Noise test meters

[heebeegeetee]

Hi all,

Took a hill-climb car to Shelsley at the weekend just to be scrutineered and noise tested, car not been run since an engine change and other work.

Failed the noise test miserably at 115db. I've since downloaded an app on my phone which measures the noise at just 60 odd db, which is nonsense of course.

Can anyone recommend an affordable noise tester which may be good enough to give a reasonably accurate reading? I see there are plenty on ebay http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_tr...
are any of them any good, or they likely to be as useful as the app?

It would be useful to have an indication, save me having to take my car to venues to be measured so that I can be sure of entering an event and not failing noise on the day.

Many thanks.

[heebeegeetee]

Drumroll said:

Noise meters can be picked up very cheaply, but getting one that is calibrated and keeping it calibrated is the hard part. In the end it doesn't matter what your meter says, if the Environmental scrutineer says it is too noisy it is too noisy. I know it doesn't help you at the moment, just pointing out the obvious really.

Thanks, and that's right about on he day. 115 db is really disappointing though and tbh I'd like to get below the 105 to save faffing about on the day. I can save that for later after we've got used to running the car etc.

Jayyylo said:

I'd wager you've got your app on the wrong settings. Obviously it's not going to be as accurate but it should be within about 3 dB. Any meter you buy off ebay will have about the same accuracy (at best) to a properly calibrated class 1 meter.

I don't think there's any settings to alter, but I'll try another app before buying anything from eBay. Thanks anyway.

[heebeegeetee]

I downloaded one free app called Noise Meter, supplied or 'powered' by something called Unity, and it was useless. I tried another one called Decibel 10th, which gave a much more realistic reading, (albeit lower than the scrutineer), and since paid 79p to get rid of the adverts.

We discovered the wastegate was stuck partially open on the noise test, which would lose the dampening effect of the turbo. We've remedied that and hopefully will get it noise tested again this weekend. Only problem is, according to Decibel 10th closing the wastegate made no difference.

We'll see, and I'll report back. Cheers.

[heebeegeetee]

BertBert said:

I've got what I'd call a standard Maplin meter. When I have used it in the past it has given me very similoar readings to the circuit noise man (or men).
Bert

Ta.