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Music Media Toys

dB Drag Racing 397

Posted by michael from the highway-to-the-danger-zone dept.
Exedore writes "For a paltry $80,000 outlay, you too can fight back against the punk kids blasting gangsta rap from their Honda Civics. Enter the strange (and rather loud) world of dB Drag Racing and join a small group of dedicated competitors in their quest for the loudest car sound system possible. The numbers: 130,000 watts output, 177dB, 10,000 lbs. of equipment (including the vehicle and all the sound insulation needed to protect those nearby). It might not be quite up to Disaster Area standards, but it's not far off."
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dB Drag Racing More

dB Drag Racing

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  • Crank It Up (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Dobber ( 576407 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:32PM (#6364531)

    I Wanna hear Britney Spears wail !!

    • Re:Crank It Up (Score:5, Funny)

      by Alsee ( 515537 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @11:34PM (#6364802) Homepage
      I have a better idea. How about we but Brittney Spears inside one of these cars and see if we can set a new world record by pumping it up to 250 dB for a few minutes?

      That's probably loud enough to pulverize bone, but I expect elastic silicone would survive intact.

      -
      • So you would like to see her bones crushed and her fake breasts intact? Why don't you just get a blowup doll.

        I would rather she stay looking exactly how she is and just stop singing. Perhaps we could just rupture her eardrums enough to send her tone deaf, leading to the demise of her 'singing' career.
  • *Sounds* like they need some melamine ceiling tiles [slashdot.org].
    • I hope they give out ear plugs with the noise they are making. I wish they would arrest these people. Most of of these cars are actually illegal. In fact, most of lesser ones are illegal too because they are too noisy. Most communities have noise regulations, and a lot of these cars shake the walls of nearby buildings. I personally hate them, and when they go by my house, I compare them to the noise of airplanes overhead (sometimes the airplanes are quieter).
      The people who have stereo systems l

  • Insulation? (Score:5, Funny)

    by sburnett ( 540700 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:33PM (#6364535)
    "Protect those nearby"?? Isn't the whole point of these things to annoy the hell out everyone in a 10 mile radius?

  • Check out my new weapon of choice (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pandion ( 179894 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:34PM (#6364540)
    I choose to fight back with an EMP :P

    • Re:Check out my new weapon of choice (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:38PM (#6364560)
      Nah... I'd prefer a Herf Gun [slashdot.org]

      Capable of "stalling cars at a distance"...

      perfect

    • Re:Check out my new weapon of choice (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @11:58PM (#6364890) Journal
      I can not tell you the number of times I fantasized about that while living in dorms, and not sleeping at 1am because someone needs to hear their rap at 90 dB.

      To anyone who puts other people through that... try thinking about the fact that you're being a real jackass. I once had a roommate who could sleep right through that without being disturbed, but there are quite a few of us on the opposite end of the spectrum, too, who can't help but be annoyed at least, and made physically ill (headaches, nausea a couple times) by your crap. I truly wish this was just whining and I could choose not to be affected that way, because believe me, I would in a heartbeat, but it's not a choice.

      (Of course, in my experience, the kind of person who may be reading this site may be proud of their speaker set but aren't the ones blasting it five or six hours a day, week in, week out, any time of day or night. But still, think about your actions and please consider others.)

      Oh, and a hint to anyone about to move to college, especially a larger one: Every dorm administrator thinks their facilities are quiet, and will say so if you ask. This is because they live in air-conditioned offices as far away from the students as possible (possibly in another building), come in at 9am (when the students are all sleeping), and go home at 5pm (about two hours before the party really starts). They also have absolutely no interest in actually working to make the facilities quieter, even if they explicitly advertise it as a feature. If you are as bothered by this as I am (perhaps 1 or 2%), seriously consider moving *way* off campus. I now work at the University I went to, and a 20 minute drive was far enough away. (Note Michigan State University is huge; you can probably live closer to smaller ones.)
      • Oh, and a hint to anyone about to move to college, especially a larger one: Every dorm administrator thinks their facilities are quiet, and will say so if you ask. This is because they live in air-conditioned offices as far away from the students as possible (possibly in another building), come in at 9am (when the students are all sleeping), and go home at 5pm (about two hours before the party really starts). They also have absolutely no interest in actually working to make the facilities quieter, even if t

  • oooh (Score:5, Funny)

    by autopr0n ( 534291 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:34PM (#6364546) Homepage Journal
    My sound system is loud enough to cause me physical injuries! Hooray!

