153 db ?? !! ?? Car audio (1 Viewer)

[Levesque]

I'm arguing with a 17 years old customer, telling me is "kicker" system in his car can reach 153 db w/o any prob (probably distorded like hell). I don't care at all for car audio, but is he lying?? He says that for around 2000$ it's easy to do!! The site kicker.com says some people are reaching around 170 db with 20 amps and 20 subs!! Is it only distorted sound, or is it actually listenable??

Are they all crazy and anxious to go deaf by 20?? When this young loser is around with his car, all the bottles in my pharmacy are shaking!!

And I was thinking that reaching around 110 db at home was really loud!!

 

[Yogi]

some people are reaching around 170 db with 20 amps and 20 subs!!

What!!! What are you saying!!! I can't hear you!!!

 

[John Royster]

pretty easy to do really.

Lots of power, lots of displacement. It's all bass.

 

[jeff lam]

No, it's all cabin gain!

I can hit over 130dB fairly clean in my car with a single 12" and about 200W. You put about 4-15" subs with a couple kilowatts of power in a SUV and you can hit over 150dB easy. It's all cabin gain. Just like if you were to take your HT sub and put it in the closset, seal it off and sit in the closset with it.


Oh, and anyone listening to these levels without earplugs is asking for trouble. Maybe also a heart attack.

Sometimes the bass in cars hit so hard and loud people perform CPR on themselves through their audio system. I heard a story of a high schooler stopping his heart due to extreme SPL's in his car due to the pressure the subs put out. Can't say if it's true or not but I'm sure it is possible.

 

[Miklsan K]

High SPL in a car is fairly easy. Low bass in a car is one thing you get for pretty close to free. Depending on the sanctioning body, the world records for most power classes these days are over 160 dB. There have been some instances where vehicles have hit over 170 dB, but the measuring conventions can be a little suspect. Nonetheless, the real serious SPL vehicles are completely reconstructed to be ultra-rigid and air-tight (1" thick Lexan windshields and interiors re-built with welded steel plate). Several tens-of-thousands of watts is not unusual, and multiples of massive-displacement woofers are a must. The concept is crazy, but it can be kind of interesting and very challenging to push the laws of physics like these guys do! (I say guys, but the world SPL record was held by a woman in her sixties - Alma Gates - for several years.)

 

[Brandon_T]

Why is he a loser? Because he dumps thousands of dollars into his hobby that other people don't get? Sounds like HT to me.

Brandon

 

[Bill Lucas]

The good news is that most of these guys aren't stupid enough to be in their cars when they really crank it up. Levels that high can cause permanent hearing damage in a matter of minutes.

Heart stoppage? An urban legend if I ever heard one.

 

[Brandon_M_S]

well, kickers are fairly good subs, mainly the L7 series. if he's getting low 150s, he has more then 2 subs in their and some serious wattage. it is possible, but he's gonna have a fairly large system in his car. and the other guys are right, cabin gain. get that metal frame a rockin baby.

brandon

 

[John Garcia]

I used to hit in the neighborhood of 130dB also with a dual 10" isobaric that I built, fed by a bridged 150wpc amp @

 

[Chu Gai]

well he's on his way to permanent hearing loss.

 

[John Garcia]

I rarely turned it up that loud, but I agree, permanent hearing loss is a definite possibility with that kind of SPL.

 

[Tim Fennell]

I thought that 140-150dbs was considered lethal

 

[David Sim]

I would hear these guys driving down the street in front of my house over my HT.
It can get pretty irritating at times. Well, it was until I got my SVS, now I can't hear them over my own bass.
I used to get mad at them until my brother-in-law reminded me of the stuff we used to do as kids.
When I was younger if you had a car at all you were cool. (yeah, I said cool)
Now if you have a car that can make pedestrians ears bleed...

 

[ColtonA]

Dont judge, or be judged. Car audio is an awsome hobby, and 150db is the mininum for most spl competitiors today. Hell my buddys IDMAX (SQ Sub) hit 147 in 2.5 cu. sealed. No of course he doesnt listen to it that loud but the headroom there to listen to your music to the point of comfort with minimal distortion is awsome. Its not hard to hit over 150 db with a single sub setup, but in order to hit that 150db is all install dependent. 99% of SPL competitors use ported enclosure tuned extremely high, so yes, they sound like crap for a daily driver. but back to my friends idmax, sealed enclosure SQ sub so it goes to show you that its not hard to hit 150db.

 

[Chris PC]

If you spend more than 5 or 10 minutes at 150 dB or higher, I am pretty near certain you will be deaf in the frequency range of the sound that was being played at 150 dB.

 

[Terry St]

Are they all crazy and anxious to go deaf by 20?? When this young loser is around with his car, all the bottles in my pharmacy are shaking!!

