The sequel - LASERS: th-cam.com/video/ZH3yMeA7HxQ/w-d-xo.html We measured at 2m (not 1m) because thats what the horn specs sheets say! The bomb correction should say 10,000X the Nagasaki FatMan explosion. Bonkers. Also the % greater than Hella can be simplified and corrected as (from top to bottom): 1.15X, 1.19X, 1.72X, 2.29X, 2.57X & 1.46X
I've had good results with two different horns on my cars. Both made by Stebel, one is an air horn called nautilus and one is a twin electromagnetic pair called Magnum. Both claim high noise the nautilus 127db and the Magnum pair claims 115db. To my ears they are a similar noise level but the nautilus is a high tone air horn type like a stadium horn and the Magnum is a more aggressive "GET OUT THE WAY" type.
@Eric Duckman You know you can just buy some reputable Chinese cells from reputable sites like 18650batterystore, instead of off eBay right? And besides, Project Farm already tested this. Or are you trying to say they should test how close the actual capacities are to the advertised ones of the reputable 18650s?
I love that we got a history and geology lesson for a joke. We even got math and science lessons in this video. I appreciate the effort and dedication for a bunch of cheap Amazon horns.
The biggest joke was the fact that someone trying to explain something scientific, could not even get the basic math right. 200 Mt is not 20 Kt x 100. 200 Mt is 20 Kt x 10000.
Glad someone finally said this. I've been leaving the following reviews on several Amazon horns: 109db - chainsaw operation 130db - painful to most humans 150db - can break human eardrums 172db - Krakatoa explosion at 100 miles away 175db - one ton of TNT at 250ft 194db - limit of what we can scientifically call "sound" before it just becomes a pressure wave. ... 300db - these horns apparently
I noticed this same thing on wish a couple years ago. Something like 7-8000 decibel horn for your truck. I did a lot of research and concluded that obliteration of every atom in the universe would only cost about $30(S&H not included) 😂 Glad someone turned this into a video, you killed it
I can only imagine what your neighbors thought when all of them went off at once. Sounded like a comically large crash involving several jingle trucks lol.
An interesting test for sure, but as their tones are not always constructive, interference will usually act to reduce their amplitude. If he had hooked multiple of the same horn up and tested that, there would have been a much greater chance to increase the amplitude. As this is the Torque Test Channel and not a The Who concert, I didn’t anticipate that kind of test. Was still happy to witness it (via VOD), and also happy I was not present even at distance in the industrial park they were testing it in.
This was UNREASONABLY funny and entertaining for what it was. My wife is not a technical person, would have never clicked on this video, and was dying of laughter just overhearing the video. Well done. 10/10
I just love the one time in Teen Titans comics when Cyborg used a million decibells of white noise at the enemy. That is like 10^100000 universes of energy lmao.
Great video! Kinda bummed that none of these horns ended all life on earth, reversed time, and opened a wormhole to an alternate reality, but it was fun all the same.
But I guess the major philosophical question your statement creates is this: if one of these horns had ended all life on earth, how would anyone or anything know if time was reversed or not? 🙂
I will say the little remote pumps for these horns are a huge limiting factor. I had one I was playing around with and hooked it to 130psi shop air. I was not ready
Thank you for mentioning that decibels are logarithmic, seeing the numbers claimed made me laugh. Seriously, those things would probably create a pressure wave big enough to destroy the planet at the advertised volumes
600 dB is probably the sound of the entire Earth exploding, whatever "sound" means in that particular scenario. EDIT: More like galactic explosion, thanks to those who did the math.
Ok, let me see: If we use a speaker rated at an amazing 100 dB at 1W/1m , to get 600 dB SPL, we'll need... wait... 100 + 10*log10(x) = 600? Solve for x... 10^50 watts!! Our sun only releases on the order of 10^26 watts. Even better, the energy contained in a supernova is "only" 10^44 joules! Consuming an entire supernova couldn't power those speakers for more than a microsecond.
There's two decibel scales! Your calculator at 4:13 uses a scale of 20 decibels = 10x, and your calculator at 5:36 uses a scale of 10 decibels = 10x -- this is why the second calculator shows about half as much increase as the actual measured amount. (109 is right between 106 and 112!) Your device definitinely measures on a 20db scale according to its results.
I'm pretty sure it's based on energy/pressure waves over distance rather than how loud we actually perceive it, which is why there's no simple "is it loud" scale. We all perceive sound differently.
Fun fact, the largest supernovas are estimated to be about 450 decibels. I have a feeling something at 600 decibels would be so much energy density that it would likely create a black hole.
Yes, if these things were actually 600db. They'd pretty much be super weapons, and would kill the owner and probably take out an entire city, and probably the world. 1100db would probably cause a black hole. Thankfully Amazon doesn't sell super weapons for under 100 dollars, that can cause shock waves that would destroy cities in an instance.
I love that based on the seller's descriptions you're actually testing doomsday weapons. "According to the seller this should wipe out my entire city for 28 dollars, let's test it out."
Your rating system, content ideas and humour are honestly second to none. You, AvE and Project Farm are keeping us do it yourself guys goin. Please don't ever stop. 💯👍
You should have ran compressed air through the horns and ramped it up incrementally with a regulator until they blew. Just to see what the max capable loudness was.
@Gol Acheron Start at around 15psi, Keep going until around 150psi(that's about the limit of most common compressors. But I've s feeling the horns will probably give out at around half that.
@@atourdeforce we ran shop air through some cheap air horns where I used to work. About 120psi. Don't know about long term use, but none broke from us just fucking around with them
As the foremost expert in Birdlaw, I can tell you that you have a case. And once Vovov accepted your $22 they are legally and contractually obligated to provide you with a horn capable of destroying the earth. That obligation doesn't end with Vovov either; If they do not have the resources then the entirety of China also has no other option but to fulfill the legal obligations of Vovov, under international Bird law. Trust me, I know this, as I studied under the Big Bird himself.
fun fact: emergency vehicle sirens has a range of 110-129 db, 120 db will cause permanent hearing loss at 2 meters if exposed for more then 30-45 seconds and temporary damage if exposed for around 5-30 seconds, this is why emergency vehicles turn off their sirens if they get stuck in traffic and when they pass through tunnels, if they did not they would cause thousands of cases of temporary and permanent hearing damage.
That prologue of describing the largest recorded volcanic explosion and then the "it was 300 dcb, this horn is rated for 600, god help us all" LMAO , i fuggen lost it.
Something important about traditional automotive “horns” (not the air horns) is that they need to be rigidly mounted to something in order to get their best noise. That’s why some of these sounded so weak. Just sitting them loose on a surface means they lose some of their power. Regarding the stupid/not based on reality ratings on Amazon, these no-name companies are capitalizing on the ignorance (i.e. stupidity) of the average person and the general mentality of “more is better.” It doesn’t have to be based on reality, as long as it is more “rating” than the competition (and unbelievably cheap), people will buy it.
Regarding mounting, the infamous "beep-beep" Roadrunner car horn from the late 60s and 70s achieved it's unique sound partially through the mounting bracket design. Unmounted they have an entirely different sound
I don't think it's "stupid" of anyone to think that 300db is 150db x2. It really is just ignorance of the scale that is counter-intuitive to all other everyday units of measurement. It's the same with batteries. Consumers are expected to weed through a legitimate shopping website filled with illegitimate entries, and people of average knowledge/patience/trustfulness can't be expected to always know that there aren't really 6,000mAH 18650 batteries for consumer use. It's straight up scamming people who haven't been given the tools to know better, especially because any research on the subject on a google search is flooded with "TOP 10 18650 BATTERIES" with affiliated amazon links.
@@whompronnie just use a better ad blocker. A new product from the arrested development Corp DBA Faceblock prevents 210% of all identity theft. And I expect competitors to emerge soon with ad blockers that remove 300%. Eventually removal rates of 10s of thousands may be possible. The only limit is our imagination since these are not real numbers anyway. Eg "New gluten free recipe! We removed 200% of the gluten. (Means our product has negative gluten so you have eat gluten from somewhere else to get to zero)"
I love the whole one minute and thirty-five second explanation of the loudest recorded sound known to man, then the five second chat of the cheap amazon horn claiming to be twice that and you going "God help us all" XD Love the video and the testing. Thanks!
Not twice as loud, actually; the decibel scale is logarithmic. 600 db is 1*10^29 times louder. So multiply the volume of the eruption shockwave, by the number of people on the earth, and then by the number of stars in the entire universe, and you'll be pretty close to how many times louder 600db is than 310db.
