I just bought a decibel meter. Should come in this week. I have the mods in my sig of course and will be testing to see exactly how loud this car is. The boominess is nasty and I almost considered getting quieter mufflers at one point and then back out b/c I just love that flowmaster sound. I will report back to y'all..
How loud is your car? Is it affecting your hearing?
- Thread starter Pokageek
- Start date
-
Sponsors (?)
super302
I'd do anything for free Bapples
my last car was sooooo loud on the inside (no back seat and no sound deadening)
I honestly think that i would be deaf if i had kept that car
I honestly think that i would be deaf if i had kept that car
I have seen some of the decibel ratings in the flows. It's like 93 decibels@2k rpm and 115 and wot. But may depend on the car. I am feeling pain literally @2k RPM. If you don't, it may be because you already have hearing loss.
Here's some stats for you that are important:
Decibel levels can also be misleading. According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, decibels increase logarithmically so that each 10 decibels is perceived to be twice as loud as the last. For instance, a blender or lawn mower at 90 decibels is eight times louder than normal conversation at 60 decibels. (Condor, Chicago Tribune, 1998)
In a 1998 article in the Chicago Tribune, Dr. Ronald A. Hoffman, Director of Otology (diseases of the ear) at New York University Medical Center said that a growing number of his patients are young people. “Each person is different,” said Hoffman, but regular exposure of more than one minute to 110 decibels can create permanent hearing loss in 1 minute and 29 seconds. More than 15 minutes at 100 decibels is equally hazardous” (Condor, Chicago Tribune, 1998).
"No one should be exposed to 90 dB of noise over an 8-hour period. With each increase of 5 dB, the amount of time exposed to this noise level is divided in half. In other words, a rock concert where the dB level is at 120 can cause hearing damage instantaneously(edit - had it wrong). Rock concerts at full tilt can spike to 150 dB! "
(basically prolonged exposure to levels of 85 DB and above will damage ears, so more- some less and it does add up over time even if it is not a constant 8 hours or 15 minutes/etc..
Here's some stats for you that are important:
Decibel levels can also be misleading. According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, decibels increase logarithmically so that each 10 decibels is perceived to be twice as loud as the last. For instance, a blender or lawn mower at 90 decibels is eight times louder than normal conversation at 60 decibels. (Condor, Chicago Tribune, 1998)
In a 1998 article in the Chicago Tribune, Dr. Ronald A. Hoffman, Director of Otology (diseases of the ear) at New York University Medical Center said that a growing number of his patients are young people. “Each person is different,” said Hoffman, but regular exposure of more than one minute to 110 decibels can create permanent hearing loss in 1 minute and 29 seconds. More than 15 minutes at 100 decibels is equally hazardous” (Condor, Chicago Tribune, 1998).
"No one should be exposed to 90 dB of noise over an 8-hour period. With each increase of 5 dB, the amount of time exposed to this noise level is divided in half. In other words, a rock concert where the dB level is at 120 can cause hearing damage instantaneously(edit - had it wrong). Rock concerts at full tilt can spike to 150 dB! "
(basically prolonged exposure to levels of 85 DB and above will damage ears, so more- some less and it does add up over time even if it is not a constant 8 hours or 15 minutes/etc..
Get some catalytic converters on there. That's your biggest issue.
I put 50 series delta flows on my car, because I want to drive faster than I sound. To me, a car that is loud for the sake of being loud = ricer = unpainted body kits = big ass wings = fart cans = etc.
I put 50 series delta flows on my car, because I want to drive faster than I sound. To me, a car that is loud for the sake of being loud = ricer = unpainted body kits = big ass wings = fart cans = etc.
WhiteStallionGT
Member
CManT1914
New Member
Pretty damn loud. My friends can hear me coming for blocks and blocks away. My parents hear me leaving when I hit the paved road in the morning, 1 mile away. 
Oh yea, I have shorty headers, o/r h-pipe, and SLP's dumped.
Oh yea, I have shorty headers, o/r h-pipe, and SLP's dumped.