This is probably what you should be the most concerned about: Your son's hearing. I'm sure you've noticed that bass travels through walls, floors, etc. quite well in your home. I would expect that your pharmacy is no different. Your son could be listening to music at safe levels and still be rattling things. Many people just like to overdesign their systems so they can brag about the stats. On the other hand, he may not be listening at safe levels. Ask him if you can take an SPL meter into his car sometime.
In Quebec, workplace hazard regulations stipulate a maximum daily exposure equivalent to an average noise level of 90dB over an 8 hour period. Every 3 dB above this halves the allowable exposure time. Also, exposure above a threshold of 80dB is cumulative. For example, 105dB would be legal for up to 15 minutes assuming the worker is exposed to no other noise above 80dB for the rest of the day. The maximum allowable instantaneous peak is 140dB. This peak can only occur 100 times in a workday regardless of average sound levels. 153 dB would be illegal without hearing protection even if it were just one instantaneous burst in a day.
If it's illegal for someone to pay you to endure a given SPL for a given ammount of time why would you voluntarily spend time and money to do so? Both Home and Car Audio enthusiasts value the pleasure of sound and should also value preserving their ability to enjoy that sound.
Off on a tangent...
Some HT and music fanatics can be a tad insane with regards to the accurate reproduction of sound. Have you ever heard of a system that could accurately reproduce both cannon fire at a range of 2 feet and a cricket chirping off in the bushes? Let's assume that recording equipment, playback equipment, and a recording format with sufficient dynamic range to capture these sounds exists. Let us also assume that you would use the playback system without hearing protection. It would not be pleasent. The cannon would fire, your ears would literally bleed, and you would totally miss the cricket chirping not to mention pretty much all dialogue for the rest of the movie! That's a little too real for me personally.
P.S. If your son goes to rock concerts and likes to hang out in the mosh pit you might want to buy him some disposable earplugs and make sure he leaves the house with a pair in his pocket. You can't force him to wear them but, if he has them handy when the show starts and his skull starts to split, there's a chance that he might put them on. Nobody did this for me but once I tried wearing earplugs I thereafter refused to go without them! It's like beer without the hangover eh!

 

[Levesque]

Wow! Thanks for all those replys! Sorry if I said loser, it's not because of his hobby, but because of personal things I can relate here (it's the amp forum, not the family matters forum...lol).

If I understand well, the "hobby" here is to reach the highest db counts, but for what, 3 seconds ?? more ??

He is doing a kind of "competition" with me, telling me that my home theater is crap because I cannot reach that high db counts!! I think we can't really understand each other here, because we come from 2 different "sound" philosophy. Quality against quantity. I prefer quieter with clean and detailed sound, and for him, a "good" sound is a loud sound. Are they more audiophile then us, then??

 

[Terry St]

I prefer quieter with clean and detailed sound, and for him, a "good" sound is a loud sound. Are they more audiophile then us, then??

That would depend on your definition of audiophile. There are many different definitions but I think most fall into two categories. An audiophile is either one who seeks the most accurate reproduction of the origional sound possible or a reproduction that is the most pleasing to him or herself. Most people fall somewhere in between these two extremes.

In the case of the latter, it's purely personal preference and therefore virtually impossible to say whether one system is better than another. Every flaw a critical observer might see in a given person's system can be dismissed with the wildcard statement: "Well, I like it that way.".

In the former case you can have meaningful competition between systems based on the accuracy of reproduction. The sound of a flute playing at 140 dB, no matter how cleanly reproduced, would not be very accurate. Likewise, the sound of a cannon playing at 110 dB is also not, strictly speaking, an accurate reproduction. Your son's car may very well do better with cannon fire just in terms of volume. However, if your son is driving around and the car has a steady background noise of 40dB he's not going to be able to reproduce a quiet flute passage as well as your home system could. I'd actually be quite impressed if his car were that quiet. My office has a background noise level of about 50dB just from the air conditioning and computers! (This is way too loud for a good music system, IMHO.)

I am not really familiar enough with car audio to say what kind of frequency responce, imaging, and distortion levels can be obtained. However, the noise floor is the real killer for me. I suspect it is possible to make the cabin of a car very quiet, but this would be very difficult and expensive. If you really want to compete with your son you might try building and comparing frequency response curves of his car and your HT. I strongly suspect the average teenagers car system places a bit of emphasis on the bass. A lot of HT gear does that too though.

Anyways, I'm not a psychologist so I won't even pretend I know whether or not such competition is a healthy thing. :p)

 

[Mark gas]

2 kicker l7 15's 500
2 1500 watts rms amps 600
upgrade electrical system 400
cd player 200
Install supplies (Inc MDF) 300
-----------------------------------
Total 2000
SPL 150 legal on dash


Nate Munson hit 168.9 db Legal with 1 10 inch sub and 5000 watts RMS and people in the 1-2 sub extreame class are hitting over 170 db's.

 

[Chris PC]

Yeah. I hate crazy SPL's. I have on older post on here expressing my concern after spending a few minutes in a car with a not so bright individual. The bass was so loud it was unconfortable. I eventually had him turn it down. I cherish my hearing and it would be a shame to lose it. I have experienced mild hearing loss from loud concerts. Man if only I knew. I have a regular supply of ear plugs around and I haven't been to a show (band in a bar) in a while. I use them when I mow the lawn (I have an un-powered push mower now though, but until the blades work in, its annoying sounding).
Anyways, good sound is dynamic and clean. It doesn't have to be terribly loud. At home I try to keep my listening below 85-90 dB at the listening postion. Sometimes I play it louder, but very seldom and never for long. I most often listen to music at 75-80 dB.
Keep your wits about you folks!
YOU NEED YOUR EARS!!!