Every since I bought my bike and used a slip-on that I wasn't very sure about I have been wondering if the pipes were what I wanted. I usually ride with earbud headphones for the tunes. So the volume of my pipes has never been a concern to me as a rider, just as a safety issue since I am wearing hearing impairing devices.

As I was doing some research I found Jamie's article from almost two years ago https://www.hdforums.com/forum/touri...fuel-moto.html

After looking over this information I realized it would be pretty easy to figure out which pipes I need to look for. So I downloaded a dB meter to my trusty iPhone to do some of my own testing. I took readings of my pipes at idle after the ride home from work (30 miles) to make sure it was a warmed up reading. I then red lined the bike to take a reading that way as well since I do not have a tach on my RK. I found out my numbers at idle were the exact same as Jamie's from the stock bike he tested back in the day 78 dB.

Knowing I wanted my next set of pipes to be used for mostly safety reasons I decided to take a ride with the wife on the back to take readings of the dB during a ride with the pipes and when I would pull the clutch to see if there is a difference. What we found was there was absolutely no difference. With or without the engine pulling we got an average reading of 91 dB.

After doing a little Google-ing I found 90 dB is the OSHA limit for an 8 hr day and that is sound at a constant level so the ear does have an ability to adjust. All of us who ride realize the wind buffeting does not stay at a sustained level. Hope this may answer a few questions on if you should wear hearing protection while riding.

Anyway, these readings got me thinking of if my pipes were accomplishing their desired goal of letting people know I'm there. I had the wife follow me home from my parents house (about 10 miles) in our Explorer. She drove next to me a little and drove a little too close to my rear bumper a couple times. What she said when we got to the house is she had to turn the radio completely off, along with the air conditioning to even hear the bike as the RPM's climbed a little going up some small hills. So basically the answer to question of my pipes doing their job, the answer is obviously no.

I'm am hoping to hit Jamie up very soon and order up a set of Jackpots with his competition baffles (100 dB at cruise) or Rineharts (he sells them too by the way). I'm hoping 10 dB increase will be enough for people to hear me when I'm around them and hopefully the little cirtters will take notice as well.

I apologize for this being so long, but I hope it does help some on their search for the sound they are looking for.

So the question still stands, "Why Did you Change Your Pipes?"

 

........ the screamin' eagles w/ billet ends looked waay better than stock

 

07 Sg... I changed mine after the rear Y pipe cracked for the 2nd time. My old shop had a set of V&H duals on the shelf & they went on. Later I put on the V&H MOs, like the sound better & its not near as hot as with the stock pipes.

 

performance.

I use supertrapp tunable pipes, you change the motor- you can retune the pipe to match--- or you change bikes, same thing

These pipes were run for 10 years on my Evo, when I bought the new bike I swapped them over and retuned.

I work with concert audio, nice effort on your experiments.

Most pipe measurements are done at 1 meter from the end of the pipe, 45º off axis.

does your dB meter have a calibration feature- a bunch of the Guys I work with downloaded a $30 app, and they all had wildly different results, we found a calibration menu.

I happen to own an ex-OSHA meter which has a cabibration unit with it, you couple them and the 100dB tone at 1 kHz allows the meter to be calibrated to standard.

You may wanna consider that 100dB is perceived as about 3 times louder than 90dB---

I wear ear buds most of the time touring, long rides, keeps the noise out and the podcasts in, or sometimes I just use them as plugs.

mike

 

'Cause mufflers suck!

 

Looks, sound, awesome roll ons.

 

Our church just recently had a new sound system installed. I took the meter in there and turned the music up to the level the guy did when he set it and got +/- 2 dB difference. Was pretty much the only way I knew to calibrate it and was fairly satisfied.

You mention the ten dB difference will be perceived as 3 times louder. You know this stuff better than I, refering back to Jamie's readings, will the 10 dB's be necessary or would the 4 dB increase from the standard baffles be enough to accomplish my task?

 

I changed mine on my 09 Ultra Classic because the stock pipes sounded SO DAMN WEAK, and looked mediocre. Stouts are sweet, deep, and bark when rolled on. Stereo friendly when cruising. Look awesome too, I almost went with the SE's, afterburner endcaps. But they weren't loud enough.

 

i see a difference ns the method of measurement- I assume when you were riding you were not measuring @ 1 meter, 45º off axis with the mic at the same level as the pipes...

this is the standard and probably what the manufacturer used.

you could try measuring same way.

your 91 dB is probably mostly wind noise, and the orientation and pick up pattern of the mic would make a lot of difference--- how much? dial your answering machine and ride with your phone turning the handset and later listen to what the mic pick up and how it changes.

pipes

how loud? it's subjective---you can't make drivers pay attention--- how many times do douches pull out in front of fire trucks....or drive along with the cop sirens blaring behind them.
and new cars are well insulated for sound these days too.

so my take is don't make it so loud that you can't fire up with out a neighbor thinking ill of you, so loud that you don't attract undue attention, and so loud that your hearing is further pooched.

My pal Ricky always has to ride at the back because his bike is loud and sounds like crap, nobody wants to be behind him.

and as touched on in my original post i use tunable pipes, which can be tuned for performance or for noise, or lack of.

i do have snuf r not endcaps which allow pretty straight thru at the turn of a screw if i want.


to answer you question, a 4 dB change would appear almost twice as loud.

Mike

 

About your hearing comments...ask any certified audiologist whether or not you should wear ear protection while riding and see what they say. Your average reading of 91, regardless of "pulling" or not, was likely the wind noise that is the culprit causing most of the hearing loss and damage bikers suffer. From your profile pic you still look pretty young...so don't risk hearing loss or tinnitus because you fail to wear adequate hearing protection. I have worked in environments where 80 db was considered the absolute maximum before prolonged exposure caused permanent hearing damage. I can't accept that 90 db is "adjustable" to the ear. It's my experience that the ear will certainly adjust, and not in a good way.

And by the way, the "loud pipes save lives" bull crap is just that. Think about it, if that was true, why don't ALL automobiles have loud pipes? That's always been the excuse for the straight pipe guys to keep the general voting public pissed off at all of us.

There are lots of ways to minimize risk while riding a bike. I would encourage you to do a little more research before forming conclusions about hearing and riding "safety" related to pipe sound. That's the end of my safety sam speech.