    • Re:oooh (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:44PM (#6364588)
      I have permanent hearing loss in my left ear due to a dual 500w Urban amp setup (yeah, cheap, but I was in HS at the time) with two Dr. Crankenstein subs.

      It's really not funny.

      • Re:oooh (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <pig.hogger@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Thursday July 03, 2003 @11:46PM (#6364845) Journal
        You laugh, but the SNCF (French National Railroads) have trouble recruiting new train engineers (drivers, for you UK types). Their medical standards are so stringent that they have a hard time finding kids with unimpaired hearing, thanks to all those loud discos.

        Even worse, whenever a kid shows up for the medical wearing a walkman, he is automatically rejected...

    • Re:oooh (Score:3, Interesting)

      by little_fluffy_clouds ( 441841 )
      Every year I go to the Summernats [summernats.com.au] held in Canberra, Australia. In 2001 I took a nice picture:

      Summernats Sound Off Entrant [space-monkey.net]

      The interesting thing is here that he has his windscreen strapped on, due to the extreme volume shifting the air in the cabin enough to dislodge it.

    • I think lots of money for r&d should be pumped into this. Why? So that we can assist the future darwin award winners win faster.

  • So what kind of stickers... (Score:5, Funny)

    by writertype ( 541679 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:35PM (#6364548)
    do you need to win a dB drag race?

  • The problem is... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GeckoFood ( 585211 ) <geckofood&gmail,com> on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:37PM (#6364555) Journal
    ...it's a single frequency sound, not music. That said, it still sounds better than that crap coming from the car next to you at the stoplight...

  • Hah (Score:5, Funny)

    by MC68040 ( 462186 ) <`henric' `at' `digital-bless.com'> on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:38PM (#6364557) Homepage
    Those guy's don't stand a chance against my overclocked athlon, that thing sounds like a jet engine, and I mean it, it can even hum tunes if you adjust the fans real fast or with an automatic controller. Promise ;).

    http://funstuff.digital-bless.com/

  • little known fact (Score:5, Interesting)

    by csimicah ( 592121 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:38PM (#6364561)
    These guys have to be starting to bump into limiting returns... the maximmum possible dB in free air is 194 IIRC. I wonder if it would be legal to pressurize the vehicle to achieve higher max dB's...
    • If you aimed the drivers at the ground, would you get over-compression?

      For that matter, if you aimed 194dB at the ground, would you need wheels?

    • Re:little known fact (Score:5, Interesting)

      by coyote-san ( 38515 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @11:03PM (#6364663)
      That reminds me of a Discover(?) or Scientific American magazine article on materials processing with sound. Hundreds, or was it thousands, of dB. I remember them commenting that the sound so intense it would set your hair on fire... but you wouldn't notice since your flesh would be liquified.

      This has absolutely nothing to do with the topic, of course, other than the wonderful mental image of what it would do to somebody trying to impress the neighborhood with their sound system.
    • Most competition cars are already sealed. They use all kinds of means to make the car completely airtight, including big meatlocker-like door latches.

  • Yeah, thats super. We all need more of this. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bowie J. Poag ( 16898 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:38PM (#6364562) Homepage

    Why doesn't someone build/sell a small EMP weapons? You know, enough to reboot anything electronic CD player/radio within 20 feet?

    Hell, i'd camp out at the store the night before to buy one of those.

  • I love the punk kids.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:39PM (#6364563) Homepage
    I still have my stereo in my car from the 80's when I did the SPL scene...

    I absolutely love having some wannabe pull up with his sky-hook wing and blasting ICP and trying to look cool... when I look at them, put in ear plugs and Blast them hard with either whiney country or something else that they would find horribly obnoxious... (Pointer sisters works great!)

