RE: Shaddap you face: PH Blog

[Kawasicki]

Dan Trent said:

if it's a twin turbo six why not make it sound like one!

I agree with you.

It sounds like a V8 muscle car from inside. There may be some sense in that though, as it drives like a V8 muscle car too.

[Guvernator]

Have to agree 100%, I've driven an M4 extensively and I was annoyed with the fakeness of the sound in the first 5 minutes. The sound in the cabin just doesn't sound natural at all, it definitely sounds like it emanates from the speakers then echo's round the whole car. In short it sounds exactly how you'd expect engine sounds piped through the speakers to sound like, i.e. sh*t

It is weird as the car does sound good from the outside so who on earth signed that little feature off is an absolute mystery.

Also agree that turbo's should sound like turbo's. As mentioned in the article, listen to an RB26 hiss as the turbo's come on boost at part throttle, sing at 8000rpm and then chuff and pop as you back off the throttle. Or jump in a Noble M12 with it's Duratec Twin Turbo, hissing, puffing and blowing away and tell me that isn't a good sound. Come on German's, don't be afraid, embrace your turbocharged-ness and let them sing properly!

[Cotic]

engineer666 said:

Get a Jag

Unfortunately, I suspect it's only a matter of time before they go the same way, noise being energy... I would expect their solution to be a little less annoying though, given their interpretation of electric steering.

[anonymous-user]

Guvernator said:

H
listen to an RB26 hiss as the turbo's come on boost at part throttle, sing at 8000rpm and then chuff and pop as you back off the throttle. Or jump in a Noble M12 with it's Duratec Twin Turbo, hissing, puffing and blowing away and tell me that isn't a good sound.

And yet the defining feature of both of those cars isn't the engine sounds, It's the marked lack of sound proofing and poor NVH. The turbo on the M3/M4is making just the same sounds as on those cars (in fact, more sound, because it's working harder) you just can't hear it.

So, if you'd like to spend £60k on a M3/M4 with lousy cabin NVH, be my guest, but i'd rather be able to hear the radio (Radio2 natch) as i trundle along our crowded road network.......

[Guvernator]

Max_Torque said:

And yet the defining feature of both of those cars isn't the engine sounds, It's the marked lack of sound proofing and poor NVH. The turbo on the M3/M4is making just the same sounds as on those cars (in fact, more sound, because it's working harder) you just can't hear it.

So, if you'd like to spend £60k on a M3/M4 with lousy cabin NVH, be my guest, but i'd rather be able to hear the radio (Radio2 natch) as i trundle along our crowded road network.......

The Noble you'd probably have a point as it's effectively a kit car but there wasn't anything lousy about the NVH in the Skyline IMO. It might not have had the soft touch plastics of the Germans but it was a damn site better put together than a lot of modern cars. I also get that some people want to be totally isolated from the outside world when sat in a car, me personally I like to hear a little bit of what's going on under the bonnet and feel you can have decent NVH and still be able to hear an engine sing. I guess as with anything that's a subjective fine line.

[981C]

I did this mod after Dan's twitter post and I'll never go back - so much better - the main benefit for me was the loudness being more directly proportional to the throttle angle. I'm running a little more boost pressure and you really hear the turbos and waste gate noise now.

[Hamma]

Dan Trent said:

Because it's amplified real sound (as I understand it) there is at least a correlation between noise produced mechanically and that played over the speakers but it's still not - to my feeling - authentic.

Cheers,

Dan

No, it's not at all real sound. It comes from the sound module, and that module has the 'sounds' for different cars stored in it. That's why you can get M4 sound programmed into an M135i for example as some Youtube videos show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXp8RX7k5TQ

[Hamma]

Max_Torque said:

I've no idea why people get so upset about "fake" engine sounds? Afterall what is a "real" engine sound? By all means, remove all the soundproofing from your car. And if you've done that, you'll realise how TERRIBLE a car actually sounds! For 30 years the OEMs have been tuning their external and cabin acoustics. As the market has demanded (and enjoyed) more and more refinement, and the legislators have pushed radiated external sound volumes from passenger cars down (if you live by a road, you'll be glad they have!) it's become increasingly difficult to satisfy all camps.

Added to which, modern high efficiency engines don't sound as nice as old ones (fast burning is great for efficiency, but the rapid rate of rise of cylinder pressure, gives rise to a very "diesely" sound) (start your M3 with the bonnet open from cold and see if you like the noise)

I bet if BMW took a load of sound proofing and NVH reduction measures out of the M3/M4, the journos would be the first to complain about the noise in the cabin. No matter if the sound is "piped" into the cabin by mechanical means (sound symposers, switchable exhausts, intake system flaps and tuning pipes etc) or by electronic ones (Using the HiFi Speakers) these systems allow you and i to have a quiet car most of the time (and our neighbours are probably pleased about that) and yet still sound decent inside when you drive it hard........

Very strange that this is so hard for you to understand. Real is real. Fake is fake. Fake is pathetic.

Modern engines sound great, turbocharging adds its challenges when it comes to cabin noise, but that's no excuse for car companies to be lazy and not do their jobs! They've had to do work to get the right sound from the intake, engine and exhaust before, and just because this is their 100th engine or something doesn't mean that they should not have to do that again! Do the work, modern engines can sound great, don't be lazy and slap on some fake BS toy! Don't treat your customers as if they're complete idiots (not all of them anyway)!

Oh yes, and if manufacturers do put pathetic fake sound devices that play sounds through the speakers, STOP LYING and saying that it's not fake and somehow 'just amplified real sound'!!

