[jr2]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/americas-best-selling-cars-and-trucks-are-built-on-lies-the-rise-of-fake-engine-noise/2015/01/21/6db09a10-a0ba-11e4-b146-577832eafcb4_story.html




Because as the engines get quieter (side-effect of becoming more efficient), they lose that sexy growl.  Now those that like the growl are in a conundrum: they like the growl, but they want it to be real.  Tuning the existing sound coming out of the pipe is one thing.  Playing fake engine audio through the sound system is another.

[The E]

Oh god I can't stop laughing

[pecenipicek]

...but added that the newly processed pony-car sound is “athletic and youthful,”...

people using such vocabulary with cars need to get their noggins checked out.

but hey, as a pedestrian living rather close to a major road in to my city, i approve of external noise reductions

[jr2]

Except the electric cars, they need a tad of external notifications (they mentioned that in the article as well).  But not too much.    Just enough that people don't step off into the road and get whacked.

[Klaustrophobia]

Great, now I get to be annoyed further by the fact that annoying road noise is largely artificial and needless.

[FrikgFeek]

Why would anyone want that? I'd prefer a system that plays an antinoise so that you don't hear the engine at all. Engine noise is glorified farting anyway.

[Lorric]

Why would anyone want that? I'd prefer a system that plays an antinoise so that you don't hear the engine at all. Engine noise is glorified farting anyway.

I'm surprised by this thread's seeming difficulty in understanding people can get pleasure out of engine noise. Just think about some genre of music that is anything but to your own ears but you know others appreciate. And vice versa, surely we've all had someone unable to understand how we can listen to music we like at some point in our lives.

Me personally I prefer the engine to be quiet, but I can appreciate a good engine noise in a video game.

As for the fake engine noise, couldn't that cause problems by masking telltale noise from the real engine to tell you there's a problem? It does seem silly all the cloak of secrecy around such stuff though. Companies should be straight about what they've done, especially if it's fake noise as opposed to the stuff about amplifying the real engine noise.

[Scotty]

Great, now I get to be annoyed further by the fact that annoying road noise is largely artificial and needless.

Not for a decade or more it won't be largely artificial.  Until then it's all still real engine.

And also wheels on road, those are surprisingly loud.

[Phantom Hoover]

I don't think it's entirely stupid, engine sound is pretty useful feedback (especially with manual transmission).

[jr2]

It's just engine noise, not road noise.  I believe the article stated that was one of the reasons they put in fake engine noise.  All you could hear with a quiet engine is wind and road noise (which modern cars do a good job of keeping to a minimum... not sure why that's such an issue).


Me personally?  It had better be able to be disabled.  Maybe I'd turn it on once or twice a year.  If it was real engine noise, maybe changing the pitch is acceptable as long as it's not too annoying (looking at you, Harley-Davidson and all the 4-cylinder Honda / Toyota / etc with fart cans attached).

A little snarl / rumble / rasp is fine, but you shouldn't be waking the neighborhood at 30% throttle.  Just saying.

[Scourge of Ages]

Me personally?  It had better be able to be disabled.  Maybe I'd turn it on once or twice a year.  If it was real engine noise, maybe changing the pitch is acceptable as long as it's not too annoying (looking at you, Harley-Davidson and all the 4-cylinder Honda / Toyota / etc with fart cans attached).

Ditto.

[InsaneBaron]

I now NEED to get this for my car  Would prefer real engine noise, but hey, better than nothing!

[jr2]

I now NEED to get this for my car  Would prefer real engine noise, but hey, better than nothing!

Electric?

[deathspeed]

This has been going on for a while; I remember Car and Driver freaking out over the M5 doing this.  One of the columnists figured out which fuse to pull to disable it.  I am OK with real engine sounds being piped into the cabin with a sound tube to amplify the existing intake roar, but I am absolutely against electronic sound "enhancement".  It's bad enough when they are just trying to amplify the sound because the turbos absorb too much of the sound energy (hint: remove the mufflers), but it especially galls me when they try to make a turbo 4 or a V6 sound like a V8.  I don't particularly like the snarl of my V6, preferring the rumble of the V8s in my first three cars, but I would never dream of trying to make it sound like a V8 inside while everyone outside can hear that it's not.

[FrikgFeek]

Me personally I prefer the engine to be quiet, but I can appreciate a good engine noise in a video game.

Sure, the scream of a V12 or the roar of a finely made high-rev V8, not the farting of an I-4 or the burping of a V6, which is what most cars that people actually buy have. Alfas and Ferraris sound great, sure, but those don't have these systems. I mean, if your engine is too quiet to hear, then it's probably not some glorious piece of art you'd want to hear.

[Kobrar44]

Except the electric cars, they need a tad of external notifications (they mentioned that in the article as well).  But not too much.    Just enough that people don't step off into the road and get whacked.

Like a horn?

[jr2]

Won't work.  Reaction time would be decreased too much.  People would die.  This is already a problem with fork trucks in factories where hearing protection is required.  They aren't quiet, but in a noisy environment with hearing protection, you don't hear them until it's too late.  Hence the need to be on the horn all the time.  Which you wouldn't want in everyday traffic.

Maybe an automatic collision detection system that could sound the horn would work.  Relying on the driver would not be fast enough in too many cases (either driver inattentiveness or pedestrian unpredictability).

[Scotty]

Not to mention that horns are more annoying than engine noise by an order of magnitude.

[jr2]

Truth.  I've gotten yelled at by several coworkers for being on the horn too much.  Can't help it, I've got to get from one end of the factory to the other end of the attached warehouse, drop finished product off, and grab more WIP on the way back, before the next roll finishes.  Which means, 3MPH "safety first" speed limit is of course a convenient lie by management, I have to go at least 8 and sometimes max out at 11 MPH to do this in time, depending on the product being run, and ho well the line is working at the time.  So, no, I'm not going to scream by aisles of finished goods and hope you don't stupidly pop out and decorate the front of the fork truck, I'll keep laying on the horn, thanks very much.  Don't like it?  Well hop on a fork truck and help me out.  No?  Yeah, that's what I thought. 

[MP-Ryan]

I can pretty much guarantee our Honda Odyssey does not have this feature.  Heh.