Factory Sport Exhaust (VIDEOS INSIDE)

Question, with the sport exhaust can it be quite as well with the top up? I ask, because I sadly get headaches a lot, some days I just want to drive and things be quite.

 

Adam, thank you for making and posting your video. The sound quality is actually quite good, except for the last 15-20 seconds when it seems to have dropped out. I haven't tried it yet myself but the apparently best way to kill the wind noise is to use an external microphone with a "deadcat" (the furry mic cover).

I think the low-distortion wide camera perspective you achieved is excellent, much better than all the in-car YouTube videos that I have seen.

Regarding noise, sport mufflers will amplify the resonance frequency of the exhaust system. Any object that vibrates has a resonance frequency where it will vibrate at maximum amplitude (loudest). Frequency and amplitude of vibration of an exhaust is determined by engine RPM and the velocity of the exhaust gas. The factory will try to tune the exhaust system to place the resonance at a frequency that is the least objectionable and the easiest to avoid. ALL CARS have it but sports cars will have the loudest resonance because their exhaust systems are the least restricted (least muffled) so vibration amplitudes are much higher, allowing for louder noises, most of it "good".

So if you want a loud sports car, you will have noise. To reduce the noise, you have to reduce the velocity of the exhaust gas; hence the valve control that Adam mentioned. However, it will still be louder than the standard car exhaust for the simple reason that the sport exhaust is designed to be less muffled than the standard muffler. There is no "free lunch" so there is no point in looking for it - it's a sports car. The trick is to drive the car in manual mode and select the correct gear to achieve the engine load you prefer... and enjoy it. At higher load it will sound and feel more poised but quieter, then you have the noisier resonant frequency spot you want to avoid, below that is a very relaxed and quiet engine load which is OK only so long as the road is flat, or downhill, the traffic and road conditions "tame".

 

How did you mount the camera in that first video?


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Thanks for making the new video. The new audio is a lot more free of wind noise and it would be interesting to hear the results when you finish with all your tweaks.

However to be honest, I've yet to hear any onboard audio that accurately records the sounds I hear as the driver. In fact, the road side audio recordings tend to sound a lot closer to what I hear from the driver's seat. I'm not sure why but onboard recordings always seem to sound boomy and lose a lot of the high frequency wail as well as the idiosyncratic mechanical clatter that is typical of Ferrari engines/transmissions.

If you watch Ferrari videos, the ones with interior audio tend to sound very different from the ones with exterior audio, from the same cars. I always find interior audio disappointingly different from what I hear in real life because the audio always come across boomy with the high frequencies rounded and chopped off, sound nasal and stuffy; whereas in real life the noise is "open" with increasing volume as the frequency increases. You can sorta tell Ferrari does not like to record interior audio... because it simply doesn't capture the sounds accurately.

I made some top engine speed passes in my car before I added the sport cats and the sound was incredible like EEEEEEEEEYEOWWWWW! just as I passed the other vehicle. I think you would only be able to record that outside the car. I think what I heard was partially what was bounced off the other car and the road side and not directly from inside the car, whereas interior car noise is "not bouncing off anything", always recorded at the same distance from the mic.

I think there are limitations to interior audio that is seem insurmountable from a practical standpoint. However, your audios do convey at least more authentic sounding urgency from the engine than most audios I have heard of the Cali. It might be interesting to hear what a directional mic pointed at the side of the road from the driver's position would capture.