@@2005cms You have one billion, 1,000,000,000, and then imagine you have a trillion, 1,000,000,000,000, of each of those billions. That's "a trillion billions." Good luck imagining that 🤣 quite literally universe ending. Maybe there's some ridiculous calculator on the internet that can illustrate it for you, but it'd probably be reported as spam if someone showed you in a TH-cam comment from the sheer amount of zeroes
A good reason why you wouldn't get as much sound as you think you would running all those horns at once is that the mix of all those frequencies would generate random standing waves that would effectively mute or "cancel out" some of the sound.
My wife asked “something amusing?”, as I was laughing in bed. She had previously glanced over and assumed I was watching a boring documentary on Krakatoa. “Check out this set up!” I replied with tears in my eyes. Great stuff.
@@tjf9948 fortunately it's rather easy to rent very large trailer mounted air compressors designed to be used by large construction crews running multiple high airflow tools, to that equipment blasting three or four very large air horns continuously would be a walk in the park.
I think there may be something wrong with the Vovov unit you got. I installed one in my car and on the first honk it leveled the tri-state area. 10/10, would recommend.
Time stamps for the various horns actually blowing, in case you want to *compare tones* quickly: 3:42 Hella 5:07 and 5:20 ZBrand (second lowest price; medium, dual tones ) 7:15 TWOM 8:34 Viking Horns 9:50 Yaetek (lowest price; low-ish pitch, single tone) 10:46 Mega Blast 12:22 Vovov (third lowest price; high pitch, almost squeaky upper tone) 12:48 for the final comparison chart I would be very interested in hearing pairs of these horns, particularly the Yaetek single and the ZBrand twin blowing at the same time. How do the loudness factors combine for 3 tones at once? Love this video. @Torque Test Channel
You could really expand your content if you wanted, testing historical claims against modern standards. At any rate, delivery of information was entertaining as always.
Didn’t mean to change the format of TTC, we’re all here because we enjoy the channel. But the rhythm of his narrating shouldn’t be overlooked. He’s a natural lol
I do appreciate how you (TTC) use the things you demonstrate as a jumping-off point to teach about other things like a bit of history or basic metallurgy.
Fun fact, they estimated the pressure output from 2 black holes colliding several billion lightyears away was around 1100db. Which is enough pressure that it shook the fabric of reality it's self. That's how it was recorded.
I commend you on your bravery for the risk that you took testing these horns. If their advertising was indeed genuine, we would all be extinct right now, but that didn't stop you from testing them anyway. Respect
@@Corrodias I just got a pickup and someone about hit me in traffic. They were completely not phased by it and I learned the horn is less alarming than the one on my focus
Admittedly we were a bit out of our depth to know which were the "legit" ones, but for the most part we avoided the "needing you own air tank and compressor" bunch of horns as that category seemed to pray on the ignorant consumer less than this type. If you have an air tank already you're probably not buying $20 600dB horns we felt :P
@@FOXCRF450RIDER I've always felt like those are just antisocial. They're so incredibly loud that nearby pedestrians can suffer permanent hearing damage in a matter of seconds. For me that was part of the reason why I upgraded my moped horn from a 96dB single to twin 117dB horns. The sound is more directional and they're on the egde of being so loud it hurts your ears. Sadly with most school going teenagers on their bicycles wearing earpods these days, 96dB just doesn't cut it any more. You need to be louder than that or they just straight up won't hear you. Also the 117dB horns were the loudest I could find that worked on 12V AC and had an E-number. I wouldn't want some overzealous cop to suspend my registration because of a horn.
@@TorqueTestChannel I have some old foundry cast air train/truck horns that were cast and made in Los Angeles the foundry doesn’t exist anymore so there pretty cool be happy to send them to you guys to test against the rest of them.
OMG thanks so much for this! I bought and hooked up that Vovov a few weeks ago but had been afraid to use it incase the pressure wave vaporised the planet, extinguished the Sun, perhaps even sent the Milky Way cartwheeling into Andromeda. Turns out it's just a slightly grating parp. You've put my mind at rest. 🤗
I'd have liked to see a Cadillac 4-note horn set tested, since those are by far the loudest (and best sounding) OEM horns I know of. I've pulled a few sets off junkyard cars to put on mine.
Heck yeah! Those 4 note GM horns are classic and legendary! (Especially if you grew up in the 60's and 70's!) One of my favorite GM commercials is the one where they take a Tahoe with the same horn, and put it on a revolving platter to become the "new" lighthouse! It totally works and trips you out because they slowly zoom in from a very far and wide angle perspective on a dark foggy scene. You just hear the fog horn and see light sweep by. It's not until they get close enough you realize it's a Tahoe rotating on top of the light house with it's high beams on sounding the horn. I'm sure it's not real, but it still messes with your brain. It was probably just marketed to select regions like mine (New England), perhaps the Great Lakes and the Pacific NW. No one else would get the reference or have that lighthouse sound embedded into memory like we do growing up with it! LOL
Funnily enough, this isn't false advertising. They don't actually claim it's 600 dB, it says 600DB, which could be their model name. Misleading but not outright false advertising. And yes, this is why lawyers go to hell.
I'd like to see LED Spots and bars next, another one of those things you can never tell how good they really are unless you have the test equipment. Keep up the great content!
IIRC the default distance for sound measurement is 1m Edit: And don't forget - an increase in 3dB does *not* make it double as load. Yes, the effect needed to increase 3dB is 100%, but for sound to be audiable double the strength, you'll need to increase it by 10dB. Interestingly, 3dB is also the limit to which the average person can register a difference (lower or higher). People working with music and similar, can often differ between lower changes than 3dB, but those are mostly exceptons.
You will probably find the Hella horn will increase a couple db once it is bolted to a sufficient part of the vehicle & the tone will usually change also. Should have got a truck horn & used a air compressor to see how much louder it is or even with the cheap car horns they usually get a lot louder.
Hey, just wanted to let you know that the reason the dual horn and all the horns combined ended up being louder than expected is because that calculator you used to add up the volumes is wrong. It uses the 10dB=10x convention instead of the usual 20dB=10x convention. You can tell this is the case because, as you said in the video, an increase of 6dB means twice as loud, so two 106dB horns should sum up to 112dB, just as you measured, and not 109dB. All the other calculators and calculations you used throughout the video seems to be spot on though. Great video!
A lot of the trumpets themselves have a diaphragm which'll start to rust and cause air leakage, reducing the volume of the horn. I thought my (long gone) airhorns had an issue with the pump, because it'd just whirr away when energised, so after getting an identical set, I replaced the pump. Same dealy! Swapped back everything, so new trumpets with old pump, loud as I got the originals on day 1. Best I could do to prolong them is to drip oil into the hole where the hose goes, and onto the diaphragm through the sound opening. Then give 'em a few blasts to let the oil squish around and get into the contact area between diaphragm and trumpet. The pumps also wear around the seals, so cleaning the innards and reoiling should be general maintenance on those beasties, too, even though no one ever brings it up.
They rely on people not knowing and understanding log scale measurements. I am a retired test engineer and I have no complaints with your test method. I was in the market for a good horn and the aftermarket claims for dB just left me to keep my stock horns as I knew they were BS. I guess I will eventually get a Kahlenberg KM 165 ship horn with a REAL 143 dB. At 34x18x18 in. it should fit in the back of my RAM Express.
Oh boy, not only do I get blinded by SUV headlights on low beams by driving a sedan but if this catches on, I can be deafened as well. I wonder what new pleasures await on the road.
@@FOXCRF450RIDER For sure, but I now think it's SUVs and pickups which are so high that the darn low beam is in your eyes when you drive a normal car. It's horrible and it's dangerous.
I have to say that the first 2 and a half minutes of this video have to be the best video introduction I've ever seen on this platform. Hats off to you
Thanks. I'm shopping for a horn to replace the anemic OEM horn on my car, and you saved me from doing the same test you did. As I recall Hella made a 3-trumpet air horn decades ago that was obnoxiously loud.
A pair of OEM style trumpet horns will probably be just fine, they're plenty loud to be heard above most things. Whatever you do, don't remove your stock horn because if you ever get pulled over for it if you're in the US it could land you with an expensive ticket
@@Channel-gz9hm "Non working horn" is different from "illegally installed air horn." One will get you a fix it ticket, the other is more likely to get you permanent citation. Non working equipment is one thing, and you're right, it would just be a small fee if you didn't get it fixed. But non-working and "modified in a way that violates the regulations pertaining to motor vehicle equipment" are two different things.