    I produce a tiny 112DbI but then I have only 1000 watts in 11 year old amps and rockford fosgate speakers in that convertable... but I completely drown out the stereo they are listening to in their car.

    you CANT beat a custom 7th order isobarik subwoofer box.... the off the shelf junk is just that.... 100% junk.

    • +1 Informative??? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      did the SPL scene...

      ...his sky-hook wing and blasting ICP...

      ...a tiny 112DbI...

      a custom 7th order isobarik subwoofer box

      How is this informative? I can't understand half of what you're saying!

    • Where do you live that people drive around bumping ICP? Out here most people bump Dre produced bullshit. ICP doesn't have that low bass that the kiddie like.
    • Todays kids have lost there way, but it's not there fault. There was a generation when cars went from big, fast, and loud, to small, slow, and quite. There children of that generation just don't know good quility equipment. That goes for there cars as well.

  • db....sound....lots of cars. Yah. There it is.

  • Noice cancellation (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Synithium ( 515777 )
    How close are we to getting a cheap, easily deployable, noice cancellation system? Living in a city is great because my job is only a mile away and i can walk, but the "ghetto" blasting is getting extremely old. I mean, even through triple paned windows and extra sound insulation in the walls i can still here 50 cent in the middle of the night...*sigh*

  • Sympathetic vibration is fun. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mikeophile ( 647318 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:41PM (#6364574)
    I've always wanted to see if one of those boomboxes on wheels would shake itself to bits if it were to play the right frequency of infrasound.

    • Re:Sympathetic vibration is fun. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by el-spectre ( 668104 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @11:21PM (#6364743) Journal
      Not in the same league of course, but you might be amused...

      I used to work retail, and with our surround sound system display, I had 2 400W subs running... on top of the particleboard shelving that effectively formed a HUGE reverb chamber... I'd crank up 'enter sandman' and watch 'em walk (and eventually fall of the display).

      I had to stop cuz the neighboring store kept bitching that I was knocking merchandise off the shelf..

  • Interesting... but pointless (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fname ( 199759 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:41PM (#6364575) Journal
    I read this article earlier today, and it just struck me as pointless. I guess there are other competitions which are even more contrived, and maybe I just don't "get it." I suppose anything that keeps the youngins off the street and out of trouble is good.

    But honestly, how can it be a car stereo system when the car can't even move by itself! And given that you can't even listen to these things without: a) killing yourself, b) going deaf, c) being real far away, d) turning the volume way down or e) insulating it to lessen the sound; it just doesn't jibe.

    I guess it's the thrill of competition, but there have gotta be more intersting engineering challenges than this.

  • More targets.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by PaulK ( 85154 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:41PM (#6364580)
    For my modified radar gun.

    It's amazing how many speakers blow when mosfets overload. Quality sound. :)

    • I always wondered if a device could be made that would use highly concentrated directional ultrasonic sound. Point it at something and shake it apart with sound.

      Would be a great way to get back at those morons who sit outside your house in the middle of the night with their 'Mega Bass 8' CD playing...

      • Re:More targets.... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by PaulK ( 85154 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @11:10PM (#6364687)
        If I'm not mistaken, the US Army has developed a method of using sound for crowd control.

        I really don't care to think of what would happen if a persons resonant frequency was "accidentally" broadcast.

        As for the radar, back when I was in the navy, we used to light up our master chief's vw bug as it came down the road.... sputter...sputter...sputter...

        I'm grateful that we had a rather limited radar capability, (ssbn), so as to not actually HURT the man.

        • I'm not sure if this is what you are talking about, but one method of crowd control is to play a tone that matches the natural frequency of the human bowels(about 6Hz or something low like that). Your bowels start to resonate and you lose all control. I don't know if this has ever been used but it's a cool idea.

        • Re:More targets.... (Score:5, Informative)

          by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Friday July 04, 2003 @12:17AM (#6364958) Journal
          The sound control works on a mixture of sheer volume and psychological effects; strictly speaking it's not a directly physical effect.

          I really don't care to think of what would happen if a persons resonant frequency was "accidentally" broadcast.

