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An important trend among vehicle NVH engineers is the production of attractive engine acceleration sound quality for the enhancement of a vehicle's image and performance. In addition, customers have increasing interest and enjoyment in customizing their cars to reflect their personal taste and preferences. The PESS (Personalized Engine Sound System) has been developed for making a unique and individually customizable vehicle concept. The system allows the customers an opportunity to create a variety of engine sounds in a single vehicle using active sound design technology. In this system, three different engine sound concepts are pre-defined, Dynamic, Sporty, and Extreme. Each of the engine sounds can then be adjusted with parameters that determine the timbre, such as main order, rumble, and high order. In addition, the pedal position during acceleration has also been used as a parameter to further personalize the experience.

The sound sources of modern road vehicle can be classified into three components, driving sound (sound generated through normal driving patterns and events), operating sound (sound generated through actuated components not related to driving), and generated synthetic sound (electronic warning / interactive feedback). The characteristic features of these sounds are dependent upon customer expectation and usage requirements. Additional development complexities are introduced due to each market's cultural and regional differences. These differences in preference must be considered for the establishment of the target sound quality in the early vehicle development process. In this paper, a sound quality goal setting procedure based on user preference is introduced. The sound targets are created as a result of the user preference investigation and validated by intercultural comparison.