It is no secret that prolonged exposure to loud sound is highly damaging to our hearing. Listening to loud music is one of the common factors leading to degraded hearing ability and tinnitus, and is deeply unhealthy.
At the same time, such level of noise negatively impacts the quality of sound perception, which degrades the musical side of the musical performance.
In what seems to be the echoes of the so-called âloudness warâ, bands still stick to the idea that âthe louder you blast it - the betterâ. But itâs not true. There are many other ways to energize the crowd without causing them sound damage, and Iâd love to see more of those, instead of them trying to be the loudest ever.
Iâm less than 300m away from a highway at this very moment and can barely hear it. Itâs sound is covered by people talking in the office. 1km inside a city is a lot. Cars are barely audible from 30m away. This is not a problem with my hearing. I often cycle on the road thatâs next to the highway, the only sound barrier being trees, and I can hear the woosh woosh sound of car tires but not their engines. Unlike bikes.
Bike and car engine sounds are easy to tell apart. Loud cars are usually VW Golfs or BMWs used by assholes, and they are somewhat rare and quieter than any random bike.
Here in France, the noise limit for bikes is higher than that for cars, and Harley Davidson have a special exemption to be allowed to go up to 97dB. Bikers always insist that their bike is silent, yet on neutral without acceleration, they are consistently louder than cars accelerating.
Youâre showing signs of profound hearing loss in the mid and high ranges. You really should get your ears checked. For real. This is outside the complaint youâre making.
What youâre not hearing, are the thousands of 250 -500cc learner bikes. Those yamaha FZ6âs, Honda Transalps, ST1300s, BMW GSâs, K and R series, even the wild high end sportbikes are quite quiet at mild power levels.
My personal bikes? all have stock exhausts. Theyâre less noisy than my idling Jeep Cherokee, and it too, is dead stock. (though it is a very loud machine at idle) âIâ am not the problem.
LMAO you think 125cc bikes are quiet? Youâre showing signs of profound hearing loss in the everything range.
Bikes. Are. Much. Louder. Than. Cars. This is a measurable fact. There is a reason the legal limit for cars is 62dB, and that for bikes is 97.
I am not the problem
Says every biker, as they wake the whole neighborhood at 6am to let their engine heat up for a few minutes, as bikes not only are loud, they are also extremely unreliable and need careful attention to function properly. Truly a useless vehicle. Prefer bicycles for short distances and trains for longer trips.