@@Channel-gz9hm Almost every state, save for Maine, South Carolina, and Vermont have laws stating some variation of "no horn may emit excessive noise," which is indeed a somewhat vague law, but some states more specifically target air powered horns, sirens, whistles, etc. Some states also have a law that states that air powered horns are legal as a _secondary_ warning system (i.e. not hooked up to the horn button on your steering wheel) IF the vehicle is equipped with air brakes and the horn is plumbed in to only pull pressure from the air brake tank. There are no states to my knowledge that explicitly state that air horns may be hooked up as a primary warning system, meaning they are hooked up to your steering wheel and replace the stock horn
@@richardmillhousenixon General rule of thumb is no louder than 100-110 dB. Personally, while the stock OEM electric horns on my truck are plenty loud for me, I've kinda wanted something a bit more like whatever the sound crew did for the War Rig from the last Mad Max movie...
In the motorcycle world, the Denali Soundbomb series is really popular, if you do another one of these tests I'd recommend including either their original or split. I've got their split and it is VERY loud compared to a standard motorcycle horn
at 600dB it wouldn't just move someone out of the way with the shockwave. It would release about 1x10^48 Joules of energy. To say that's a lot of energy would be a significant understatement. It would literally vapourise the solar system into a rapidly expanding plasma (everything, the sun would be blown away by the energy release like you blow flour off a kitchen countertop), it's entirely like a few neighbouring systems would go that way too. Your "horn", over time, would be easily detectable across the entire visible universe with current technology. Of course in actuality putting that much energy into such a small item would like mean that it would collapse into a medium sized black hole. Regardless, someone being in your way wouldn't be biggest problem anymore 😂.
Always remember kids, decibels are logarithmic, meaning a +6 increase in decibels is twice as loud, +20 is 10x, so a 600 decibel horn would be about 10^25 or about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 louder than a 100 decibel concert
The two dual horns likely exhibit what is called constructive interferance, which means their sound waves merge together and make a larger one, making it louder than just the sum of the two horns, or at least my guess
I think constructive interferance can only cause twice the original waveform at max because when waveforms exactly match in amplitude and inverted phase, you get the maximum and that's only double the original. If the summed waveforms have different frequencies, the resulting oscillation in the sound may be something that the dB meter reacts to but I'm not sure why. The video didn't mention if the meter used A, B, C or Z weighting. I think the dB calculator on the computer probably matches only the Z weighted meter (which is the only one that actually meters the energy in sound, other more or less try to measure human hearing instead).
i suspect theanufacturer might have made the 2 horns have different pitches on purpose, as having 2 horns with matching pitches would potentially risk destructive interference if for some random reason, one horn starts off with inverted phase.
@@kirkhamandy Yes, if the soundwaves interfere destructively that would result in silence. However, executing this in practice with two sound sources in two different physical locations (e.g. 5 cm away from each other) causes the silence to project "between" the sound sources and lobes of sound diagonal from the projected silence will see constructive interference and double energy (imagine waves in water from two separate objects but in 3D in air).
@@kirkhamandy Yeah, I figured it out from "Schrödinger's Horn" part but the destructive interference was still a good point which is why I added a real comment about it.
Usually I get irritated when people try to explain decibels as a pressure wave and perceived intensity, but you did a great job. You definitely understand your math.
@@sperzieb00n You are correct. His math may be wrong, but the understanding is mostly accurate. I've seen so many other youtubers claim "A 3dB increase is twice as loud" which falsely confuses electrical waveform power with pressure wave perceived loudness.
I need to start making horns and put up a graph against actual explosions to truly scare people in my marketing materials. "Buy our $18 horn and literally blast the cars around you off the planet"!
I bought some expensive air horns (a set of 3) awhile back and installed them on my truck. They were rated at 140 dB at 120 PSI and they were loud! If you were standing next to my truck even a short blast would cause you to cover your ears and you could actually feel the concrete vibrate! So you can buy very loud air horns but they cost more than $25 and in my case I had to supply my own compressed air.
It would be interesting to see a spectrograph of the horns’ tones to see what the different pitches and overtones are and why they might have a different timbre.
I went through the waters by Krakatoa While sailing aboard the USS Enterprise CVN 65 and it was one of the most Eerie places I've ever seen in my life.
I should note that people heard the blast from much farther away than Perth. It was heard in New York and the British isles. Oh, and IIRC it could be heard 7 times across the globe, not 3.
Heh, reminds me of working in a powersports dealership. Customer wants a 10,000 lb winch. "Sir, your vehicle only weight 500 pounds." Nope, I gotta have the power to snap my frame in half or I'm not happy lol.
You should have also bought a train horn from horn blasters. I have a actual train horn in my '21 Elantra N-line. It's insanely loud. Conductors special 844 with the 6 horn upgrade
@@daymianhayes2493 hornblasters, "The Nathan Airchime K-series horns will be the LOUDEST option on the market. These are actual locomotive horns that come off of retired locomotives that produce 149.4 decibels."
A big problem with Amazon is sellers can suggest changes to an items listing. And other sellers will suggest changes that are completely wrong every time.
That was fun !! I have a Toyota Tacoma, and the horn is embarrassing, so I'm going to the junk yard and get a dual horn set off of a Cadillac. I had a 49 Cadillac Fastback, 6 volt dc. I restored it and upgraded the electrical system to 12 vdc. That single horn on 12vdc. Was so loud it ring my ears every time I tooted it, not only was it extremely loud, it also fried every horn relay I bought. Finally I bought a 12vdc. Ford starter solenoid, and wired it up, then it worked GREAT, I measured the current draw on 12vdc. It was almost 80 amps.!! It really was extremely loud !! Louder than a real truck airhorn.
5:35, that calculator assumes sharing same power. 2 horns getting individual power should get +6dB, and they did. Same for speakers. Daisy chain 2 speakers and you get +3dB, give them each power and you get +6dB.
A new record for dishonest advertising. Guess we should be glad, since we didn't have global destruction from your testing and you guys weren't deafened or worse. Nice job on the Krakatoa reference.
I've got a pair of the Hella horns on my van (one of the factory ones died), and as a pair they are plenty loud to do the job, and are well built. Plus they come with a sticker for the back window!
i dont know if i enjoy the naration more than the content, but keep em coming. Im informed and educated also my curiosity that I didnt know i had, satisfied.!
@@dukeofthedance8062 honestly, have been buying aftermarket horns for years and alway thought they were literally scamming us lol... what i did a few years ago was to go to a Junk/scrap yard and scrap the horns off Mercades/VW cars as those horns are pretty loud and I have been satisfied so far.
Never figured if they mean dBSPL, dBu, dBv, dBVU, dBFS, dBw... either way...if the horn doesn't rip you apart, it's not that good. Best way to clear traffic is to liquefy everyone in the cars in front of you
I had a car once that the horn would only work if the am radio was on. I could make the horn louder or quieter by increasing or decreasing the volume on the radio. However, even at full volume it was as loud as maybe a horn made for infants! It always made pedestrians laugh so I would do it at red lights especially if people were looking miserable. I miss that car. It was always an adventure going from point a to point b because it always felt like it would break down at any moment.
Interesting math on the decibels, I was wondering where you were going with the volcano bit. Makes me also wonder how many decibels my conductors special kit from Hornblasters has. May not be the loudest, but that frequency! Probably why they call em the shocker horns. When you hooked all the horns together it had a similar note though, and still at a cheaper price tag. More horn tests in the future?
That last one sounded exactly like the lightning warning at an old camp ground with a water feature nearby, but just pitched up by ~12%. That one had a lower frequency, but still is LOUD, and could be heard clearly for about 5 miles or so. It's Florida, during summer. We get a lot of storms. You wouldn't want to be near the building that had this thing, as I'd guess it's probably in the neighborhood of ~120 dB. 10 seconds continuous indicates that a lightning strike happened within 10 miles of the area. (Basically a "Get the F out of the water RIGHT NOW!" alarm.) 3 X 4 second blasts is their all clear.
A great demonstration of inexpensive horns. Thanks for conducting the tests. The capacity of the air pumps may be a limiting factor. I designed a horn (known as a whistle on a commercial boat) system for an 85 foot passenger vessel. I used a 125 psi compressor, a 10 gallon storage tank and 1/2" air line to the whistle. The tank was mounted close to the whistle to reduce losses due to the airline diameter. It also required a pressure shutoff for the compressor and remote button in the wheelhouse to activate a normally closed solenoid air valve. It could be heard from 2 miles distance. As you can see the system would not be practical in an automobile. My point of all this is that if the air horns you tested had more pressure and flow they may have been louder. But of course the cost would be considerably more.
Nice comparison, and liked that you used Hella as a control unit.(Popular brand here in Europe). ^ I wished for the Stebel Nautilus to be on this test list. It is advertised to be 139dB and ca 35 Euros (25 USD) , seeing a lot of clones claiming 150dB.