          Only in Star Trek does everything have a resonant frequency. "People" do not have resonant frequencies; we are too soft and too squishy. In order to have a resonant frequency there must be some kind of resonance, which arises because the waves (whatever they are) are sharply and cleanly reflected, and can reinforce each other. When they are mushed up, they cease to resonate and you get more normal, mundane effects.

          Certain parts of the body, mostly bone, can have a resonant frequency, but everybody's will be different. In fact, if you try, you can probably locate your jawbone's resonant frequency. Every once in a long while (on the order of once every couple of years), something will manage to hit one of my bone's resonant frequencies loud enough to be very unpleasent, generally construction equipment. Even so, my bones didn't crumble for various reasons, including the fact that even bones don't have very good resonant frequencies, and it's embedded in a soft goo.

          So you can't simply broadcast some magical noise and watch the crowd dissolve. Of course you could kill them with pure power; an explosion's concussion can do that. But that isn't really "sound" in the traditional sense (no real periodicity, just one burst, maybe two or three significant oscillations (for nuclear-sized blasts), and that's it; the essense of "sound" is the wave nature).

          Star Trek really promotes some bad science here; really strong resonance, strong enough to hurt things, is not an every-day, everywhere-you-look phenomenon. Simple observation will confirm this fact; despite the wide variety of noise in the modern world, things conspicuously fail to blow themselves to smithereens because something was hit by its resonant frequency. It's the exception rather then the rule. You need a very regular structure that's also very hard, which doesn't happen much in nature. The reason we see any significant effects at all arises from our tendency to build regular and hard structures, like Tacoma Narrows or your shower (a rectangle box lines with tiles? Show me something like that in nature!).

          A similar answer to this message's grandparent: You can pulverize some things with sound, but mostly just hard things. The technology is pretty simple and if it's easy or useful, it's already being used in industry somewhere for something. You don't sound used as a pulverizing weapon because it's useless for that purpose. Generally, if you're trying to pulverize something it's easier to just hit it (not being sarcastic), but I've seen some exceptions [slopeindicator.com] (and even that is just "loosening" things with sound, it's sound plus "conventional" pressure and some rotation that all comes together to do the drilling).
    • I remember reading in Car and Driver once that the fighter jockeys out in Colorado would seek out cars likely to have radar detectors and light them up with their ground-acquisition radar.

      You can imagine what happens to a Valentine One when it's being painted by an F-16...

  • Show of hands... (Score:5, Funny)

    by goliard ( 46585 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:41PM (#6364581)


    Who all looked at the subject and thought, "Gee, I wonder how postgresql does against Oracle?"

    OK, and who all thought, "How do you get a db into a dress??"

  • Misread headline (Score:5, Funny)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:41PM (#6364583) Homepage
    dB drag racing

    Boy, did I ever read that wrong:

    "Aaaaand they're off!! It's DB2 in the lead with Oracle11i gaining on its heels and SQL Server a few furlongs back..."`

  • $80,000? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anand_S ( 638598 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:45PM (#6364593)
    Dodge Caravan represent!

  • And then.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by nolife ( 233813 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:46PM (#6364594) Homepage Journal
    After the SPL thing wears off for them, they move into the world of PC video cards and CPU coooling systems..

  • The KLF and Sonic Weaponry... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WIAKywbfatw ( 307557 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:53PM (#6364625) Journal
    Jimmy Cauty aka Rockman Rock of the techno act The KLF allegedly had an interesting mobile sound system, courtesy of the British Army. From the KLF FAQ [hyperreal.org]:

    Q: What's Jimmy's sonic weapon?

    A: Jimmy purchased two Saracen armoured vehicles at a scrap yard for ukp 4,000 and found equipment in them which he thought could have been used for sonic warfare. He has tried to assemble the acoustic gun from information he found on the Internet. Installing huge amplifiers and special speakers to cope with the very low frequencies cost him tens of thousands of pounds.

