Mike Mercury

but for the mfgr; it is not the added weight that's the problem... it's the man-hours needed to install the stuff.

After being brand loyal to Goodyear for 20+ years; I recently swore "never again".

GY now makes some of the worse sports car tires.

JustinStrife

robvuk

Truly good sound isolation is not achieved by just adding sound absorbing materials. Acoustic isolation is achieved by design and very few manufacturers apply or have the acoustic engineers to do the job. If it's done right from the design, it doesn't add that much weight. So I don't know why they don't do it, other than some people think it's cool to have a noisy car. The first thing they do is remove and replace the mufflers with some crap that makes it sound like an old pickup truck and then complain about the "drone".

HarryWild

There a differences between crappy no sound proof sound and nice engine sound like from a Ferrari 590 with tons of sound insulation.

SpryGeezer

Smooth asphalt would do it.

~Stingray

How can noise canceling speakers really help? The noise has to be in the cabin for the speakers to pick it up. So by that time, how has it canceled anything?

robvuk

It duplicates the sound in the cabin and amplifies it out of the speakers 180 degrees out of phase. The problem is that the noise sounds different at any given location in the cabin and has to be sampled at or VERY near where your head is in order to be effective. So it is unlikely to be effective for both passengers.

PCMusicGuy

The C6 is definitely noisy. I have a hatch partition, block it mats, and new tires and there is just no getting around that fact. I have an insulation kit in the closet I just haven't installed it yet. I don't think there is anything that can be done because a lot of noise comes in through the glass.

goatts

Speaking of butts, as usual you're talking out of yours. You have no data to prove your point except you're opinion. And you know what they say about opinions.

Read the article I posted for some actual data.

goatts

I'm not brand loyal. Why would you be brand loyal unless you worked for GY? I'm running Bridgestones. But GY's perform well and are not any noisier than other tires but they're expensive and wear out quickly.

Rapid Fred

And the article showed that, pretty much like all the other posters were saying:
(1) Run-flats are noisier than non-run-flats
(2) GY's are on average the loudest of the bunch
(3) Michelins are pretty much the quietest of the bunch

So, your point was?

goatts

I guess you flunked reading comprehension. Here I will help you by posting an excerpt:

Putting things into a perspective that's easier to relate to, consider this: the total difference between the quietest tire tested at 35 mph (68dB-the Michelin Pilot Sport PS2 non-run-flat) and the loudest tire tested at 70 mph (a 79dB tie between the Goodyear Eagle F1 GS EMT and the Kumho Ecsta MX XRP which are both run-flats) was only 11 decibels-or roughly the sound level of normal human breathing.

So my point was there is no perceptible difference. Any difference is in your imagination.

Rapid Fred

I flunked NOTHING there, genius. There's a lot of other noises going on in a car, and 10 dB is very noticeable and hugely material. The article itself pointed out, as I recall, that some droning tended to dominate the test at certain speeds.

Here's the thing. You have a bunch of people with real personal experience pointing out Michelins are quiet and GYs noisy. Then, a test proves it, and you still are in denial. Truth is, unless you are deaf, 10dB louder is BY DEFINITION 2X as noisy http://trace.wisc.edu/docs/2004-About-dB/.

For the busy, here's a quote from the article: "Interestingly, our perception of loudness is not the same as sound pressure level. Although the actual formula is somewhat complex, as a rough rule of thumb, an increase of 10db SPL is perceived to be approximately twice as loud."

Sorry you are so clueless about how the decibel scale works...

ncvette_1FUNRIDE

You can spend a few hundred dollars on materials and a few days installing everything, and get a much quieter and more solid feeling car. I did, and I LOVE it.

You just have to take everything (carpet, seats, and door panels) out of the car and add several different layers of sound deadening materials.

goatts

No, here's the thing. A bunch of people are comparing brand new tires to old worn out tires they just swapped out.

The very idea of buying a high perf sports car and then bitching about tire noise or just noise in general is absurd.

Jinx

But dB is not a linear scale. Adding human breathing to 68dB does not produce 79dB of noise. Most of us perceive a 10dB difference as "twice as loud."

What is interesting about the test: at 70mph, all the runflats were within 1dB of each other, and all the non-runflats were within 1dB of each other (except that M+S tire), and the two groups were within 1dB of each other overall. This suggests that the tire make+model choice isn't the most significant noise problem in the test car. It might make more difference in a quieter car, but let's start by getting a quieter car before ranting about tires.

Anyone saying Michelins are quieter than Goodyears, without something to back it up, at least a direct new-to-new comparison, I discount your opinion.

.Jinx

Mike Mercury

I've been employed in sound reproduction (in one form or another) for 30 years. Despite all the test equipment and computer audio modelling... the last determination is always made with ones ear.

JustinStrife

You are full of crap. Assuming that none of us even know the difference between new and used tires. Runflats and non-runflats. I have had standard c5 gy tires, supercars, kumho's, michelin pilot sports, michelin ps2's, nitto nt05's, nitto 555r2's, and mickey thompson et streets on my three c5's.

All of them, even the drag radial et streets, were quieter than both good years. What different tires have you run? What is your world experience? How about talking to guys in the general sections who have bought their cars new, and swapped to competing tires immedietely and noticing the difference?

robvuk

Jinx has it correct. 10db is perceived as twice as loud. Although I find it difficult to believe that comparable tires could be that much different. 1 db is barely perceptible. It also depends on whether the noise goes from 50db to 60db or 90fb to 100db. If the source noise from tires is 50 or even 60db, then the wind and drivetrain would likely make it a non issue. 90 to 100db, is most likely a problem even added to wind and drivetrain.

So yes, you must start with a quiet drivetrain and low wind noise to even worry about tires.

Rapid Fred

There is a direct comparison, Jinx. Check out those charts again. At several speeds besides 70 MPH, the Ms are 2-3 dB quieter than the GYs. I bet that's something like 10% to 20% quieter (maybe someone who can interpolate log scales can tell us exactly how much). Wouldn't you agree that would be quite noticeable -- probably like a few clicks on your TV volume control? Plus, if the ONLY variable is the tire, and tire noise is (at least to me) more annoying than anything save squeaks and rattles, then 20% louder, all due to tire noise, would be huge!

Now, we need an accoustics engineer with an expertise in automobiles to explain why the differences vary by speed, but probably some resonance or counteracting frequency issue, I would guess.

Always dangerous to discount experience, Jinx...