[Harbir]

I have become aggressively opposed to loud pipes on motorcycles. It happened while I was in college in the US, very sick in my apartment, unable to go to class, needed friends to bring me food or take me to the doctor. on sunday morning, these two guys in the neighborhood, one with an R1 and one with a GSXR, both with loud pipes were roaring around.

I cannot explain the torture I experienced in my illness, and I got to thinking of old people, sick people, babies in their homes being terrorized, YES, TERRORIZED by self indulgent selfish brats who care about their own pleasure and not about anyone else.

I have no problems with after market exhausts that are quiet enough at low to moderate speeds to not be bothersome to other citizens and their riders are careful to keep engine speeds and noise levels down while around town.

But people who use very loud pipes and go blatting around town with them deserve to be put in prison and have their motorcycles burned to the ground.

[shankar.balan]

There is a decibel meter to monitor noise pollution on Church Street Bangalore, outside the Pollution Control Board office.
Last Sunday my father, my wife and I were at Blossom bookshop buying some books around 11:15am.

Walking about Church St, we noted the reading on that meter when one of those high pitched Autos went by. It read as 150db.
Then came big black Jag XF who accelerated all the way down Church street as it was empty as a whistle at that time.
The reading this time was also 150db.

Our ears cannot handle consistently high noise levels. We will all go quite deaf in the next few years because India is probably the noisiest country in the world in all respects.

You can feel the difference when coming back home from a visit to the developed world. The first thing that hits you when you come out is the incredible din!

[Harbir]

150db is definitely a wrong reading. a jet engine at full power at a distance of 100ft is at around 140db. 150db is 10 times louder than that (3 db = twice as loud in terms of energy concentration).

A loud rock concert is only about 115db for comparison. 150db for a jaguar XF is absolutely 100% wrong.

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by Harbir

150db is definitely a wrong reading. a jet engine at full power at a distance of 100ft is at around 140db. 150db is 10 times louder than that (3 db = twice as loud in terms of energy concentration).

A loud rock concert is only about 115db for comparison. 150db for a jaguar XF is absolutely 100% wrong.

An auto rickshaw makes a sharp horrible sound because most drivers seem to be removing their miserable silencers so at peak level the sound might be higher than normal and may even go to this much. Let me also clarify that the meter and board are located right on the street. The vehicles pass within a few feet of the reader. This may have some impact on the reading.

[mempheS.D]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

You can feel the difference when coming back home from a visit to the developed world. The first thing that hits you when you come out is the incredible din!

On the contrary and a lighter note, I remember that the silence in the West was scary during my first few nights there. It was scary because I could hear my own heartbeat while trying to sleep.

[Harbir]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

An auto rickshaw makes a sharp horrible sound because most drivers seem to be removing their miserable silencers so at peak level the sound might be higher than normal and may even go to this much. Let me also clarify that the meter and board are located right on the street. The vehicles pass within a few feet of the reader. This may have some impact on the reading.

Trust me, its not 150db, even without silencer. A boeing 747, all 4 engines going full power for take off, does not reach 150db measured by the side of the runway.

150db is HUGE. its like saying the auto rickshaw makes 50,000horsepower. Its a log scale. A chainsaw at 2 feet distance is about 120db. 150db is 1000 times louder than that. it may reach 150db if you stuck the measuring sensor right into the mouth of an exhaust pipe, but at 2-3 feet away, there is absolutely no chance.

EDIT: I have a highly accurate sound pressure level meter. I'll have to find it but I when I do, I'll take some readings around Delhi and share.
'

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by Harbir

Trust me, an auto rickshaw does not produce 150db.

No worries must be some mistake then on the reader
Whatever it is, the auto ricks here are extremely noisy and can burst ones ear drums too if one is constantly exposed to their irritating high pitched buzzing noise.

[rakirank]

A few bad apples bring a bad name to the community.

I live in an apartment complex where we have one such biker.
He has found it ideal to take out his bike around 11 p.m. in the night to enjoy his ride.
In doing so, he has shown scant regard for others by revving within the apartment at night. Thanks to the high revving, the autocops' on cars go off adding to the din.

His callous response to complaints is that people can shift and live elsewhere if they have a problem.

Agreed that most bikers are responsible and ensure that they ride safely.
The problem lies with the exceptions, based on whom the bikers at large are branded.

[reignofchaos]

Many tracks here in california have a noise limit. Laguna Seca for example has 92dB. Trust me this is pretty loud and stock cars that go above this are the v12 zondas and the like. 150dB is impossible - even exposure for a few moments to that kind of loudness can shatter your eardrums and cause permanent damage.

Also one has to remember that the dB scale is a log scale. 6dB increase is twice as loud.

[straight6]

I got caught in this rubbish that day. You can see me on my gixxer in one of the pics posted by manson. The officers were revving the pulsars and avengers and expecting them to be below 60 db LOL. What a joke our laws are.

A very loud exhaust on a bike is usually around 110-115 db (something like racefit, toce or hotbodies). Infact the chassis of the new bikes have the db levels noted on the information tag on the right and iirc the gixxers and busa's are around 98 db at 5k rpm.

[apachelongbow]

Originally Posted by rakirank

A few bad apples bring a bad name to the community.

I live in an apartment complex where we have one such biker.
He has found it ideal to take out his bike around 11 p.m. in the night to enjoy his ride.
In doing so, he has shown scant regard for others by revving within the apartment at night. Thanks to the high revving, the autocops' on cars go off adding to the din.

His callous response to complaints is that people can shift and live elsewhere if they have a problem.

Agreed that most bikers are responsible and ensure that they ride safely.
The problem lies with the exceptions, based on whom the bikers at large are branded.

If you wanna teach him a lesson, when he is not around coat his bike tyres with engine oil. A minor spill when he starts off should set him right, and make him pay costs for a broken fairing.

[low_bass_makker]

150db is quite loud but again at what frequency ?

My car did 150db+ from 24 hz to 40hz. (approx) which a human body can take every easily !!!!

SMD playing at 25 hz !!! TermLAB numbers !!! - YouTube

But if it had been in the range of 1khz I would have gone deaf by now.

About the db numbers they are just over hyped every time.

About the vehicles in question here they must be in the acceptable range of the human ear bearing capacity because if it would be louder than that the rider would have gone deaf because he is the closet to the loud pipes. And the companies making these loud pipes would have gone out of business.

[voyageur]

I guess we must be responsible while driving through a residential area to keep the engine note low as possible.

The cops in India keep getting lucky