    The 25,000-watt sonic gun can project sound for around 7 miles, and Jimmy annoyed his Devon neighbours by testing it on Midsummer's Day, 1996. Jimmy said: "I moved to Devon six months ago for a bit of a rest and this is a project I am taking an interest in. I do not see it as music or art." He said that he aimed the gun away from homes and it seemed to have no effect on sheep.

    The Melody Maker said: "He was testing his two Audio Weapon Systems in a field near his new home. 'He alerted people to the fact that he was doing this by setting off some military flares. Then he
    tested his Audio Weapons System for an hour for a very select group of scientists and friends. The Audio Weapons System is not designed to kill people." ... [Cauty] first tested it at a Wire gig on Hungerford Bridge in May. ...
    In January, Panasonic [ the "Finnish conceptual techno nutters"-NME] borrowed one of the Audio Weapons Systems for tests on how sonic waves affect the human body at Brick Lane in London. ... A fax from Mr. Smith, the Head Of Commercial Exploitation at Advanced Acoustic Armaments, was sent to The Maker. It read : "The test took place to establish the parameters of the new vehicle solo and in tandem with its sister model, SS 9000K+L. The test featured new software generated for our latest commercial client, EXP LTD, and is described by Mr. Cauty as featuring 'the ultimate battle between sound and commerce ending in the death of all musicians and their ascension to rock-n-roll heaven or hell as befits them.' Yesterday we received communication with ex-Government employees who, in the Sixties, worked on audio weapon development with an offer of help and some ex-classified equipment. We regret any such death or damage that has resulted from our tests, but there are casualties in every war. The Triple A Formation Attack Ensemble will perform 'Foghorns Of The Northern Hemisphere' as part of an educational programmed supporting our research shortly."

    Most of this is probably scam, but Cauty has recorded an album of sonic waves for Paul Smith's Blast First label under the name AAA. The album is in the hands of lawyers who are trying to clear some of the samples used on it, and has yet to be released (07/96). It appears to be a Cauty solo project.

    More recently, Jimmy teamed up with new Asian-techno group, Black Star Liner for a _happening_ in a field on Dartmoor. Jimmy chartered a 'chopper to take BSL and assorted journos out to Dartmoor, where he intended to remix the Halaal Rock track in his tank. Apparently, BSL bumped into Cauty on London's South Bank, while he was driving about in his tank, he got hold of their album, and said that he wanted to work with them. Anyway, the chopper was grounded by severe fog, so everyone was put on a convey of buses. All the journos were given _orange_ jackets to wear. They eventually arrived at a field full of military vehicles, and people in _yellow_ jackets, wearing goggles and ears protectors, doing some form of formation dancing. The journos were lead to the ir seats, and had large floodlights shone into their eyes, while the yellow jackets let of flares all around them.

    There were a load of goats skulls on sticks around the field, and a whole pile of fireworks let of towards the end of the mix, when Cauty was mixing in some Jimi Hendrix. However, this d
  • I saw a show on this recently... pretty crazy stuff. Their equipment is set up to play ONE NOTE, one frequency, as loud as possible. Inside their cars during the competitions, there's a single microphone which picks up the dB level. The cars have panels that are literally clamped shut to keep from blowing apart, and they're all undrivable. The speakers are custom made, and blow out pretty often. If you were inside the car during a blast, you'd likely die - literally =)

    Ridiculous stuff =)

    ~Berj
    • I'm serious here, why would I die from the volume? If I wore earplugs with airport-tarmack-quality ear muffs, with a (Imagine a motorcycle helmet with an inch thick plexiglass view-area, the entire thing designed to muffle sound, with insulation that goes quite snugly up against the neck, and is cut in half. To wear it, the two halves are placed around the head and clamped together from the outside.), what would the sound do to my body? Would my brains still scramble? I know the military has a weapon, t
      • Well never friggin mind, all I had to do was read the next comment about the wired.com story to learn what would happen to me. I'd die. But tell me, is it all frequencies of sound that would kill me? Or only lower ones? Could I survive 150Db at 2000Hz? I'm guessing the lower frequencies shake the air in such a way it actually rips tissue apart. Do the higher frequencies do that too? Am I fundamentally not understanding that what Db's are? Is it a measure of energy and the frequency doesn't matter?