Also i always hated the decibel scale. I had an mp3 player and changing it to linear made volume adjustment so much easier. I FREQUENTLY run into the issue where each volume increase at minimum resolution is always either too loud or too quiet between two adjacent settings
I would love to see similar testing for alarm clocks. I have two from amazon that are absurdly loud. Sonic Bomb rated at 113dB and the Screaming Meanie rated at 120dB (made for truckers sleeping in a noisy environment - sounds like an air raid alarm).
HAAHAAHAHA. Light wakes me before sound will. Unless it is really loud For the last 37 Years My TV woke me up in the Morning. I sleep in total darkness and quiet.
I love my Sonic Bomb, although I just use the bed shaker and leave the sound off (still makes noise from rattling the bed frame of course). It's the only alarm clock that could reliably wake me up for longer than a month.
My best friend installed a Nathan AirChimes K3LA freight train horn on his truck, this is one of the actual horns mounted atop American diesel locomotives (with the infamous K5LA being king), he had an air compressor and tank, it took about 5 minutes to recharge after you blew it. This was around $1200 invested. Standing next to him in a parking lot when he reached in to blow that horn, was deafeningly loud. I mean the ground shook, it was an intense full-body physical experience. Because dB are usually dBspl (sound pressure level) and that’s why fireworks, rock concerts etc you can feel thumping your chest because the sound has that much pressure intensity. (You can get way nerdy on this, so forgive me if you’re an audio engineer.) But yeah, every time he blew the horn, cars would hit their brakes because it sounded precisely as if a freight train were about to strike them. The funniest is when he’d approach a railroad grade crossing with no train but a lot of traffic... and let out a blast!! 🔊🔉📣🤣 You’d see brake lights galore and people would be hesitant to proceed across the tracks as they were certain they just heard a train. Ultimately the novelty wore off pretty quickly though, it’s incredibly disruptive to your neighborhood and the ones bordering those. Think of how far away a train can be when it’s blowing it’s horn. Then imagine some joker out there joyriding randomly blowing that exact horn on the streets. It is kind of funny though the way it’s virtually impossible to tell the source of the sound. (His was mounted under the truck bed so entirely invisible.) As long as you don’t act obvious laughing looking guilty like you’re the source of the horn.. Edit: I remember telling him “Wow your neighbors must hate you haha” and he said no actually! Quite the opposite! Whenever he pulls into his subdivision, his neighbors all smile and give him the universal 💪🏼💪🏼 air horn gesture, asking if he’ll toot it them haha
I bought the equivalent of the $18 yeetech(spelling?). At first I installed it with the relay to work off the reg horn button in my truck. I got all done and went to give it a quick toot, and the relay welded itself on!🤯 after that, I decided to wire it directly off the battery with an inline fuse and high amp rated push button. This worked good. After a while I got curious and ordered a second kit, wired the pump in and spliced it in to feed both pumps in one horn! That definitely made it louder and improved the tone a bit... but it blew the 30amp fuse. I put a 40amp in and it seemed to be OK, truck since been sold...
thank you for fixing the sounds to make them easier to listen to, it surprises me how few youtubers edit the audio on their videos in 2022 but im glad to see some people are still doing it 😆😆
I appreciate the audio adjustment, but I really love the use of an actual decibel meter and standardized testing. It's really subjective whenever anyone reviews a horn, exhaust, etc. on the internet. You're often relying not only on the varying quality of the recording equipment, but on the individual viewer's playback equipment and even their personal hearing quality and opinions.
@@rebturtle I agree, a decibel meter is much more accurate than a persons ear, especially with all the damage a persons ears can take throughout his/her life.
You need to test the ones that hook up to an actual air source...that have a compressor and air tank. I can tell you my friend had a 3 horn kit on a truck with air ride, and it would mask the sound of a rifle in the city if we ever needed to get rid of raccoons or skunks in the yard lol.
This is one of your best videos.. At first I was starting to wonder about the long Krakatoa explanation, but as soon as it hit the first horn advertised Db, it made it all the more hilarious! The dinosaur toy egg box could very well have been a comical error, but its also against the law in some countries to even import certain aftermarket car accy's that increase volumes/noise/performance etc.. Other countries hit you harder on tax for auto parts vs. household goods, childrens items, or other "necessities" too. I have bought a couple electronic things (one being a very high watt laser) off wish that came in kit form, and one was shipped in 2 separate boxes, because theyre most likely not legal in assembled, ready to go form. All of them were labeled as something else on the outside. If it slides by on x ray, and the shape similarly matches the label and they dont see anything obviously contraband (like pills, powders, plants stuffed inside), it likely gets sent on without hardly a consideration through a busy customs port.
Question for Americans - what is the legal limit for an aftermarket horn? I see youtubes of guys driving around with "train horns" at massive power levels making people jump etc. Guessing the coppers can pull you over? Another fantastic video from you, thanks very much! Really enjoyed your flashlight one. Its clear that Amazon pays no attention to these advertising claims and that these companies prey on the lack of knowledge by consumers. We can bet that average consumer seeing "600db" is gonna be all over that. Now multiply that hundreds of times and these companies are laughing $$$. Very glad I found your channel!
Customers that bought this also bought, Sure-Blind 1000 Watt halogen headlights, Bootleg Calvin peeing on major automotive manufacturer logo sticker and Truck Nuts. I think its called the Douche Deluxe Package
I'd love to see more of these, and If you could add reaction time as a test feature please! I have some air horns that take a full second to fire off an actual note, making them useless for traffic. Would be hepful to know the ones that are more instantatious
Good stuff haha and the commentary and volcano info is what really made this a gem! Thank you for quality vids that you have obviously put some effort into❤ ❤
this might be me hearing it wrong, but it sounds like you only used one supertone. those Hella horns are really meant to be run in pairs to produce the right sound and I bet if you had 2 of them you'd see closer to 118 dB since that's right around +6
I remember fondly my Dad called out to the garage. He said he cleaned out the horn on my 71 Subaru wagon. So I hit the horn. Scared me half to death. Back in the early 80's. My favorite car ever. Handled better than new ones
The sequel - LASERS: th-cam.com/video/ZH3yMeA7HxQ/w-d-xo.html
We measured at 2m (not 1m) because thats what the horn specs sheets say! The bomb correction should say 10,000X the Nagasaki FatMan explosion. Bonkers. Also the % greater than Hella can be simplified and corrected as (from top to bottom): 1.15X, 1.19X, 1.72X, 2.29X, 2.57X & 1.46X
18650 cells. so many fakes, so many chineseium mAh.
Perhaps pressure washers?
I've had good results with two different horns on my cars.
Both made by Stebel, one is an air horn called nautilus and one is a twin electromagnetic pair called Magnum.
Both claim high noise the nautilus 127db and the Magnum pair claims 115db.
To my ears they are a similar noise level but the nautilus is a high tone air horn type like a stadium horn and the Magnum is a more aggressive "GET OUT THE WAY" type.
@Eric Duckman You know you can just buy some reputable Chinese cells from reputable sites like 18650batterystore, instead of off eBay right? And besides, Project Farm already tested this.
Or are you trying to say they should test how close the actual capacities are to the advertised ones of the reputable 18650s?
Love this video. Definitely do make more car product testing videos and less drill stuff. Donuit media is a gold mine, and they split it 20 ways.
I can’t believe that one horn didn’t actually produce 600dB. I thought for sure that product was capable of obliterating the entire solar system.
facebook humor: "I hate my life"
boomer humor: "I hate my wife
GenZ humor: sIx HuNdReD dEcIbEl AiR hOrN
@@coalthedergsune r/terribleyoutubecommentsmemes
@@ElectronicInspiration r/uselessthreads
@@AkiUwUx3 fucking redditards at it again
@@coalthedergsune bruh stop
Props to the guy that recorded the sound of the Krakatoa eruption from 2 metres away.
mans really took one for the team
Just as with the camera man, the sound man always survives.
He's a part of all of us now after being vaporized haha
A nuke is only a good weapon if everyone wants the person who you use it on dead if china wanted they could have got mad
He told that it was _calculated_ not measured
Not gonna lie I thought I was watching a history video and snapped back to reality with the 600db claim 😂
A very bold claim to say the least.
That is one the funniest thing I’ve ever been snapped back to reality with. A+ content for sure.
@@deletdis6173
Especially since dBs are a *logarithmic* scale.
Especially since it's a logarithmic pattern, 600 isn't double the sound of 300.
@@westelaudio943 beat me to it
The transition from the volcano story to the amazon horn was pure comedy gold
I haven't laughed like that in a long time. Pure art.
"God help us all"
I love that we got a history and geology lesson for a joke. We even got math and science lessons in this video. I appreciate the effort and dedication for a bunch of cheap Amazon horns.
The biggest joke was the fact that someone trying to explain something scientific, could not even get the basic math right. 200 Mt is not 20 Kt x 100. 200 Mt is 20 Kt x 10000.
