Do you know what your car sounds like? Don't be so sure: General Motors has figured out ways to make vehicles sound more pleasant than their mechanical parts actually allow. Tim Maly spoke to GM acoustic noise engineer Kara Gordon, whose job is to design the entire soundscape of a car, and that doesn't just mean reducing noise but creating it as well. "Strangely, to give people the impression that the Impala's engine was working as intended, GM had to partially mask its real sound," writes Maly. Because auto manufacturers improve fuel economy by reducing the RPM of a car's engine, and in so doing cause it to produce unpleasant sounds, GM actually uses the car's speakers to filter out that sound using active noise cancellation — just like a pair of expensive headphones. Which other sounds in your car are artificial, and what else does Gordon's job entail? Read more at our source link.