Re: In search of the Harley sound

 



Sporsters do have a nice-sounding exhaust note.  Even my wife's
carburated '05 Sporty, with an old set of Screamin' Eagle II pipes, is
one of the better-sounding bikes I've heard.  A good, low thrump,
thrump cadence.  The newer Screamin' Eagle pipes don't sound as good,
I think.

 



Me too. I know everyone has their own likes and dislikes about
motorcycles, but for me, regardless of the vehicle car, boat,
motorcycle; in order for me to love it, it's gotta make good tunes.
There is one particular Harley sound I love better than others and
every once in a blue moon some guy will ride by me, usually on a
bagger, and he'll have found that sound. It's a deep low frequency
that doesn't hurt the ears, but seems to come up through the earth,
and it spells p-o-w-e-r. I always attributed it to the right engine
upgrades as much as the right pipes.

I did a Stage 1 to mine last year with pipes and a PCIII and K&N and
used the new Supertrapp pipes that are legal, but HD didn't renew the
contract with them. It still has a great sound that I'm very pleased
with, but it doesn't have that elusive sound that I think is the one
your mentioning.

Weather is a great HD, a 68 Camaro, or  Hemi Mopar, or Porche Carrera
it's gotta have the sounds. I love the sounds of lots of other bikes
too. One of my riding buddies has a V-Twin Suzuki something or-other
"super-bike" and it makes almost esoteric music as it moves along.

It's all about the tunes man, all about the tunes. Some guys like
speed and power, some like chrome, some like riding a razor edge
leaned leaned way over blurring speed, but I am personally addicted to
the tunes.

But that's just me, and there's a lot of dead brain cells, growing up
in the sixties and all, and I know and accept that this is everybit as
much about my learned environmental psychology. Just like cranking up
the volume and going into "teenage wasteland mode" when on the Stones
come on the radio and rev up those first chords of  Brown Sugar, the
first cut on the Sticky Fingers album.

Loud pipes don't save lives, but sometimes when they're tuned just
right and not too loud, they sure do sound wonderful.

 

wrote:


    You're gona love the new all-electric vehicles of the
future :-)  They'll come with sound systems that make you sound like
anything you want, complete with shifting noises ( on these
non-shifting vehicles ) and everything :-)


    Who ?


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.p.jm@see_my_sig_for_address.com wrote:

From what I read about engineers adapting the sound of a given engine to
what customers expect based on an older design, that seems to be going
on already. It'll be easier, because the sound will be blasting out of
loudspeakers anyway, and it won't be half the block that'll have to
listen to what the owner thinks the 'correct' sound is, but just the
owner himself, complete with a volume button, but making a modern engine
sound like a pan- knuckle- or whateverhead is just as fake.

My Kawa sounds like a modern, 8 valve parallel twin, which happens to be
exactly what it is. And I do actually like the faint electric hum my
Prius does when taking off in electric mode. Laying over that noise a
deep Detroit rumble would be ridiculous.

If one wanted that special sound only one specific engine produces - why
not go and buy just that? If it's about listening to the sound without
operating the machinery making it, buy a CD?

cu
  .\arc

 



The point of many of these posts is that all like that certain Harley sound,
but most have no idea which engine/pipe combination produced it.

I too am an ear candy freak. It was one of the reasons that I bought the
Kawasaki VN800 Classic. It sounds great. Has a loping idle and sounds like a
V-Twin Gran Prix machine when being flogged. I would rather have a bike that
sounds good than one that is very fast but sounds awful. That's just me.

Anyone driving a Prius obviously doesn't really care about sound anyway. No
offense intended.

Ed Cregger