Glad someone finally said this. I've been leaving the following reviews on several Amazon horns:
109db - chainsaw operation
130db - painful to most humans
150db - can break human eardrums
172db - Krakatoa explosion at 100 miles away
175db - one ton of TNT at 250ft
194db - limit of what we can scientifically call "sound" before it just becomes a pressure wave.
...
300db - these horns apparently
差不多了，但我们已经足够好了，现在给我钱吧大佬
Wouldn't be shocked if they ban you for making too many negative reviews, or the sellers delete your reviews
I noticed this same thing on wish a couple years ago. Something like 7-8000 decibel horn for your truck. I did a lot of research and concluded that obliteration of every atom in the universe would only cost about $30(S&H not included) 😂 Glad someone turned this into a video, you killed it
Dude, my face and neck hurts from laughing so hard at this post. Thanks!
The only truck worthy of mounting such a horn would be Big Rig.
@@jazzabighits4473 no it would be Optimus prime
@@turtleisland8034 coulda just honked away the decepticons back on cybertron and then we wouldn't have got all the movies 😂
Seems like maybe something you could get from bed bath and beyond?? 😅
I can only imagine what your neighbors thought when all of them went off at once. Sounded like a comically large crash involving several jingle trucks lol.
They probably just got out of the way. 🤪😁
Sounds like my trumpet band's training room back in high school
An interesting test for sure, but as their tones are not always constructive, interference will usually act to reduce their amplitude. If he had hooked multiple of the same horn up and tested that, there would have been a much greater chance to increase the amplitude. As this is the Torque Test Channel and not a The Who concert, I didn’t anticipate that kind of test. Was still happy to witness it (via VOD), and also happy I was not present even at distance in the industrial park they were testing it in.
I can't believe you were so brave as to risk your life by testing the 600dB horn. My thoughts and prayers are with you 🙏😂
To be fair he not only risked his lofe but also all life that is on earth and possibly left on mars
All our lives. According to Doctor Google a Supernova is around 440dB. He could've taken out a the entire solar system.
Tbf there would be nobody left to apologize to
His life? scratch that the fucking universe
@@gerardmontgomery280 if that's true then 600 would probably be capable of creating a second bootes level void 😂
This was UNREASONABLY funny and entertaining for what it was. My wife is not a technical person, would have never clicked on this video, and was dying of laughter just overhearing the video. Well done. 10/10
I just love the one time in Teen Titans comics when Cyborg used a million decibells of white noise at the enemy. That is like 10^100000 universes of energy lmao.
Casually ends the universe.
Great video! Kinda bummed that none of these horns ended all life on earth, reversed time, and opened a wormhole to an alternate reality, but it was fun all the same.
Make sure your volume is all the way up.
And you're fairly certain that has not occurred? For unending cycles? Better think it through again...
@@Horus2Osiris You keep making this comment in every timeline.
what?!?! lol
But I guess the major philosophical question your statement creates is this: if one of these horns had ended all life on earth, how would anyone or anything know if time was reversed or not? 🙂
I will say the little remote pumps for these horns are a huge limiting factor. I had one I was playing around with and hooked it to 130psi shop air. I was not ready
😆😆😆😆😆😆
thats why trainhorns are so damn loud... cuz they have a damn 3/4 line going to them lol
Rofl F to pay respect
I never thought about trying that but...
try 300 psi steam, thats what steam engine horns run on, although they choke it to about 150psi
LOL
Thank you for mentioning that decibels are logarithmic, seeing the numbers claimed made me laugh. Seriously, those things would probably create a pressure wave big enough to destroy the planet at the advertised volumes
*a new foe has appeared*
Enter... _THE ACOUSTIC PLANET KILLER!_
600 dB is probably the sound of the entire Earth exploding, whatever "sound" means in that particular scenario.
EDIT: More like galactic explosion, thanks to those who did the math.
Ok, let me see:
If we use a speaker rated at an amazing 100 dB at 1W/1m , to get 600 dB SPL, we'll need...
wait... 100 + 10*log10(x) = 600? Solve for x...
10^50 watts!! Our sun only releases on the order of 10^26 watts.
Even better, the energy contained in a supernova is "only" 10^44 joules! Consuming an entire supernova couldn't power those speakers for more than a microsecond.
Lol. More like the the entire milky way galaxy. A supernova is "only" 440 dB in terms of energy released.
@@MasterGeek360 lol even better
There's two decibel scales! Your calculator at 4:13 uses a scale of 20 decibels = 10x, and your calculator at 5:36 uses a scale of 10 decibels = 10x -- this is why the second calculator shows about half as much increase as the actual measured amount. (109 is right between 106 and 112!) Your device definitinely measures on a 20db scale according to its results.
Should be called a ventibel scale then smh
difference between power and voltage
fuck decibels tbh
By 10x, you mean 10^x
The logarithmic nature of the decibel scale has probably caused more public confusion that almost any other unit we regularly use lol
I'm pretty sure it's based on energy/pressure waves over distance rather than how loud we actually perceive it, which is why there's no simple "is it loud" scale. We all perceive sound differently.
At very close range, the sound from the Saturn V measures an incredible 220 db, loud enough to melt concrete just from the sound.
So do my farts
@@kiloton1920 never eat Taco Bell
So I’m assuming the way Decibels work is that they like exponentially grow
@dchawk81 hahah that’s wonderful, thank you :)
@@officersoulknight6321 every 4db increase, represents a doubling in volume.
I laughed so hard at the 600db comparison with Krakatoa that was amazing
Imagine you use your horn and the whole world hears it lol
@@nico5108 more like the whole world becomes extinct
@@nico5108 More like space time itself is torn asunder.
I burst out laughing when he dropped that rating.
Fun fact, the largest supernovas are estimated to be about 450 decibels. I have a feeling something at 600 decibels would be so much energy density that it would likely create a black hole.
Yes, if these things were actually 600db. They'd pretty much be super weapons, and would kill the owner and probably take out an entire city, and probably the world. 1100db would probably cause a black hole.
Thankfully Amazon doesn't sell super weapons for under 100 dollars, that can cause shock waves that would destroy cities in an instance.
The fact that someone can trigger a 300db horn AT will ANYWHERE on the planet is super villain level of hilarity. Awesome vid
I think the technical term for a 300dB horn is a bomb.
@@gerardmontgomery280 B83: 1.2 megaton thermonuclear gravity bomb
@@gerardmontgomery280 this was a great laugh
13:00 that may actually be a record holder for the most quantitatively over-advertised item on amazon
I love that based on the seller's descriptions you're actually testing doomsday weapons. "According to the seller this should wipe out my entire city for 28 dollars, let's test it out."
Your rating system, content ideas and humour are honestly second to none. You, AvE and Project Farm are keeping us do it yourself guys goin. Please don't ever stop. 💯👍
Don't forget about bigclive
@@androiduberalles agreed!
I wish they would go back and redo a lot of their videos that we were waiting on answers for
Nailed it. The big three. See you folks on Sunday!
i think you would really enjoy “applied science” if this is your jazz
You should have ran compressed air through the horns and ramped it up incrementally with a regulator until they blew. Just to see what the max capable loudness was.
@Gol Acheron Start at around 15psi, Keep going until around 150psi(that's about the limit of most common compressors. But I've s feeling the horns will probably give out at around half that.
You. I like you.
@@pigeonbusiness 😂😌🙏
@@atourdeforce we ran shop air through some cheap air horns where I used to work. About 120psi. Don't know about long term use, but none broke from us just fucking around with them
You should make a video I bet you'd get millions of views
I'm going to sue Vovov demanding because their horn was 1900 trillion billion times quieter than they advertised!
As the foremost expert in Birdlaw, I can tell you that you have a case. And once Vovov accepted your $22 they are legally and contractually obligated to provide you with a horn capable of destroying the earth. That obligation doesn't end with Vovov either; If they do not have the resources then the entirety of China also has no other option but to fulfill the legal obligations of Vovov, under international Bird law.
Trust me, I know this, as I studied under the Big Bird himself.
@@himswim28 I vouch for you boy. Use my teachings well.
so 1.9 * 10^21 times quieter?
So how are you supposed to make a company give you a horn strong enough to shake the foundsations of the earth?
@@andrewgreeb916 He will just get the money instead.
I love the context you provide for decibals. 300db is just a number without the example
fun fact: emergency vehicle sirens has a range of 110-129 db, 120 db will cause permanent hearing loss at 2 meters if exposed for more then 30-45 seconds and temporary damage if exposed for around 5-30 seconds, this is why emergency vehicles turn off their sirens if they get stuck in traffic and when they pass through tunnels, if they did not they would cause thousands of cases of temporary and permanent hearing damage.