WhiteStallionGT said:
I am also wondering what decibels I am used to with the radio on in "spirited mode." You know. When you get in the car the next morn and you jump outta yer seat!
Cman, your dumps are what will make it loud fer sure. I had a big car with glass packs back in college. It wasn't nearly as boomy as these flows and I imagine it was a lot more insulated too.Here's some more. remember 85 db is considered the point at which you need to wear hearing protection. 110db can cause damage anywhere from immediately to within 1.5 minutes. 120 decibels can easily cause permanent damage immediately:
Points of Reference *measured in dBA or decibels
0 The softest sound a person can hear with normal hearing
10 normal breathing
20 whispering at 5 feet
30 soft whisper
50 rainfall
60 normal conversation
110 shouting in ear
120 thunder
Home
50 refrigerator
50 - 60 electric toothbrush
50 - 75 washing machine
50 - 75 air conditioner
50 - 80 electric shaver
55 coffee percolator
55 - 70 dishwasher
60 sewing machine
60 - 85 vacuum cleaner
60 - 95 hair dryer
65 - 80 alarm clock
70 TV audio
70 - 80 coffee grinder
70 - 95 garbage disposal
75 - 85 flush toilet
80 pop-up toaster
80 doorbell
80 ringing telephone
80 whistling kettle
80 - 90 food mixer or processor
80 - 90 blender
80 - 95 garbage disposal
110 baby crying
110 squeaky toy held close to the ear
135 noisy squeeze toys
Work
40 quiet office, library
50 large office
65 - 95 power lawn mower
80 manual machine, tools
85 handsaw
90 tractor
90 - 115 subway
95 electric drill
100 factory machinery
100 woodworking class
105 snow blower
110 power saw
110 leafblower
120 chain saw, hammer on nail
120 pneumatic drills, heavy machine
120 jet plane (at ramp)
120 ambulance siren
125 chain saw
130 jackhammer, power drill
130 air raid
130 percussion section at symphony
140 airplane taking off
150 jet engine taking off
150 artillery fire at 500 feet
180 rocket launching from pad
Recreation
40 quiet residential area
70 freeway traffic
85 heavy traffic, noisy restaurant
90 truck, shouted conversation
95 - 110 motorcycle
100 snowmobile
100 school dance, boom box
110 disco
110 busy video arcade
110 symphony concert
110 car horn
110 -120 rock concert
112 personal cassette player on high
117 football game (stadium)
120 band concert
125 auto stereo (factory installed)
130 stock car races
143 bicycle horn
150 firecracker
156 capgun
157 balloon pop
162 fireworks (at 3 feet)
163 rifle
166 handgun
170 shotgun
Engel
Member
CManT1914
New Member
Pokageek said:
Yea the dumps to make a big difference. My buddy with a 95GT has l/t's, o/r h-pipe, and the regular SLP loudmouth catback, and it's pretty loud too. Not as loud as mine, but still loud.
Pokageek said:
Anybody else find this ammusing? They're listing all these loud things, like jackhammers, missles, artillery, then it's a quiet residential area. 
Maybe it's just me.
95WhiteVenom
Founding Member
Well as far as hearing loss its not dependent upon the decibels but does have some effect. It also has to do with the pitch and tone of the noise.
example:
A car with a nice set of subs putting out massvie amounts of bass causes vibrations within the middle ear (which picks up the sound waves causing what is described as noise) which can lead to damage.
That same musical note at a much higher octave or pitch can cause sever damage to the ear causing ringing of the ear and temporary deafness and also subsequent damage that grows over time.
You car noise if extensive enough can cause the noises around you to not seem as loud nad therfor having a hard time hearing for 5-30 minutes after being in the car for a substancial amount of time.
example:
A car with a nice set of subs putting out massvie amounts of bass causes vibrations within the middle ear (which picks up the sound waves causing what is described as noise) which can lead to damage.
That same musical note at a much higher octave or pitch can cause sever damage to the ear causing ringing of the ear and temporary deafness and also subsequent damage that grows over time.
You car noise if extensive enough can cause the noises around you to not seem as loud nad therfor having a hard time hearing for 5-30 minutes after being in the car for a substancial amount of time.
