, while Acura HD Digital Traffic adds the ability to provide navigational instructions and landmarks (gas stations, ATMs, restaurants, etc.) along the route, adding the convenience of continuously updated real-time traffic information.
Intuitive operation of the system is ensured thanks to an easy-to-use menu interface and numerous NSX-exclusive icons that resemble smart phone apps. Both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are supported by the system, as is Pandora Internet-sourced music, the latter of which allows users to view album artwork, tap to “like” songs and create personalized stations directly from the touchscreen.
HD Radio
A standard feature on every NSX, HD Radio delivers subscription-free high-quality digital sound with much clearer sound quality and fidelity from FM radio stations broadcasting in this format. HD Radio technology enables receivers to display the artist, song title, album art and radio station information while a song is being played. Also, HD Radio can receive continuously updated traffic and weather information, as well as sports score updates.
Radio Broadcast Data System (RBDS)
The NSX’s Display Audio system also supports the Radio Broadcast Data System (RBDS). RBDS allows FM radio stations not broadcasting in the HD Radio format (stations using a conventional FM radio signal) to embed small packets of information within their broadcasted radio signal. Like HD Radio, this allows the radio station to transmit information—such as program information including artist and song title and radio station identification—that can be displayed on the audio system.
Next-Generation AcuraLink
Seamlessly integrated into the Display Audio system of the NSX with Technology Package is the next-generation of AcuraLink, enabling a vast array of information, connectivity and helpful services that deliver new levels of convenience, accessibility and assistance, allowing customers to connect with online/cloud-based content and services both inside and outside of the car.
Available in-vehicle as well as on a free-to-download mobile device app, AcuraLink offers these helpful features and benefits:
- Cloud-Based Navigation Services – Find your way by sending directions from your desktop or mobile device to your vehicle; store and retrieve important and/or frequently used destinations
- Mobile Assist Services – Includes live-operator emergency assistance, automatic collision notification and roadside assistance, and through law enforcement agencies—stolen vehicle location tracking
- Messages and Alerts – Allows Acura to send you the latest information about your vehicle including security alarm notification, remote diagnostics and parking meter assist
- Remote Services – Allows you to check your vehicle’s fuel level or unlock the vehicle from a remote location
- Schedule Maintenance – Your NSX will notify you when your next vehicle service is due and allow you to schedule an appointment
- Assist Services (subscription fee) – A concierge service available 24 hours a day/seven days a week, simply with the touch of a button
The AcuraLink® smartphone app—available for either Apple iOS or Android-enabled cell phones—is designed to provide in-vehicle navigation features mirrored from a smart phone to the NSX, allowing for in-dash guided mapping directions with voice instruction over the audio system speakers. Users can receive all the convenience of in-vehicle maps and routing, including continuously updated traffic information for freeways, highways and major surface streets. It also allows users to search for points of interest (POI) or specific addresses, and includes free annual map updates. By downloading the AcuraLink® navigation app onto your smartphone, you can stream the entire navigation system onto the Acura NSX’s Display Audio touchscreen.
Apple CarPlay
Apple CarPlay allows the use of apps within the driver’s iPhone to work seamlessly within the vehicle’s Display Audio system. CarPlay essentially turns the native in-car control system (NSX’s touchscreen) into an Apple iOS device, allowing the driver to use their iPhone within the car through the Display Audio touchscreen instead of looking down at the iPhone (when plugged in). What’s more, intuitive operation is assured as the icons and graphics that appear on the NSX’s Display Audio system touchscreen are identical in appearance to the iPhone apps when using CarPlay. CarPlay relies heavily on the hands-free voice operation features of Siri that are embedded within the CarPlay system, allowing users to keep their eyes on the road and hands on the steering wheel.
Using the Siri hands-free voice control functionality or pressing a familiar icon on the Display Audio system touchscreen, the driver/front passenger can access a number of convenient CarPlay features. These include navigation (Maps); making phone calls, returning missed calls and listening to voicemail (Phone); sending, having read aloud and replying to text messages (Messages); and listening to music, radio station apps, podcasts or audiobooks from your phone’s iTunes—all without ever looking at your iPhone.
When using the navigation feature (Maps), turn-by-turn directions, traffic conditions and estimated travel time are displayed on the Display Audio system’s touchscreen. While using the navigation feature (Maps), CarPlay can also predict where you most want to go using addresses from your email, text messages, contacts and calendars.
Android Auto
Android Auto integrates compatible Android smartphones with the NSX’s in-car Display Audio system. Android Auto projects a customized version of an Android smartphone onto the NSX’s Display Audio touchscreen when it is plugged into the car’s USB port in the center console rear storage box. Once plugged in, all phone calls are handled over the NSX’s onboard Bluetooth wireless connectivity feature.