That prologue of describing the largest recorded volcanic explosion and then the "it was 300 dcb, this horn is rated for 600, god help us all" LMAO , i fuggen lost it.
"God help us all" had me rolling 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Love this kind of dry humor!
Came here for this too!
Best build up ever
Something important about traditional automotive “horns” (not the air horns) is that they need to be rigidly mounted to something in order to get their best noise. That’s why some of these sounded so weak. Just sitting them loose on a surface means they lose some of their power.
Regarding the stupid/not based on reality ratings on Amazon, these no-name companies are capitalizing on the ignorance (i.e. stupidity) of the average person and the general mentality of “more is better.” It doesn’t have to be based on reality, as long as it is more “rating” than the competition (and unbelievably cheap), people will buy it.
Regarding mounting, the infamous "beep-beep" Roadrunner car horn from the late 60s and 70s achieved it's unique sound partially through the mounting bracket design.
Unmounted they have an entirely different sound
Especially since Amazon won't police the reviews. Even stopped my ability to leave reviews due to "suspicious" review activity
I don't think it's "stupid" of anyone to think that 300db is 150db x2. It really is just ignorance of the scale that is counter-intuitive to all other everyday units of measurement. It's the same with batteries. Consumers are expected to weed through a legitimate shopping website filled with illegitimate entries, and people of average knowledge/patience/trustfulness can't be expected to always know that there aren't really 6,000mAH 18650 batteries for consumer use. It's straight up scamming people who haven't been given the tools to know better, especially because any research on the subject on a google search is flooded with "TOP 10 18650 BATTERIES" with affiliated amazon links.
Welcome to the world of Chinese marketing.
@@whompronnie just use a better ad blocker. A new product from the arrested development Corp DBA Faceblock prevents 210% of all identity theft. And I expect competitors to emerge soon with ad blockers that remove 300%. Eventually removal rates of 10s of thousands may be possible. The only limit is our imagination since these are not real numbers anyway.
Eg "New gluten free recipe! We removed 200% of the gluten. (Means our product has negative gluten so you have eat gluten from somewhere else to get to zero)"
I love the whole one minute and thirty-five second explanation of the loudest recorded sound known to man, then the five second chat of the cheap amazon horn claiming to be twice that and you going "God help us all" XD
Love the video and the testing. Thanks!
Not twice as loud, actually; the decibel scale is logarithmic. 600 db is 1*10^29 times louder. So multiply the volume of the eruption shockwave, by the number of people on the earth, and then by the number of stars in the entire universe, and you'll be pretty close to how many times louder 600db is than 310db.
What is trillion billion as a number?
@@2005cms You have one billion, 1,000,000,000, and then imagine you have a trillion, 1,000,000,000,000, of each of those billions. That's "a trillion billions." Good luck imagining that 🤣 quite literally universe ending. Maybe there's some ridiculous calculator on the internet that can illustrate it for you, but it'd probably be reported as spam if someone showed you in a TH-cam comment from the sheer amount of zeroes
A good reason why you wouldn't get as much sound as you think you would running all those horns at once is that the mix of all those frequencies would generate random standing waves that would effectively mute or "cancel out" some of the sound.
My wife asked “something amusing?”, as I was laughing in bed. She had previously glanced over and assumed I was watching a boring documentary on Krakatoa. “Check out this set up!” I replied with tears in my eyes.
Great stuff.
Eagerly awaiting the follow up video with a train horn, a large ship's horn, an electric tornado warning siren, and a V8 powered air raid siren...
Those V8 air raid sirens are one of the most American things I've ever heard of.
this is the comment I was looking for. he'll need one hell of an air supply to feed them but he's never let us down before!
Yep...
This was a great video, and deserves a follow up/ continuation
@@tjf9948 fortunately it's rather easy to rent very large trailer mounted air compressors designed to be used by large construction crews running multiple high airflow tools, to that equipment blasting three or four very large air horns continuously would be a walk in the park.
Needs to get his hands on a fog horn.
Thankfully the horn was faulty because aliens would be laughing at us if earth nearly went extinct because of a $22 car horn 😂
US military stops making nukes and just buy $22 car horns from chyna.
I feel like they have a bet going
I think there may be something wrong with the Vovov unit you got. I installed one in my car and on the first honk it leveled the tri-state area. 10/10, would recommend.
SO, you have to replace your car every time someone cuts you off? Seems like itd be cheaper just to hit them.
@@natehill8069when you install a Bobov the car becomes Indestructible like a GTA tree. It's the power of Bobov
Time stamps for the various horns actually blowing, in case you want to *compare tones* quickly:
3:42 Hella
5:07 and 5:20 ZBrand (second lowest price; medium, dual tones )
7:15 TWOM
8:34 Viking Horns
9:50 Yaetek (lowest price; low-ish pitch, single tone)
10:46 Mega Blast
12:22 Vovov (third lowest price; high pitch, almost squeaky upper tone)
12:48 for the final comparison chart
I would be very interested in hearing pairs of these horns, particularly the Yaetek single and the ZBrand twin blowing at the same time. How do the loudness factors combine for 3 tones at once? Love this video. @Torque Test Channel
You could really expand your content if you wanted, testing historical claims against modern standards. At any rate, delivery of information was entertaining as always.
I’d watch it
Please don’t, if you do then start a different channel. Does not match your original genre.
@@agoogleuser7784 history test channel
I agree quit testing this and focus more on the core of what got your channel subscribers or you will loose subs.
Didn’t mean to change the format of TTC, we’re all here because we enjoy the channel. But the rhythm of his narrating shouldn’t be overlooked. He’s a natural lol
I could listen to history lessons from there guys all day long. What a great way to start an episode 👏
I do appreciate how you (TTC) use the things you demonstrate as a jumping-off point to teach about other things like a bit of history or basic metallurgy.
Fun fact, they estimated the pressure output from 2 black holes colliding several billion lightyears away was around 1100db. Which is enough pressure that it shook the fabric of reality it's self. That's how it was recorded.
Sound doesn’t happen in a vacuume? A tree fell in the woods today I didn’t hear it.
I commend you on your bravery for the risk that you took testing these horns. If their advertising was indeed genuine, we would all be extinct right now, but that didn't stop you from testing them anyway. Respect
The horn you crowned the winner already says "currently unavailable" on Amazon...I think you exhausted their inventory lol...I was ready to buy one.
Why? Is your vehicle's horn unsafely inaudible?
@@Corrodias I just got a pickup and someone about hit me in traffic. They were completely not phased by it and I learned the horn is less alarming than the one on my focus
It would be interesting to see these numbers compared to more 'legit' super loud car horns (e.g. Hornblasters Shocker XL)
Admittedly we were a bit out of our depth to know which were the "legit" ones, but for the most part we avoided the "needing you own air tank and compressor" bunch of horns as that category seemed to pray on the ignorant consumer less than this type. If you have an air tank already you're probably not buying $20 600dB horns we felt :P
Denali soundbomb is a common one on motorcycles, advertised as a 120db horn.
I installed a $2500 horn blasters tri horn once and no joke it was as or louder than a freight train.
@@FOXCRF450RIDER I've always felt like those are just antisocial. They're so incredibly loud that nearby pedestrians can suffer permanent hearing damage in a matter of seconds.
For me that was part of the reason why I upgraded my moped horn from a 96dB single to twin 117dB horns. The sound is more directional and they're on the egde of being so loud it hurts your ears.
Sadly with most school going teenagers on their bicycles wearing earpods these days, 96dB just doesn't cut it any more. You need to be louder than that or they just straight up won't hear you.
Also the 117dB horns were the loudest I could find that worked on 12V AC and had an E-number. I wouldn't want some overzealous cop to suspend my registration because of a horn.
@@TorqueTestChannel I have some old foundry cast air train/truck horns that were cast and made in Los Angeles the foundry doesn’t exist anymore so there pretty cool be happy to send them to you guys to test against the rest of them.
OMG thanks so much for this! I bought and hooked up that Vovov a few weeks ago but had been afraid to use it incase the pressure wave vaporised the planet, extinguished the Sun, perhaps even sent the Milky Way cartwheeling into Andromeda. Turns out it's just a slightly grating parp. You've put my mind at rest. 🤗
I'd have liked to see a Cadillac 4-note horn set tested, since those are by far the loudest (and best sounding) OEM horns I know of. I've pulled a few sets off junkyard cars to put on mine.
The caddy trumpets were the nasty ones
Heck yeah! Those 4 note GM horns are classic and legendary! (Especially if you grew up in the 60's and 70's!) One of my favorite GM commercials is the one where they take a Tahoe with the same horn, and put it on a revolving platter to become the "new" lighthouse! It totally works and trips you out because they slowly zoom in from a very far and wide angle perspective on a dark foggy scene. You just hear the fog horn and see light sweep by. It's not until they get close enough you realize it's a Tahoe rotating on top of the light house with it's high beams on sounding the horn.