  • Old news, but still fun (Score:5, Interesting)

    by qengho ( 54305 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @11:02PM (#6364661)

    Wired Magazine did an entertaining story [wired.com] about this a couple of years ago. My favorite part was the description of riding around West Palm Beach with one of the guys, setting off car alarms with sound pulses:

    Eager to crank up the system, he hands me a set of earplugs. "Let's hear some bump."

    I stick the plugs in, and he hits the burp button, a red switch on the center console. It's difficult to describe what happens next. The noise sounds like "BRRROONNNNKKKKK!" The vehicle vibrates like a jackhammer, but much lower and deeper. I feel air blowing the back of my hair, and my body starts to rise out of the seat. My pant legs are flapping. Everything in the car is rattling like crazy, and I realize my vision is blurred as my face pulls back taut against my skull. The only reaction left is to laugh out loud. I look over at Billy E gripping the steering wheel, squinting and grinning maniacally. He lets up on the button, and the chaos stops.

    "If you're drinking a Coke, your throat will shut." I'm amazed I can actually hear his voice. "It's like being underwater. Your ears don't ring; they're just muted. After a day, everything opens up again," he says.

  • Wired (and slashdot??) did a writeup on this a while back:

    Feel the Noise [wired.com]

    I guess 48,000 Watts just ain't what it used to be.
  • Surely, if they're after max volume, then they don't care about distortion. I'd be tempted just to use solid state relays to drive the speakers with a square wave. That saves lots on cost/complexity/power-disspiation, leaving more for the speakers. (You could also modify the square wave using n batteries in parallel, switched in for slightly different fractions of the waveform - this would get more power into the fundamental frequency.)

    • Surely, if they're after max volume, then they don't care about distortion. I'd be tempted just to use solid state relays to drive the speakers with a square wave. That saves lots on cost/complexity/power-disspiation, leaving more for the speakers. (You could also modify the square wave using n batteries in parallel, switched in for slightly different fractions of the waveform - this would get more power into the fundamental frequency.)

      In fact, that's exactly what many competitors do. They overload the in

    • The problem with this is that a square wave has harmonic frequency content outside the response range of the driver. You'd get 50hz, 100hz, 150hz, and so on, and the first 10 harmonics are very significant- even more at these power levels.

      One thing you could do is have the relay drive a pi-L network with the drivers as the series-L's in the circuit. You could tune the caps so that the resonant frequency of the network falls at the natural frequency of the driver and to match the load impedance (short) to t
  • Pfft, just wait till the 42 volt batteries hit the scene, vive la revolution!
  • Can it blow women's clothes off like "The Italian Job"?

    Or more important, can the mighty Caravan run Linux?

  • Orion amp.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Thursday July 03, 2003 @11:09PM (#6364686) Homepage Journal
    I was looking around for equipment to do-it-myself install a good sound system in my vehicle. I haven't been into mobile audio (we called 'em car stereos in my day) over the past decade and, though aware of some pretty loud cars around town, had no idea what people were putting in them.

    Well. Seems in the absence of big v-8's tearing up the streets, it's sound competition which has taken the place of "who's got the biggest prick contest" I picked up, what I thought was a modest used Orion amplifier, only to find it's some kind of competition amp, capable of driving some serious bass. Maybe I'll get around to putting it into the car, but between 1 farad caps, heavy guage wiring, fibreglass panels and absurdly huge bass drivers, I've finally got a clear picture of what people are putting into these Civics.

    I'm just glad I survived my youth with most of my hearing still intact.

  • Not so great. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Boo Robin ( 657702 )
    I've actually been to one of these dB drag races, and I must say, it was rather disappointing. I sat around for a few minutes, and all I got was low end bass. Barely audible, and extremely boring. Something I wouldn't purposely go watch again.

    -Boo
  • So the punk kid is feeling good and cranks up more garbage on his civic with blue lights reflecting underneath. His bright yellow dash is blocked by his sunglasses. He pulls next to some geeky kid on a red light in a toyota corolla 1991 and tries to focus on the group of girls on the sidewalk.

