Naim Puts 28 Speakers and 1,780 Watts Into Bentley's First Electric Car

Bentley pulled the covers off the Torcal in London on 23 September 2026, and while the headlines went to the marque's first fully electric production car, there is a substantial audio story sitting inside it. Buyers who tick the right box get a Naim for Bentley system running 28 speakers on 1,780 watts, with Dolby Atmos, speakers built into the front headrests and tactile transducers mounted in the seats. The car that arrives without that option is hardly bare, either: Bentley Signature Audio is standard, with 620 watts driving 16 speakers.

Two systems, one cabin

The split is simple enough. Every Torcal ships with the 16-speaker, 620W Bentley Signature Audio setup — a figure all four published sources agree on. Move up to the optional Naim installation and the count jumps to 28 speakers and 1,780W, a specification that likewise appears consistently across Bentley's own media release, StereoNET, Regit and TimesLIVE.

Bentley has not published a price for the Naim upgrade, so anyone budgeting for one is working blind until the configurator goes live.

What makes the Naim system interesting is less the raw arithmetic than where the drivers go. Speakers are built into the front headrests — StereoNET notes that the driver's headrest can carry navigation prompts and vehicle information without broadcasting them to everyone else in the car, which is a neat use of near-field placement in a space where every occupant otherwise shares the same soundfield. Bentley also fits what it calls "kinaesthetic seat shakers": seat-mounted tactile transducers that deliver low frequencies as physical sensation rather than air pressure, a trick familiar from home cinema seating but still unusual as a factory fit.

StereoNET adds several details the other outlets skip: the system is fully active, and it offers individually configurable sound zones. Cosmetically, the speaker grilles are finished in satin metal, switching to dark chrome on the sportier Torcal S.

Dolby Atmos, without the channel count

The Naim option supports Dolby Atmos. Beyond that, be sceptical of any layout you see quoted. StereoNET describes the system as 7.1.4; Bentley's own media release and TimesLIVE both call it "Dolby Atmos 7.1". Those cannot both be right, and with the published record in conflict there is no basis for repeating either figure. Dolby Atmos is what is confirmed; the channel map is not.

The Torcal joins a run of factory-fit Atmos installations arriving this year, following systems from Genesis with Bang & Olufsen and Porsche with Burmester. Object-based audio in cars is no longer a curiosity, though the cabin remains an acoustically awkward room — small, asymmetric, full of glass and seats, and with the listener fixed in place off-centre. Height information and configurable zones are two ways of working around that.

Bentley Dynamic Symphony: the other soundtrack

Separately from the Naim system — and this is Bentley's own sound design work, not Naim's — the Torcal gets something called Bentley Dynamic Symphony. Rather than synthesising an engine note, Bentley had musicians perform a propulsion soundtrack on real instruments: drums, viola and bass guitar, with the rhythm taken from the beat of the company's 6¾-litre V8. The result responds to torque demand and road speed, gets more assertive in Sport mode, and can be switched off entirely.

The detail work goes further than the drivetrain sound. Bentley says the indicator click was derived from a hammer striking leather, recorded in the upholstery workshops at Crewe, while touchscreen and assistant notifications come from the resonance of crystal glass. It is an unusually considered approach to the incidental noises most manufacturers treat as an afterthought, and it sits alongside the Naim system rather than running through it as a feature.

An 18-year partnership

StereoNET dates the Bentley–Naim relationship to 2008, which makes the Torcal system the product of nearly two decades of joint development. For scale, the same report puts the Bentayga's Naim installation at 20 speakers and 1,720W — so the Torcal adds eight speakers and a modest amount of power on top, which StereoNET characterises as another sizeable step forward.

Whether that translates into a meaningfully different listening experience is not something anyone can yet say. No published listening impressions exist, and Bentley has not disclosed amplifier topology, driver sizes or materials. The specification sheet is, for now, the whole of the public record.

The car itself

Briefly, for context: the Torcal is Bentley's first fully electric production model, offered in a core version and a sportier Torcal S, and it is designed, engineered and built in Crewe. Regit lists UK prices from £173,300, rising to £199,300 for the Torcal S, with first deliveries expected in summer 2027. Pricing and timing outside the UK have not been published.

That delivery window matters for the audio story too. Summer 2027 is a long way off, and it will be some time before anyone independent gets to sit in a Torcal with the Naim system fitted and report back on what 28 speakers, four headrest drivers and a pair of seat transducers actually sound like when the car is moving. Until then, what Bentley and Naim have announced is a comprehensively specified system with some genuinely novel placement choices — and a companion sound design programme that treats the indicator stalk with the same seriousness as the stereo.

Full details of the debut are in Bentley's own announcement.

This article was written by an AI system from Into The HiFi AI Desk, generated from the following sources, with no human editing pass before publication: Bentley Media — The all-new Bentley Torcal makes global debut, StereoNET — Naim Gives Bentley Torcal A 1,780W Atmos Soundtrack, Regit — Bentley Torcal revealed with 876bhp and £173k price tag, TimesLIVE Motoring — This is the new all-electric Bentley Torcal in detail.