I'm sure it's not real, but it still messes with your brain. It was probably just marketed to select regions like mine (New England), perhaps the Great Lakes and the Pacific NW. No one else would get the reference or have that lighthouse sound embedded into memory like we do growing up with it! LOL
Funnily enough, this isn't false advertising. They don't actually claim it's 600 dB, it says 600DB, which could be their model name. Misleading but not outright false advertising.
And yes, this is why lawyers go to hell.
I'd like to see LED Spots and bars next, another one of those things you can never tell how good they really are unless you have the test equipment. Keep up the great content!
They are good enough for some a**hole to blind people in their lifted truck they only ever drive on pavement.
Hell I want to see that
Get nilight. Cheap but really good. Been using the for about 3 years on a boat
@@Aliyah_666 100% This is the most accurate comment in this entire thread.
IIRC the default distance for sound measurement is 1m
Edit: And don't forget - an increase in 3dB does *not* make it double as load. Yes, the effect needed to increase 3dB is 100%, but for sound to be audiable double the strength, you'll need to increase it by 10dB. Interestingly, 3dB is also the limit to which the average person can register a difference (lower or higher). People working with music and similar, can often differ between lower changes than 3dB, but those are mostly exceptons.
Yes and one other thing is the formula for dB correction at a different distance assumes an isotropic source which the horns clearly are not.
You will probably find the Hella horn will increase a couple db once it is bolted to a sufficient part of the vehicle & the tone will usually change also. Should have got a truck horn & used a air compressor to see how much louder it is or even with the cheap car horns they usually get a lot louder.
Hey, just wanted to let you know that the reason the dual horn and all the horns combined ended up being louder than expected is because that calculator you used to add up the volumes is wrong.
It uses the 10dB=10x convention instead of the usual 20dB=10x convention. You can tell this is the case because, as you said in the video, an increase of 6dB means twice as loud, so two 106dB horns should sum up to 112dB, just as you measured, and not 109dB.
All the other calculators and calculations you used throughout the video seems to be spot on though. Great video!
A lot of the trumpets themselves have a diaphragm which'll start to rust and cause air leakage, reducing the volume of the horn. I thought my (long gone) airhorns had an issue with the pump, because it'd just whirr away when energised, so after getting an identical set, I replaced the pump. Same dealy! Swapped back everything, so new trumpets with old pump, loud as I got the originals on day 1.
Best I could do to prolong them is to drip oil into the hole where the hose goes, and onto the diaphragm through the sound opening. Then give 'em a few blasts to let the oil squish around and get into the contact area between diaphragm and trumpet.
The pumps also wear around the seals, so cleaning the innards and reoiling should be general maintenance on those beasties, too, even though no one ever brings it up.
They rely on people not knowing and understanding log scale measurements. I am a retired test engineer and I have no complaints with your test method. I was in the market for a good horn and the aftermarket claims for dB just left me to keep my stock horns as I knew they were BS. I guess I will eventually get a Kahlenberg KM 165 ship horn with a REAL 143 dB. At 34x18x18 in. it should fit in the back of my RAM Express.
You'll need a trailer for the compressor and tank, though.
Oh boy, not only do I get blinded by SUV headlights on low beams by driving a sedan but if this catches on, I can be deafened as well. I wonder what new pleasures await on the road.
I feel like half of drivers have their high beams on permanently now a days
@@FOXCRF450RIDER For sure, but I now think it's SUVs and pickups which are so high that the darn low beam is in your eyes when you drive a normal car. It's horrible and it's dangerous.
LED headlights are almost unregulated now, its ludicrous out there, yellow tinted glasses help me enormously
I have to say that the first 2 and a half minutes of this video have to be the best video introduction I've ever seen on this platform. Hats off to you
This is one of the most hilarious videos I have ever seen. You've got a very intellectual sense of humor.
I love this channel! Keeping the testing obscure makes it fascinatingly fresh!
Thanks. I'm shopping for a horn to replace the anemic OEM horn on my car, and you saved me from doing the same test you did.
As I recall Hella made a 3-trumpet air horn decades ago that was obnoxiously loud.
A pair of OEM style trumpet horns will probably be just fine, they're plenty loud to be heard above most things. Whatever you do, don't remove your stock horn because if you ever get pulled over for it if you're in the US it could land you with an expensive ticket
@@Channel-gz9hm "Non working horn" is different from "illegally installed air horn." One will get you a fix it ticket, the other is more likely to get you permanent citation.
Non working equipment is one thing, and you're right, it would just be a small fee if you didn't get it fixed. But non-working and "modified in a way that violates the regulations pertaining to motor vehicle equipment" are two different things.
@@Channel-gz9hm Almost every state, save for Maine, South Carolina, and Vermont have laws stating some variation of "no horn may emit excessive noise," which is indeed a somewhat vague law, but some states more specifically target air powered horns, sirens, whistles, etc. Some states also have a law that states that air powered horns are legal as a _secondary_ warning system (i.e. not hooked up to the horn button on your steering wheel) IF the vehicle is equipped with air brakes and the horn is plumbed in to only pull pressure from the air brake tank. There are no states to my knowledge that explicitly state that air horns may be hooked up as a primary warning system, meaning they are hooked up to your steering wheel and replace the stock horn
@@richardmillhousenixon General rule of thumb is no louder than 100-110 dB.
Personally, while the stock OEM electric horns on my truck are plenty loud for me, I've kinda wanted something a bit more like whatever the sound crew did for the War Rig from the last Mad Max movie...
@@bonivuselderheart2716 You'd have to ask the digital effects team. When it comes to movies, pretty much any sound other than dialogue is edited in
In the motorcycle world, the Denali Soundbomb series is really popular, if you do another one of these tests I'd recommend including either their original or split. I've got their split and it is VERY loud compared to a standard motorcycle horn
Damn, I was looking forward to a horn so loud it would physically move someone out of my way with a shockwave...
hmmm, sth that goes over the speed of sound...
You wouldn't really move someone out of your way with the shockwave, rather you'd remove them out of your way
at 600dB it wouldn't just move someone out of the way with the shockwave. It would release about 1x10^48 Joules of energy. To say that's a lot of energy would be a significant understatement.
It would literally vapourise the solar system into a rapidly expanding plasma (everything, the sun would be blown away by the energy release like you blow flour off a kitchen countertop), it's entirely like a few neighbouring systems would go that way too.
Your "horn", over time, would be easily detectable across the entire visible universe with current technology.
Of course in actuality putting that much energy into such a small item would like mean that it would collapse into a medium sized black hole.
Regardless, someone being in your way wouldn't be biggest problem anymore 😂.
@@hellfiresquid 600db is like a type 1A supernova, lol.
@@peter5.056 exactly, it would remove them
and also remove you, and whatever planet you're on, and probably a lot more.
It's not the loudness alone, but the combination of tones that get their attention!
Always remember kids, decibels are logarithmic, meaning a +6 increase in decibels is twice as loud, +20 is 10x, so a 600 decibel horn would be about 10^25 or about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 louder than a 100 decibel concert
The two dual horns likely exhibit what is called constructive interferance, which means their sound waves merge together and make a larger one, making it louder than just the sum of the two horns, or at least my guess
I think constructive interferance can only cause twice the original waveform at max because when waveforms exactly match in amplitude and inverted phase, you get the maximum and that's only double the original.
If the summed waveforms have different frequencies, the resulting oscillation in the sound may be something that the dB meter reacts to but I'm not sure why.
The video didn't mention if the meter used A, B, C or Z weighting. I think the dB calculator on the computer probably matches only the Z weighted meter (which is the only one that actually meters the energy in sound, other more or less try to measure human hearing instead).
i suspect theanufacturer might have made the 2 horns have different pitches on purpose, as having 2 horns with matching pitches would potentially risk destructive interference if for some random reason, one horn starts off with inverted phase.
@@kirkhamandy Yes, if the soundwaves interfere destructively that would result in silence. However, executing this in practice with two sound sources in two different physical locations (e.g. 5 cm away from each other) causes the silence to project "between" the sound sources and lobes of sound diagonal from the projected silence will see constructive interference and double energy (imagine waves in water from two separate objects but in 3D in air).
@@kirkhamandy Yeah, I figured it out from "Schrödinger's Horn" part but the destructive interference was still a good point which is why I added a real comment about it.
Usually I get irritated when people try to explain decibels as a pressure wave and perceived intensity, but you did a great job. You definitely understand your math.