Android Auto allows inputs to be made by tapping and/or swiping the Display Audio system’s electrostatic touchscreen or by making simple voice commands. Once connected with the vehicle, the driver/front passenger have access to Google Maps, Google Now and Google Play Music, along with a variety of popular third-party Android-compatible music apps including iHeartRadio, Pandora, Amazon Music and Spotify, as well as a wide array of sports, financial, weather and media information apps. There is also an Android Auto messaging app that will flash a notification of an incoming message on the Display Audio touchscreen, read the message aloud, and allow the driver/front passenger to reply to the message by voice.
(Note: Both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto require a compatible Apple or Android-based cell phone to be plugged into the 1.5-amp USB interface port in the center console’s rear storage box.)
Siri Eyes Free
Playing a key role to support Apple CarPlay, Siri Eyes Free builds upon Apple’s hands-free Siri functionality by enabling voice control operation of an Apple iOS mobile device that is linked with the Acura NSX’s sophisticated in-dash Display Audio system. Using Siri Eyes Free, drivers can speak a virtually limitless array of voice commands, taking Siri’s hands-free functionality to a new level while simultaneously minimizing the potential for distraction.
By pressing and holding the TALK button on the steering wheel when their iPhone is paired via Bluetooth, the driver can use Siri to perform a number of tasks while keeping their hands on the steering wheel and their eyes on the road. Siri Eyes Free can:
- Audibly send and receive text messages
- Audibly send and receive emails
- Audibly receive notifications
- Make and receive calls
- Select and play music
- Set up reminders, alarms and calendar entries
- Check sports scores, weather and stock quotes
- Provide turn-by-turn voice navigation (when the audio system is set to Bluetooth audio or iPod mode)
Bluetooth HandsFreeLink
A standard feature included on every Acura NSX, Bluetooth HandsFreeLink allows a Bluetooth-enabled cellphone to be wirelessly paired with the vehicle’s Display Audio system, allowing for convenient hands-free operation to answer incoming calls or to make calls without removing hands from the steering wheel (the Bluetooth-enabled cell phone must have the Hands Free Profile (HFP) technology embedded within the phone in order for it to be compatible).
Bluetooth Streaming Audio
Like the Bluetooth HandsFreeLink technology that enables a safer way of making and answering phone calls, the Acura NSX’s Bluetooth Streaming Audio hands-free in-car system helps the driver to stay focused on the road.
The Bluetooth Streaming Audio technology allows the audio feature of a compatible Bluetooth-enabled device such as a smart phone or MP3 player to be paired wirelessly with the vehicle’s audio system. Music, podcasts, and books-on-tape can then be streamed wirelessly to the NSX’s sound system. Certain compatible devices will even display metadata of the musical artist, album and song title on the NSX’s Display Audio touchscreen.
Pandora Compatibility
The NSX’s Display Audio system includes an interface for listening to Pandora, a free streaming music service that allows users to open an online account and create up to 100 personalized Internet “radio stations” based upon their favorite music genres or artists. Pandora listeners can access their music through their desktop or laptop computer as well as through their smartphone by downloading the free Pandora app.
SMS Text Messaging
The Acura NSX’s SMS (Short Message System) Text and Email Message technology allows text messages and emails to be audibly read aloud and allows the driver to respond with any one of six different preset messages. The preset responses include:
- Talk to you later, I’m driving.
- I’m running late.
- I’m on my way.
- Okay
- Yes
- No
Once a compatible phone is paired with the Acura’s Bluetooth HandsFreeLink system, the text message function is enabled. When the phone receives a text message, an alert appears on the NSX’s Display Audio touchscreen. Using the touchscreen, the driver can choose to have the message read aloud, select a preset reply choice, or call the sender—all without touching the phone. To help mitigate the potential for driver distraction, the text of the incoming message is not displayed on screen unless the transmission is in Park.
The NSX’s SMS system is compatible with SMS-capable Android and BlackBerry devices that have an active data plan and the Message Access Profile (MAP). Apple iPhones do not support this feature, but the Acura NSX’s Siri Eyes Free mode (iPhone 5 and 6) offers the ability to initiate, hear and respond to text messages via voice commands.
USB Ports
The NSX is equipped with two USB interface ports inside the vehicle. The center console storage box has an integrated 1.5-amp USB interface port that connects with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, as well as the vehicle’s audio system, including the Display Audio touchscreen. Located in the glove box is a 1.0-amp USB interface port with support for iPod, MP3 and other USB functionality.