"Well as far as hearing loss its not dependent upon the decibels but does have some effect. It also has to do with the pitch and tone of the noise. "
I think I understand what you are saying 95WhiteVenom. Just to make sure we are not misleading anyone, it is a scientific fact that hearing loss is directly related to decibels. Meaning, regardles of the pitch or bass or whatever, if you are subjected to certain level decibels, you are going to suffer hearing loss.
You are saying that Pitch and Bass intensified can simply make the effects AMPLIFIED. Meaning it could take less decibels to do the same damage. I have not looked into it. It may be that when it is amplified, the decibels go higher anyway. Good question...
I think I understand what you are saying 95WhiteVenom. Just to make sure we are not misleading anyone, it is a scientific fact that hearing loss is directly related to decibels. Meaning, regardles of the pitch or bass or whatever, if you are subjected to certain level decibels, you are going to suffer hearing loss.
You are saying that Pitch and Bass intensified can simply make the effects AMPLIFIED. Meaning it could take less decibels to do the same damage. I have not looked into it. It may be that when it is amplified, the decibels go higher anyway. Good question...
HAHA! This db meter is pretty cool! I can fart 80 decibels! Just kidding. I haven't measured that yet.
The stang starts up it is 95.6 decibels at 6 feet behind the car. I will test drive tonight.
That noisey arse vaccuum cleaner holds a steady 90-103+ decibels. That's really bad (103 db with your ear to the front on the floor, 85-90 at handle pushing it). The maximum a sound can be is 194 decibels which will prob cause permantent hearing loss instantly and probably knock you out cold.
The stang starts up it is 95.6 decibels at 6 feet behind the car. I will test drive tonight.
That noisey arse vaccuum cleaner holds a steady 90-103+ decibels. That's really bad (103 db with your ear to the front on the floor, 85-90 at handle pushing it). The maximum a sound can be is 194 decibels which will prob cause permantent hearing loss instantly and probably knock you out cold.
CManT1914
New Member
amatuer... 
Results:
Startup is 95.6 decibels in side the car. Idle is 72 decibels. The drone averages between 87-93 decibels in the drivers seat. Over time this is not goo for your ears. I have sensitive hearing and that is very annoying to me which is why I have gone back and forth between getting rid of the 40's. It goes right down inside my ear and gets on my nerves. Everyone is different. I start to feel pain around 83/84 db. Made my mind up, and putting on the quieter mufflers.
Startup is 95.6 decibels in side the car. Idle is 72 decibels. The drone averages between 87-93 decibels in the drivers seat. Over time this is not goo for your ears. I have sensitive hearing and that is very annoying to me which is why I have gone back and forth between getting rid of the 40's. It goes right down inside my ear and gets on my nerves. Everyone is different. I start to feel pain around 83/84 db. Made my mind up, and putting on the quieter mufflers.
CManT1914
New Member
Zero Signal
Active Member
If it's a Rad Shack meter, remember to adjust your numbers per frequency since that thing is really inaccurate! There are conversion tables online.
I have a huge problem with doctors saying at xx decibels you will have hearing loss. They never mention what frequency they test at. 110dB at 700Hz is pretty loud. 110dB at 30Hz isn't much and won't do anything to your hearing.
I have a huge problem with doctors saying at xx decibels you will have hearing loss. They never mention what frequency they test at. 110dB at 700Hz is pretty loud. 110dB at 30Hz isn't much and won't do anything to your hearing.
professional equipment.com. This one is not a cheap one from radio-shack. It has all kinds of tuning you can play with but I picked it up for $84 shipped. But yes you are right and I set it to auto adjust for hetz in relation to A (effect in relation to human hearing and not machinery setting) not C frequencies which is what you want. 1 Hz is one oscellation per second.
p.s. the best meter is your ear. If it hurts it's not good! Funny but true. You get desensitized though like a frog in a frying pan.
