Not all noise is the same
06/01/2021
There has been a lot of talk about "posers" for weeks and months now, and modern cars that can cause enormous noise levels despite being legally equipped are causing offense. Now, from a classic car perspective, it has to be said that not all cars of the past were quiet either. However, the background noise produced by intake, combustion and exhaust was originally not an end in itself, but simply a consequence of the mechanics set in motion and the more or less neglected damping efforts/capabilities.
Recently, however, I was standing on a road when an Austin-Healey 100 drove past, with the typical muffled four-cylinder hum and producing quite a few decibels. To my ears this was not disturbing, on the contrary: what an attractive sound!
A short time later, a modern Audi RS3 drove past, performing a gearshift maneuver close to me, causing artificially generated misfiring and blatant noise peaks. You can hear something similar on this sound sample:
This was followed by an Austin-Healey with a six-cylinder engine that sounds something like this:
The sound of an internal combustion engine does not have to be perceived as noise, even local residents are unlikely to be bothered by an Austin-Healey driving past, while the loud expressions of modern tuning excesses that are displayed and only serve to attract attention are met with much less approval.
It's not for nothing that people compare the Busso engine of the Alfa Romeo GTV6 with a Stradivarius ...
