Oh and when I raced Vintage motocross I can tell you that from the pits or trackside that a 2 stroke high pitched anything seemed to be louder than a big 4 stroke CCM, BSA or Trumpy twins but from miles away the 4 strokes were easy to hear over the 2 strokes and racing on track the 4 strokes hurt your ears when directly behind them especially if they were on alcohol.

The Older riders hurt your ears too in the pub later when they were on alcohol.

There was a time when one particular house, some way from mine and never identified, regularly played loud reggae into the small hours. The overall volume was not a big problem, but that damn bass - thump, thump, thump! Kept me awake for hours. Don't whales and elephants use low-frequency sound - elephants so low that they hear it with their feet - so they can communicate over vast distances? One type of sound that really gets me, makes the bones in my head vibrate, is screaming children. Young women make something similar at times, which is why I always approach from the front and make sure my hands are warm.

haha god one.

I was at the Petter Solberg extreme show i and i think even a alcohol driven rallycross cars (Per eklunds saab) was close to being as loud as the F1 car. that response system in particular was pain!

Even the burnout of that V10 was not as loud as expected, but then again. it was at the end of the show sooo might have been going slightly deaf by then. The ears was in pain.

This was indoors. at a fully enclosed stadium.

We lived quite near the Adelaide GP circuit from '85 and beyond the time the Vics stole the event from us.
I've also experienced Top Fuel dragsters from the sidelines.
My ratings as follow:

Top Fuel ... 10++
Turbo era cars ... 10
Normally aspirated F1 ... 8

Those are for sheer loudness.
For acoustic quality (obviously subjective), I'd give

Top Fuel (while staging) about a 12+ (I just LOVE the rough sound they make...)
F1 around 10
and the turbo F1's around 8

But for quality, I reckon the sound of an ERA going around Oulton Park is about the best I've ever heard.
And yes, Ijsman I know that's not a current day F1

That is explain my experience. I attended to Hungarian GP at '96 and it was so loud that it hurts big time. When a decade later I was in Monaco I realized it was not so loud then it was even with the pipes on the top nowadays. The revving is much higher now than before.

The other very strange experience was at 96, with the pipes somewhere in the diffuser: when a car was accelerating away from you, the noise mainly was going straight to you and was not spread away and reflected from building etc, so you couldn't hear the revving goes up. Just plain, not changing flat noise, and than a gearshift: and the engine noise was deeper, but still could't hear the revving up and again a shift and deeper noise again. Like Teeeee-daaaaa-doooo, like when a singer goes down in the tone scale. (sorry for my english, I hope you will understand what I mean It was so strange because in the TV I never heared like this before (and never again).

I figured out that this was because of the doppler effect, as the car goes faster, any noise of it will be lower, and it equalize the engine noise which goes up. First I was wondering that it equalized so perfectly that it plained it completely. But if you think of it, it explains itself: one revolution of the wheel and the engine revving is constant until the next gearchange.

ERA...or BRM V16?

I have a couple of VHS tapes with the BBC series The Power and the Glory. I recall one spectator of thé '37 or '38 Donington GP saying that as the big German cars came towards you all you could hear was a high pitched scream - the sound of the blower(s). After they passed the spectator was hit with the completely different, deeper and louder, exhaust noise.

Different frequencies travel at different speeds is that why?

I think in this case it was just that the exhausts were pointed rearwards and the noise they produced was more directional.

No, they all travel at the speed of sound...

well ok, but base and high frequencies behaves differently in a room. so i think its something in it, not likely relevant tho.

I think that is something to do with diffraction, the effect of which largely depends on wavelength. It may also be due to reflection effects, which can vary with wavelength also.

BRM V16.

I blew up my amp playing a CD of that too loud, through too many speakers ... it was worth it though ... and they fixed it for free because an overload protection circuit failed

The CD came with the Nick Mason book, lots of lovely sounds.

The blower noise would be screened by the bulk of the car in respect to the speccies behind it, and the ones in front would have the opposite experience. I think.

Exactly.

What, a free Pink Floyd album?

Much better than that!

thanks. at least now i know why base is more present sitting next too the wall listening to the stereo.

only hi frequencys are directional,bass frequencys are omni-directional

I suppose you refer to the noise when the afterburner is lit up. The point is that the jet goes supersonic then, causing a gazillion of shock waves to spread from the flame. And shock waves are painful.

gold333 mentioned small arms firing as being noisy. That's largely for the same reason. The muzzle jet is always supersonic, but with supersonic projectiles, you also have the cracking shock wave from the projectile. The noise from a high power rifle, at the shooter's position, can reach 160 dB, but it's over in a millisecond or two. Nevertheless, you go deaf very quickly in such noise.

Has anyone used those 'clickers', usually in the form of a pressed-tin frog with a thin steel diaphragm as a 'belly'? Many years ago my son was given a present - a small car, I think - that could be controlled at a very basic level with a 'clicker'. I had noticed in the instuctions that under no circumstances should the 'clicker' be used near anyone's ear, even though it didn't seem very loud. You're ahead of me. In an idle moment I thought I'd give it a try. The effect was astonishing - a sharp pain in the left ear, and a deafness that took about half an hour to fade.

I measured well over 126db C-weighted peaks on my meter at Indy, in the middle of the first row of stands at the exit of Turn 12. 30, 40 meters away?

You can stand behind the wall/fence there, and you're 10 feet away from the car at full tilt. It pegged the needle on my meter on it's highest scale, the 120 range - which, based on the "enthusiasm" of the needle to just zoom to being pegged, I'd extrapolate it's at least 130db+.

