What Does SVC Mean in Your Car? (Explained)

Music and infotainment systems are considered an important element in the purchase decision for most people nowadays while selecting their daily driver. In many modern cars, the audio control menu includes a feature called SVC.

SVC stands for Speed-sensitive Volume Compensation and is a feature that varies the radio’s volume in a car according to the vehicle’s speed.

The main phenomenon behind this audio feature is that as the car speeds up, the engine’s sound also increases, which lowers the intensity of the volume heard by the people inside the car.

This feature increases the volume of the car radio as the speed of the car increases and similarly decreases the volume as the speed of the car decreases so that the volume remains constant to the people inside and the quality of audio remains optimal.

How does it work?

The SVC system observes the speedometer; then uses data on the car’s speed to regulate the volume of the car’s audio.

Suppose you drive at high speed, the volume of the audio increases. Meanwhile, if you drive at low speed, the volume of the audio decreases.

The SVC system comfortably regulates the audio to cancel excess noise without being a disturbance. The sound of the engine and external wind increases as the car’s speed increases.

The driver is already occupied trying to stay on the road without distractions; hence, turning the knob to adjust the volume might be difficult. The SVC system smoothly assists the driver in balancing the audio of the music or radio.

At low speed, the volume of the music being played might be too loud as there’s very little noise interference; hence, the system automatically reduces the volume to a more comfortable one.

Advantages And Disadvantages of SVC Audio

Now, everything in the world has upsides and downsides, and the SVC audio feature is no different. When it comes to car audio, many people prefer that their vehicle is smart enough to detect the intensity of external noise and vary the noise of their music to compensate for it and varies according to the changing speed of the car.

On the other hand, some people prefer to set the volume according to their liking and want the volume to stay that way regardless of external noise or speed of the car.

However, it is totally up to the user whether he wants to use this feature in their car audio system or not. If a person is not comfortable with the constantly changing audio volume, then they can turn the feature off in the audio menu of their car.

Settings Of SVC Audio

The Speed-sensitive Volume Compensation feature in the control panel of audio control of the car consists of four main settings: High, Medium, Low, and off.

The High, Medium, and Low settings are used to determine the intensity of SVC as to how intense you want your volume to be relative to the speed of the car and other exterior noise.

For example, if a car travels at high speed of 60 mph and the SVC setting is set at high, then the volume increase will be much more aggressive than the medium and low settings. When the speed gets low, and the SVC setting is on high, the radio’s volume gets intensively low relative to the medium and low settings.  

Turning SVC Audio Off

As discussed above, some people do not like the constantly varying volume intensity in their car audio and want to listen to music at their preferred volume and get the optimal music quality according to their liking.

Therefore, car audio manufacturers have also added an ‘off’ option along with the intensity of this feature. If a person sees fit, he can easily turn the Speed-sensitive Volume Compensation feature off and enjoy their music on their own volume that remains constant regardless of the car’s external sound, engine noise, or speed.

SVC can be easily turned off from the audio control menu in your car, which can be seen anywhere alongside the digital meter or on the LCD of the vehicle.

To turn SVC off, one must go to the audio settings, scroll to the bottom of the menu and select SVC. Then inside SVC, four options will be available: high, medium, low, and off.

Selecting ‘off’ in this menu will turn SVC off, and the volume will remain constant inside the car regardless of the car’s speed and the subsequent increasing and decreasing engine noise due to that varying speed.  

Which Is Better, SVC Or DVC?

It is common knowledge that subwoofers are manufactured with either a Dual Voice Coil (DVC) or Single Voice Coil (SVC) design. The main difference between the two is that the DVC sub offers more wiring options when connecting to an amplifier that amplifies the sound coming from the car’s speakers.

These wiring options can be configured to lower the amplifier impedance. When one reduces the amplifier impedance, the compatible amplifier increases the power output, giving us a much better output audio quality. In addition, DVC subs have an additional two connection points.

The DVC subs are largely available in Dual 4ohm or Dual 2-ohm configurations, thus allowing you to better match and take full advantage of the amplifier. This information tells us that DVC is a little better than SVC because it takes full advantage of the amplifier and gives a little more controlled amplification of sound.

However, it must be remembered that if you compare the exact same subs, brand, and rms, a dual voice coil sub does not directly perform better compared to the same sub with a single voice coil.

However, there are more options available in DVC, and they have a higher power rating than the average SVC.

Therefore, the DVC is often considered the better option than an SVC when selecting the type of subwoofer a company wants to install in their premium cars.

Which Is Louder DVC Or SVC?

DVC subwoofers tend to use two coils instead of a singular coil like in SVC, giving us a much more controlled amplification.

Many people have noticed that there is not much of a difference between the sounds of the two voice calls, but DVC tends to be a little bit louder than SVC due to a bit more controlled amplification; hence the sound quality from the DVC subwoofer also tends to be a little bit better than SVC.

The factors of how many amps a specific subwoofer takes also vary the loudness of sound in each subwoofer, so if someone has a Single Voice Call subwoofer that is of more amps than an average DVC, then the SVC would be the louder one among the two.

Nevertheless, study and research clearly show us that at the same rating, DVC is a bit louder than SVC.

Conclusion

The SVC setting of modern cars helps improve the driving experience by automatically regulating the car’s audio without external interference. However, the setting can be tweaked to suit the driver’s taste or might even be turned off completely if you’d prefer it that way.