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dB Drag Racing
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."
I Wanna hear Britney Spears wail !!
*Sounds* like they need some melamine ceiling tiles.
"Protect those nearby"?? Isn't the whole point of these things to annoy the hell out everyone in a 10 mile radius?
I choose to fight back with an EMP :P
My sound system is loud enough to cause me physical injuries! Hooray!
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
do you need to win a dB drag race?
...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...
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
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/
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...
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.
Bowie J. Poag
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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*
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.
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.
For my modified radar gun.
:)
It's amazing how many speakers blow when mosfets overload. Quality sound.
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??"
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
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..."`
The coolest voice ever.
Dodge Caravan represent!
After the SPL thing wears off for them, they move into the world of PC video cards and CPU coooling systems..
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
did the SPL scene...
a custom 7th order isobarik subwoofer box
How is this informative? I can't understand half of what you're saying!
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:
... [Cauty] first tested it at a Wire gig on Hungerford Bridge in May. ... ... 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."
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."
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.
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
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Wired Magazine did an entertaining story 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:
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.)
Or more important, can the mighty Caravan run Linux?
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.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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
'Give me one more medicated peaceful moment'
What racism? Sounds to me like rascist would be inferring the race from the type of music.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
That's where David Shriner's Klingon zapper comes in. Wait until a traffic light, point and zap, I mean *ZZZZAPP*, and enjoy the silence. Plus, it destroys the electronic ignition of the prick's car, allowing you to drive away without fearing a pursuit. Now if only RadioShack carried them...
I am going to market them to retirees and quiet-loving coders under the brand Rap-B-Gone (TM). Any takers?
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
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.
You think I'm kidding??
I'm dead serious.
Here's two of the units in reserve.
And notice, the cases left at the curb after I stripped two of the
microwaves are in the foreground picture of the kids that I'm gonna HERF.
And even better, a few days after I took those pictures, THOSE KIDS threw away
a working microwave. I walk across the street after dark and grabbed it from the curb.
It worked too. They just bought a newer model I guess but now I get to HERF them with their own microwave!!!!
Bwhahahahaha!!
The breakthrough came when they found a way to crank the volume dial up to 11...
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.
My rights don't need management.
...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.
She ain't no punk 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. 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!
..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.
The following article describes using sound as a lethal weapon in the form of an invention by Norris called "Hypersonic sound".
(This has been discussed on slashdot before, twice.)
Excerpt from the Los Angeles Times article: "It gives you the equivalent of an intense migraine headache," said Elwood G. Norris, the company's chairman and inventor of the device. "It's just totally disabling."
3dB is the limit of relative sensitivity, that is, average person can only hear the difference between two sounds if the difference between their loudness is 3dB.
If this is so hard on the speakers, how hard is it on the microphones? And how accurately can they measure such intense sound? I would think that the condition and placement of the microphone would swamp many other factors.
"Lord, grant that I may always be right, for Thou knowest that I am hard to turn" -- A Scots-Irish prayer
Bels are "units" on a base-10 logarithmic scale of electrical voltage or whatever the equivalent is in sound. A decibel is of course a tenth of a bel. So doubling power makes a difference of 10*log10(2) ~= 3 dB. Since power is proportional to the square of voltage, assuming constant resistance, doubling voltage makes a difference of 10*log10(2*2) ~= 6 dB.
A better solution:
Invoke the DMCA. No, Seriously. Playing music that loud is obviously a circumvention measure that allows "theft" by people who would not have otherwise heard the song.
You can't easily go deaf from loud bass.
Absolutely incorrect. Loud bass is, in fact, a sure-fire way of damaging your hearing. Read this information from an audiologist and come back when you finish.
Most noise-related deafness is from high frequencies.
Again, wrong. Hearing damage usually manifests itself as a degradation in the ability to hear high frequencies. But you are mistaking cause and effect. The hearing loss can be caused by excessive SPLs (sound pressure levels) at any audio, or even subsonic, frequency. If your hearing was damaged by 20hz bass at an excessive volume, the effect would probably be a loss of ability to hear high frequencies, but that does not mean that the high frequencies caused the hearing loss.
Hey all...
:-) )and therefore we are forced to come up with a way around the restriction. To some of us its just as fun as figuring out how many gigahertz we can squeeze out of an overclocked CPU.
I didnt have time to read every response to the entire post, but I thought I would come over to your board and speak a little on the subject.
I agree that there are alot of punk kids out there that mis-represent what DB Drag is all about. And just like "hackers" give avid computer users a bad name - these punk kids or people without respect for others gives the DB Drag world a bad name.
To begin - most truly serious DB Draggers dont drive thier cars around annoying people. Yes - there alot of "us" that cannot drive thier cars around at all... but it pretty much equates to a real drag racing car - those arent street legal either. Alot of our cars are so specialized that it would simply be impossible to safely operate the vehicle in the street.
There is a world of diffrence between a DB Drag Racing competitor and a kid who has seen one too many movies about racing and hasnt developed a sense of respect for others. Myself for instance - I listen to my car system pretty loudly while on highways with the window down... but the second I come off the highway, enter a residential area, or come to a stoplight - not only do I turn it down, alot of the times it goes OFF altogether.
Not many people will ever truly understand other peoples hobbies, and DB Drag racing is no diffrent. To some people it seems a horrible waste of money. To others it seems too easy to prove a challenge. To me it was easy to reach a certain level of performance in competition, but after that you have to start applying more than simple physics or adding more and more speakers to get louder. Eventually you hit a point where you get diminishing returns. There are alot of things that are not legal in competition (the afforementioned pressurized cabins for one
The world of DB Draggers learns alot from reading feedback such as this. It is painful to think of someone defining your hobby as something used to annoy other people. But in reality it is only a small percentage of people that do such things. It makes about as much sense as racism. We all pretty much stick together in our sport, and save the bad apples - we all come out better for it.
Before I take up entirely too much space here on your board (some of you may think that already) ill draw to a close.
P.S. 10 Db IS in fact a "doubling in percieved sound level" to the human ear. When you mentioned 3db being a doubling - it IS... but it is a doubling of apparent signal level. To an electronic meter, a 3 Db gain reads as twice the signal, but is sometimes very hard to pick up with the human ear.
By the way... if you want to see the Good (mixed in with the little bit of inevitable bad... you can find a forum of DB Draggers at http://www.termpro.com
I only ask that you conduct yourselves as civilly as I have here.