SUBJECTIVE:

This is more fun. I'm a professional musician, and have a fair amount of experience with record engineering, so I'm very keen on noting sound environments and the nature of sounds.

While standing at the exit of Turn 12, I've got foam earplugs in (mmm... 32 db?), rifle ear muffs on ( 26 db, but they're ridiculously far from being "leaky") - and it was still painful there. People will stand there, with no hearing protection (although it's hard to find people reluctant to at least attempt to cover their ears) - but the problem is that the sound sneaks up on you, and doesn't last very long. The sense of scale is warped, because you see the car coming to the turn a quarter mile away, and it's loud... but it's a quarter mile away... but then it's THERE AND LOUD, a blur, you can't see it, gone.

So dumbo people stand there, having had the top end of their hearing just blown out, not realizing that if they were to go into a quiet room at that point all they'd hear would probably be "bzzzzzzzzzzzzz". You can't hear anyone shouting around you because the ambient levels are so high, so there's no reference point.

EXCEPT FOR DIFFERENCES...


1) Watching the Porsche Cup race going on, you know you're hearing Real Race Cars without mufflers, wound out. It's "loud". It's hearing plug loud (unless you just don't care). You're sitting in the braking zone of T1, and you hear a team start an F1 engine up: it's a LOT louder than the race.

Sitting on the straight across from the pits, it's very surreal because it sounds like a multitrack recording with the faders turned up differently: the F1 engine idling is LOUD, and upfront, while this "background" race noise is happening (a Porsche going by at 185). It's a very stark contrast.

2) Sitting high up in the stands at Turn 12, you can see all the way down the pit straight. At some points the cars braking at the end of the straight was "loud enough to make me put the plugs in". I don't know if it was because the exhaust just lined up straight with my ears, or the acoustics of the stands... but that's impressive, they're what, a mile away?

3) The COOLEST thing was going to my first F1 race, pulling up to the track in the bus with a bunch of race fans - and hearing the cars from *inside* the bus, maybe a mile/2 miles away.
. The funny thing was that it created a "guy moment": we all look at each other like "man, was that not SUPER COOL?", everyone starts grinning...


The comparisons to F1 are not valid IMO. The difference is one of hearing an explosion, which is impressive from sheer volume - versus a sustained sound that is intriguingly complex. Standing at 12 at Indy, you hear the car doing it's thing back in the Mickey Mouse section, you hear it enter Turn 11, the dopplering as it's approaching, while the gears are shifting up, a crescendo, then just ambient reverb. It's a hyper complex sound, and *recordings do not do it justice*. In my 20+ years of experience music, I've never encountered such a start difference between "real sound" and "recorded". It just doesn't translate properly, the "Finely Crafted by Cyborg Watch Maker Death Machines Incessantly Coming to Kill You" effect isn't there. It's a swirl of 3d sound. The TF thing is like an explosion; beyond that, there's afterburners going off on military fighter planes, which is even more impressive...

.. but it doesn't have that same elaborate complexity. An F1 car *sounds* "expensive and specifically crafted to do something cool".

The only downside is that since the first time I went, and the last time at Indy, the *variety* of sound diminished.


1) Smaller displacement *does* lose a bit in the low end volume wise. F1 engines need to be moving 3 liters of gas out the exhaust!
2) The smaller displacement engines don't change up as aggressively.
3) The regs on valving means it became harder to tell cars apart based on their engine note. It used to be more drastic (and interesting - particularly the McLarens).
4) When they first allowed traction control, the variety there was very interesting - particularly the Jordans. They had the most unnatural "Star Wars" sounding effect, very digital, very interesting.
5) 18,000 does not sound as extreme as 20,000.

Again, from the "show" aspect - the effect of the sound should not be taken lightly! It is ENTERTAINMENT. The unique effect these cars create sound wise is PART OF THE SHOW. I hope F1 never forgets that...

Well, because I compete in 300m high power, I use custom diecast silicon earplugs (-25 dB), in combination with earmuffs (-30 dB). It works fine and the noise doesn't bother you the least (which is important). Otherwise those transients are horrible. Once, being alone practicing at the range, all was quiet, and I made the mistake of forgetting the hearing protection. It was awful. For a split moment I thought that the barrel had been blown to shreds...

A very interesting post, Rubens!

A few years ago I arrived on the Friday evening before the Australian GP. I got to my room and switched on the evening news. A local radio celebrity was being interviewed outside the courthouse and in the background you could clearly hear F1 practice.

That would be at least 2 miles away.

Nope. Going supersonic at low level, anywhere near human habitation is generally regarded as a very bad idea.

Lawsuits. Damage bills. PR disaster. etc. You get the idea...

At airshows no service pilot who wants to keep flying would do more than dream of it.

The afterburner is about acceleration, not speed per se, and the airshow is about drama, so ...

Where is P2 when we need him ?

You don't own a taser by chance...

Got one on order...

Don't bother reading the instructions Tony.

So, I guess you test it on your thigh... one second should be enough...

No - someone else's thigh. One second sounds about right though.

Ah! A volunteer!

I'll hold him down, you zap him. All we need now is a cameraman and our fortunes are made.

No taser in the post today, hopefully tomorrow...

Remember, the instructions are just one man's opinion.

Especially if the taser is made in China and the instructions are written in Engrish.

That's a bit of a worry. Oh well, I'll give it a try, if and when it arrives...

I found the instruction manual at http://www.safetygearhq.com/advanced-taser-owners-manual.htm

There is one thing in there that could warrant further investigation...

Where else would you find on-line Tasers?

That's so you can grill 'em and fry 'em.