[anonymous-user]

Hamma said:

but that's no excuse for car companies to be lazy and not do their jobs!

Because of course, the problem is they are just "lazy". (The std internet response of someone who has no idea what they are talking about).

Go on, have a guess: How many people do you think BMW (for example) employs in it's NVH department?

[Vroom101]

Lazy? No, but possibly misguided.

Max, as you work in the industry, perhaps you could shed some light on the issue.

Why do some manufacturers choose to pipe these sounds into the cabin via the speakers? I can understand why people would view it as lazy - it appears that they do this rather than enhance the noise mechanically because its easier to get the sound they believe is 'correct'. However we know that Mercedes can 'engineer' the sound they desire without resorting to playing engine noise through the speakers, so why can't they all do this? And at what level in the development team is the decision made to go one way or the other?

[lord trumpton]

It's a subtle change but i agree it sounds better; less manufactured albeit quieter.

Personally I love the sound of a spooling turbo and wastegate chatter and thats what I would like to hear, not a pretend V8 noise ( I know its a straight 6)

Dan - Ive just got a Golf R - is there are similar thing going for the Golf?

[braddo]

Vroom101 said:

Why do some manufacturers choose to pipe these sounds into the cabin via the speakers?

I would have thought it's obvious. The car owners can choose how much engine noise they want in the cabin.

If as much natural noise as the loudest fake setting came into the cabin all the time, you can bet lots of buyers and journalists would be complaining about excessive noise, it being wearing over long distances, etc...

I'm OK with a fair amount of engine noise in the cabin but I'm not a new M3/M4 buyer.

[Captain Muppet]

sh33n said:

On a side note there is an option available to control the exhaust flaps after market (for both standard and after market exhausts) - but then you've already 'modified' something that should really be standard.

I would not be surprised if all if this is included in the Competition pack which is coming very soon.

The new drive-by noise regs won't let you have the silencer bypass open all the time unless the silencer bypass is quiet enough that it will pass the testing in all modes, so those cars which currently have driver controlled options for extra exhaust noise are going to lose them. No more noise testing loopholes, thanks to regulators adding causes like "no cheating".

I suppose the way round that regulatory issue would be to make the interior sound louder while keeping external emissions quiet. No one could object to that, win-win.

[liner33]

pppppppppppppppp said:

In the golf R you need to create a custom setting and set the engine to 'eco'. That turns the fake noise off.
Annoyingly you can't edit the preconfigured options.

You cant turn it off in eco it is set to different levels ie lowest in eco, mid in normal and highest in sport

You need VAGCOM or a dealer to switch it off completely (Or trim the levels) or its an easy job to unplug the speaker which is located on the bulkhead

Its a very different thing on the VAG stuff though its totally artificial unlike the BM , I thought I would find it offensive but I dont

[Captain Muppet]

Hamma said:

Very strange that this is so hard for you to understand. Real is real. Fake is fake. Fake is pathetic.

I agree that nothing is more real than the natural sound of mechanically generated pulses as modified by a carefully tuned system of electronically controlled pipes, baffles, valves and resonators and heard at a selection of predefined points inside an enclosure of selectively soundproofed panels through a number of tuned ports.

However to some people this is just as artificial as using a speaker.

[ORD]

There is something different, at an emotional level, between sound that results from the engineering of various mechanical components, etc and sound that comes out of speakers. Sounds from speakers feels fake. I can see that it is all ultimately on a spectrum, but we all have a point at which we find something too contrived. For me, the line is definitely cross where the sound that is not in fact generated by any mechanical component but comes from an audio file! I find it cringeworthy.

[Captain Muppet]

ORD said:

There is something different, at an emotional level, between sound that results from the engineering of various mechanical components, etc and sound that comes out of speakers. Sounds from speakers feels fake. I can see that it is all ultimately on a spectrum, but we all have a point at which we find something too contrived. For me, the line is definitely cross where the sound that is not in fact generated by any mechanical component but comes from an audio file! I find it cringeworthy.

It's the difference between a live performance and a recording of music. In a blind test you might not be able to tell, but you'd massively resent going to a gig to hear a recording.

Although if that music is played on a trumpet the "real" sound will be someone blowing a raspberry. Which would be just awful.

[Guvernator]

The problem is you CAN tell it's fake. I know manufacturers have been using acoustics engineering for years to tune and direct sound BUT this is something else. Perhaps it's the direction the noise comes from or the way it seems to emanate from the whole car rather than from where you expect i.e. in front of you for engine noise and behind the car for exhaust. Whatever it is my ears and brain can definitely detect that it doesn't sound quite right and once you've heard it, you can't un-hear it and it starts to annoy.

[981C]

Captain Muppet said:

I agree that nothing is more real than the natural sound of mechanically generated pulses as modified by a carefully tuned system of electronically controlled pipes, baffles, valves and resonators and heard at a selection of predefined points inside an enclosure of selectively soundproofed panels through a number of tuned ports.

:-)

For me the sound is unnatural, irrespective of its source. That's the real issue.

The sound generator on the Audi SQ5 actually sounds pretty good to me, so it can be done properly.

[mwstewart]

Captain Muppet said:

I agree that nothing is more real than the natural sound of mechanically generated pulses as modified by a carefully tuned system of electronically controlled pipes, baffles, valves and resonators and heard at a selection of predefined points inside an enclosure of selectively soundproofed panels through a number of tuned ports.

However to some people this is just as artificial as using a speaker.

I hear the Royal Philharmonic are switching to synthesizers.