    Then the unthinkable happens. The geeky kid in big round glasses looks at the punk kid, gives a quick smile full of contempt and turns away. The gauntlet has been thrown for the punk kid.

    So he rolls down all windows
  • I'm sure it's not as loud as my G4 Macintosh!

  • A discrepancy? (Score:5, Informative)

    by BladeMelbourne ( 518866 ) on Friday July 04, 2003 @12:00AM (#6364900)
    From the article: "every 10 dB increase equivalent to a doubling of perceived sound."

    In high school physics, I was taught that an increase of 3dB doubles the intensity/amplitude of the sound. My teacher concluded that +3dB would mean you hear a sound twice as loud. Then he went on to explain that P (power) is directly proportional to 1/d (the inverse of the distance squared).

    I know that the Richter scale works on the idea that an earthquake of 6 on the Richter scale is double the strength of one of 5 on the Richter scale.

    But have I been mislead? Is "perceived sound" different from amplitude/intensity? Did I really get staight 'A's in pyhsics?

    Mike

    Tux, myself and my lady regularly engage in 3somes - over the home network.

    • Re:A discrepancy? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by J-B0nd ( 682712 )
      Decibles are a measure of the perceived loudness of a sound. The way to convert from decibels to Watts/square meter is to use the following formula: dB = 10*log(Intensity/threshold of hearing) where the threshold of hearing is 1e-12 W/m^2 0 decibels is the threshold of hearing. 120 decibles is known as the threshold of pain. In short, decibels are the way of expressing the wide range of loudness that human hearing can pick up, while the intensity level (measured in W/m^2) is a measure of the amount of en

    • Re:A discrepancy? (Score:4, Informative)

      by melted ( 227442 ) on Friday July 04, 2003 @12:53AM (#6365098) Homepage
      You've misunderstood your teacher. Doubling the output power will make an amplifier 3dB louder. In order to make it twice as loud you have to increase the power by the factor of 10.
    • Not a discrepancy, but perhaps a slight mix-up.

      The article is correct: a 10dB increase is equivalent to doubling the perceived sound volume.

      The thing you are probably remembering is that you must double the input power to achieve a 3dB increase.
  • Alma Gates! The Beast!
  • The breakthrough came when they found a way to crank the volume dial up to 11...
  • it was some sort of database contest, like seeing who can move throught a billion rows the fastest.

  • I just need to detonate a 300 kilotonne hydrogen bomb in the back seat of my saturn. I guarantee that the noise generated in the subsequent 3 seconds will put them to shame. Ah well, I was going to junk the car soon anyway.
  • Techology - creating better assholes...

  • Try This "Punk Kid" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by thelizman ( 304517 ) <{hammerattack} {at} {yahoo.com}> on Friday July 04, 2003 @12:41AM (#6365053) Homepage
    ...that is, Alma Gates, sixty something year old owner of the infamous "Beast" and two time world champion. She's also a friend of mine, and an honored member of teamROCS [teamrocs.com].

    She ain't no punk [teamrocs.com] either. One reason she got into car audio was to "get even", but then she found she loved the competition, the friendships, and the enthusiasm of thousands of young adults. That's when she formed Team Gates [teamgates.net]. She has been featured not only in Car Audio and Electronics, but has been featured in Wired (10/2000, pg 260), and named in nearly every major media outlet (Washington Post, Boston Globe, New York Times, MSNBC, TechTV). Hell, she's even been on ESPN2! Let's see Lawrence Lessig or Linus Torvalds get that kind of coverage!

  • Actually what I would like to see (Score:4, Funny)

    by melted ( 227442 ) on Friday July 04, 2003 @12:43AM (#6365061) Homepage
    ..is a directed active noise cancellation system targeted specifically at those civics. Imagine the situation. You're at the intersection waiting for for a red light. Now this punk comes by with loud throbbing thump coming out of the windows of his car. Your car starts shaking. You press the right button, and active noise suppressor (kinda like the one they use on F-117s) supresses this motherf@ker's subwoofer and makes his entire sound system sound like a tin can until he closes the windows. Now that would be cool.

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