Acura NSX Technology Package
The Technology Package available for the 2017 Acura NSX includes the following features:
580-watt Nine-Speaker ELS Studio Audio System
Designed, engineered and manufactured in collaboration with Grammy® and Emmy® award-winning recording engineer and music producer Elliot Sheiner, the ELS Studio® Studio System produces vibrant and lustrous surround sound quality with strikingly authentic tonal quality that can “finally capture and reproduce music the way we hear it in the studio,” according to Sheiner. The ELS Studio Premium Audio sound system has been designed to provide enhanced performance and sound quality within a constrained acoustic space while respecting other vehicle design priorities, including maintaining a low vehicle weight.
ELS Studio Premium Audio system speaker layout
Sporting nine speakers and a 12-channel amplifier, the 580-watt ELS Studio Premium Audio system is carefully tuned to maximize the performance and acoustic properties of each audio component in the new Acura NSX. The result is a remarkably accurate and dynamic sound that creates the ultimate in-car listening experience for any musical genre.
SiriusXM Radio
Available as a stand-alone option for NSX models equipped with the optional Technology Package, SiriusXM Radio is a satellite radio network that broadcasts more than 175 channels of digital programming with near CD-quality sound from two broadcast satellites positioned in geostationary orbit above the earth. Sirius-XM Radio satellite reception is available across the entire continental United States and portions of Canada.
SiriusXM Radio programming includes commercial-free music of virtually every genre imaginable, live play-by-play action of major sports including NFL and college football, Major League Baseball (MLB), National Basketball Association (NBA), National Hockey League (NHL), PGA Tour golf and NASCAR; entertainment news and talk radio; current traffic conditions in numerous major metropolitan areas; news and weather; and several Spanish-language stations. When listening to SiriusXM Radio programming, the Display Audio system shows the current category, station, song title and/or artist’s name.
Equipped with the latest version of SiriusXM satellite radio, the Display Audio system in the Acura NSX includes many convenient features, including:
- Listen to all songs in their entirety on preset channels with an instant replay feature that will replay the song from the beginning
- A Sport Flash feature that shows an on-screen alert if your favorite sports team scores or makes a big play in a live game that is being broadcast on SiriusXM Radio while you are listening to non-sports programming; touching a soft-key on the Display Audio touchscreen will allow you to hear up to 30 seconds of audio before and including the big play
- Fast-forward, rewind and pause functionality
Acura Satellite-Linked Navigation System with Voice Recognition and HD Digital Traffic
Included as part of the Technology Package, the Acura Satellite-Linked Navigation System with Voice Recognition and HD Digital Traffic utilizes GPS technology to give the driver highly accurate and easy-to-follow turn-by-turn driving directions to any address in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico as the system responds by displaying the matches available within the database. What’s more, the system provides helpful information along a given route (locations of gas stations, ATMs, restaurants and other important landmarks) with its comprehensive points-of-interest (POI) database. The massive point-of-interest (POI) database includes telephone numbers that can be dialed by using the Bluetooth HandsFreeLink system when the driver’s cellular telephone is connected to the system.
Developed in partnership with Garmin, this advanced GPS-based navigation system employs rich-looking graphics to vividly display terrain and 3D buildings while allowing the driver to choose faster, less congested driving routes through its subscription-free HD Digital Traffic information. Additionally, the HD Digital Traffic system included with this package alerts the driver to current traffic conditions in their surrounding area and can display alternate driving routes (including surface streets in the U.S.) to circumnavigate heavily congested traffic areas. The system includes a free map database update each year for up to ten years.
The navigation system can be operated manually via the touchscreen by utilizing its tap, swipe and pinch functionality—including pinch-to-zoom to adjust the detail of the map interface—allowing for rapid touch-scrolling across the map thanks to the navigation system’s high-speed microprocessor. Scrolling and zooming in or out can also be controlled by voice commands. Additionally, the navigation system can be controlled by fully-featured voice commands such as, “find nearest gas station” or “find nearest fast food restaurant.” The system can even recognize abbreviated command phrases. For example, simply uttering “98.7” to change the FM radio station setting in place of vocalizing more conventional commands such as “radio 98.7 FM” or “change the radio station to 98.7 FM” is supported as well.
Using the Voice Recognition system, the driver can not only operate the navigation and audio systems simply by using their voice, but also adjust the climate control (turn on/off air conditioning or heater; set the temperature; turn the defrost on/off, increase/decrease fan speed, etc.) and operate a compatible smartphone.
Front and Rear Parking Sensors
The front and rear parking sensors located at the corners of the NSX deploy ultrasonic waves to detect the distance between the vehicle and an obstacle and will alert the driver with an audible signal as the NSX approaches an obstacle. The audible alert sounds more rapidly as the vehicle gets closer to an obstruction.