" There are other issues. Things -- you just mentioned some: masking, issues of duration. Sometimes there can be very annoying tones or pitches -- pitch effects. Everybody knows that it bothers you to hear the screeching on the chalkboard. Okay, that just happens to be a particular frequency that people don't like.
Let me expand on this a little bit. This is sort of showing the issue of frequencies. There is a little model of a keyboard here just to give you the feeling for human hearing. In some sense, these numbers here are the sensitivities of hearing, how well you can hear, so that there are certain notes at the low end that you don't hear as well and certain notes that you hear very well. Okay. So this is what I meant by it's not uniform over the frequency spaces -- certain tones that you can hear.
As a result, one of the things you have to do-- This is data that is used to convert how noisy a particular frequency is. So this is both the sound pressure level and the frequency. And these are what are called contours of equivalent noisiness. Okay. Okay.
Now, as I said, because we vary in sensitivity, one of the things that is done -- and you probably see this -- is something called an A-weighted decibel. And what you do here is you essentially look at the amount of power, amount of intensity of the noise, and you correct for it by how well the humans hear roughly. Okay. So this is, again, just looking at the physiology of the ear. So sometimes you'll see the noise given to you in sound pressure level. Okay. Sometimes you'll see the noise given to you in what's called dBA, or decibels that have been corrected for the sensitivity of the ear. Okay.
Again, these are some of the physiological or psychological effects of noise. Physiologically, you'll get hearing loss above certain levels. Above 85 decibels, you can get either temporary or permanent loss of hearing depending on the frequency and how long you hear it. So if you sit next to a machine for your entire career listening to the 85 decibels, okay, you might have a problem. A lot of older pilots have this problem at certain frequencies because they sat in airplanes that were generating tones at certain frequencies. At above 120 decibels, threshold of pain -- at 180 decibels, you'll pop your eardrums. Okay, just for the measure there.
When you have noise, you can have task performance degradation, you can have difficulty recognizing speech, there's a problem with sleep interruption, and there, of course, is a problem with annoyance."
p.s. the best meter is your ear. If it hurts it's not good! Funny but true. You get desensitized though like a frog in a frying pan.
" There are other issues. Things -- you just mentioned some: masking, issues of duration. Sometimes there can be very annoying tones or pitches -- pitch effects. Everybody knows that it bothers you to hear the screeching on the chalkboard. Okay, that just happens to be a particular frequency that people don't like.
Let me expand on this a little bit. This is sort of showing the issue of frequencies. There is a little model of a keyboard here just to give you the feeling for human hearing. In some sense, these numbers here are the sensitivities of hearing, how well you can hear, so that there are certain notes at the low end that you don't hear as well and certain notes that you hear very well. Okay. So this is what I meant by it's not uniform over the frequency spaces -- certain tones that you can hear.
As a result, one of the things you have to do-- This is data that is used to convert how noisy a particular frequency is. So this is both the sound pressure level and the frequency. And these are what are called contours of equivalent noisiness. Okay. Okay.
Now, as I said, because we vary in sensitivity, one of the things that is done -- and you probably see this -- is something called an A-weighted decibel. And what you do here is you essentially look at the amount of power, amount of intensity of the noise, and you correct for it by how well the humans hear roughly. Okay. So this is, again, just looking at the physiology of the ear. So sometimes you'll see the noise given to you in sound pressure level. Okay. Sometimes you'll see the noise given to you in what's called dBA, or decibels that have been corrected for the sensitivity of the ear. Okay.
Again, these are some of the physiological or psychological effects of noise. Physiologically, you'll get hearing loss above certain levels. Above 85 decibels, you can get either temporary or permanent loss of hearing depending on the frequency and how long you hear it. So if you sit next to a machine for your entire career listening to the 85 decibels, okay, you might have a problem. A lot of older pilots have this problem at certain frequencies because they sat in airplanes that were generating tones at certain frequencies. At above 120 decibels, threshold of pain -- at 180 decibels, you'll pop your eardrums. Okay, just for the measure there.
When you have noise, you can have task performance degradation, you can have difficulty recognizing speech, there's a problem with sleep interruption, and there, of course, is a problem with annoyance."