You get irritated at that?
his math is wrong though, decibel is on a 10log scale and not the 20log he mistakingly used throughout this video
@@sperzieb00n You are correct. His math may be wrong, but the understanding is mostly accurate. I've seen so many other youtubers claim "A 3dB increase is twice as loud" which falsely confuses electrical waveform power with pressure wave perceived loudness.
I need to start making horns and put up a graph against actual explosions to truly scare people in my marketing materials. "Buy our $18 horn and literally blast the cars around you off the planet"!
considering a theoretical 600db horn, maybe that's what gabriel's apocalyptic angel horn is, just the real version of a $20 horn from Amazon lmao
This has quickly become one of my favorite channels on TH-cam. 🍻
Thank you for the quality content!
I would love to see how much power each of these horns pull during testing too, especially the ones with pumps.
all of it
Jiggawatt.
I bought some expensive air horns (a set of 3) awhile back and installed them on my truck. They were rated at 140 dB at 120 PSI and they were loud! If you were standing next to my truck even a short blast would cause you to cover your ears and you could actually feel the concrete vibrate! So you can buy very loud air horns but they cost more than $25 and in my case I had to supply my own compressed air.
It would be interesting to see a spectrograph of the horns’ tones to see what the different pitches and overtones are and why they might have a different timbre.
I went through the waters by Krakatoa While sailing aboard the USS Enterprise CVN 65 and it was one of the most Eerie places I've ever seen in my life.
I should note that people heard the blast from much farther away than Perth. It was heard in New York and the British isles. Oh, and IIRC it could be heard 7 times across the globe, not 3.
This is awesome.
Please do winch line pull ratings next! I need to know if the HF ones are as strong as they claim!
_OOOF!_ , what a great idea but, could be really dangerous for the testers.
Heh, reminds me of working in a powersports dealership. Customer wants a 10,000 lb winch. "Sir, your vehicle only weight 500 pounds." Nope, I gotta have the power to snap my frame in half or I'm not happy lol.
You should have also bought a train horn from horn blasters. I have a actual train horn in my '21 Elantra N-line. It's insanely loud.
Conductors special 844 with the 6 horn upgrade
Where can I purchase a real train horn?
@@daymianhayes2493 hornblasters, "The Nathan Airchime K-series horns will be the LOUDEST option on the market. These are actual locomotive horns that come off of retired locomotives that produce 149.4 decibels."
A big problem with Amazon is sellers can suggest changes to an items listing.
And other sellers will suggest changes that are completely wrong every time.
That was fun !!
I have a Toyota Tacoma, and the horn is embarrassing, so I'm going to the junk yard and get a dual horn set off of a Cadillac.
I had a 49 Cadillac Fastback, 6 volt dc. I restored it and upgraded the electrical system to 12 vdc. That single horn on 12vdc. Was so loud it ring my ears every time I tooted it, not only was it extremely loud, it also fried every horn relay I bought. Finally I bought a 12vdc. Ford starter solenoid, and wired it up, then it worked GREAT,
I measured the current draw on 12vdc. It was almost 80 amps.!!
It really was extremely loud !! Louder than a real truck airhorn.
5:35, that calculator assumes sharing same power. 2 horns getting individual power should get +6dB, and they did. Same for speakers. Daisy chain 2 speakers and you get +3dB, give them each power and you get +6dB.
A new record for dishonest advertising.
Guess we should be glad, since we didn't have global destruction from your testing and you guys weren't deafened or worse.
Nice job on the Krakatoa reference.
I've got a pair of the Hella horns on my van (one of the factory ones died), and as a pair they are plenty loud to do the job, and are well built. Plus they come with a sticker for the back window!
sticker adds at least 10 DB
i dont know if i enjoy the naration more than the content, but keep em coming. Im informed and educated also my curiosity that I didnt know i had, satisfied.!
@@dukeofthedance8062 honestly, have been buying aftermarket horns for years and alway thought they were literally scamming us lol... what i did a few years ago was to go to a Junk/scrap yard and scrap the horns off Mercades/VW cars as those horns are pretty loud and I have been satisfied so far.
Never figured if they mean dBSPL, dBu, dBv, dBVU, dBFS, dBw...
either way...if the horn doesn't rip you apart, it's not that good. Best way to clear traffic is to liquefy everyone in the cars in front of you
I had a car once that the horn would only work if the am radio was on. I could make the horn louder or quieter by increasing or decreasing the volume on the radio. However, even at full volume it was as loud as maybe a horn made for infants! It always made pedestrians laugh so I would do it at red lights especially if people were looking miserable. I miss that car. It was always an adventure going from point a to point b because it always felt like it would break down at any moment.
Interesting math on the decibels, I was wondering where you were going with the volcano bit.
Makes me also wonder how many decibels my conductors special kit from Hornblasters has. May not be the loudest, but that frequency! Probably why they call em the shocker horns. When you hooked all the horns together it had a similar note though, and still at a cheaper price tag.
More horn tests in the future?
This might just be my favorite TTC video. The snark is fantastic!
Disappointed that my phone speaker still works after watching this video
That last one sounded exactly like the lightning warning at an old camp ground with a water feature nearby, but just pitched up by ~12%. That one had a lower frequency, but still is LOUD, and could be heard clearly for about 5 miles or so. It's Florida, during summer. We get a lot of storms. You wouldn't want to be near the building that had this thing, as I'd guess it's probably in the neighborhood of ~120 dB. 10 seconds continuous indicates that a lightning strike happened within 10 miles of the area. (Basically a "Get the F out of the water RIGHT NOW!" alarm.) 3 X 4 second blasts is their all clear.
A great demonstration of inexpensive horns. Thanks for conducting the tests.
The capacity of the air pumps may be a limiting factor. I designed a horn (known as a whistle on a commercial boat) system for an 85 foot passenger vessel. I used a 125 psi compressor, a 10 gallon storage tank and 1/2" air line to the whistle. The tank was mounted close to the whistle to reduce losses due to the airline diameter. It also required a pressure shutoff for the compressor and remote button in the wheelhouse to activate a normally closed solenoid air valve. It could be heard from 2 miles distance. As you can see the system would not be practical in an automobile. My point of all this is that if the air horns you tested had more pressure and flow they may have been louder. But of course the cost would be considerably more.
Nice comparison, and liked that you used Hella as a control unit.(Popular brand here in Europe). ^
I wished for the Stebel Nautilus to be on this test list. It is advertised to be 139dB and ca 35 Euros (25 USD) , seeing a lot of clones claiming 150dB.
Also i always hated the decibel scale. I had an mp3 player and changing it to linear made volume adjustment so much easier. I FREQUENTLY run into the issue where each volume increase at minimum resolution is always either too loud or too quiet between two adjacent settings
I would love to see similar testing for alarm clocks. I have two from amazon that are absurdly loud. Sonic Bomb rated at 113dB and the Screaming Meanie rated at 120dB (made for truckers sleeping in a noisy environment - sounds like an air raid alarm).
HAAHAAHAHA. Light wakes me before sound will. Unless it is really loud
For the last 37 Years My TV woke me up in the Morning. I sleep in total darkness and quiet.
I love my Sonic Bomb, although I just use the bed shaker and leave the sound off (still makes noise from rattling the bed frame of course). It's the only alarm clock that could reliably wake me up for longer than a month.
My best friend installed a Nathan AirChimes K3LA freight train horn on his truck, this is one of the actual horns mounted atop American diesel locomotives (with the infamous K5LA being king), he had an air compressor and tank, it took about 5 minutes to recharge after you blew it. This was around $1200 invested. Standing next to him in a parking lot when he reached in to blow that horn, was deafeningly loud. I mean the ground shook, it was an intense full-body physical experience. Because dB are usually dBspl (sound pressure level) and that’s why fireworks, rock concerts etc you can feel thumping your chest because the sound has that much pressure intensity. (You can get way nerdy on this, so forgive me if you’re an audio engineer.) But yeah, every time he blew the horn, cars would hit their brakes because it sounded precisely as if a freight train were about to strike them. The funniest is when he’d approach a railroad grade crossing with no train but a lot of traffic... and let out a blast!! 🔊🔉📣🤣 You’d see brake lights galore and people would be hesitant to proceed across the tracks as they were certain they just heard a train.
Ultimately the novelty wore off pretty quickly though, it’s incredibly disruptive to your neighborhood and the ones bordering those. Think of how far away a train can be when it’s blowing it’s horn. Then imagine some joker out there joyriding randomly blowing that exact horn on the streets. It is kind of funny though the way it’s virtually impossible to tell the source of the sound. (His was mounted under the truck bed so entirely invisible.) As long as you don’t act obvious laughing looking guilty like you’re the source of the horn..
Edit: I remember telling him “Wow your neighbors must hate you haha” and he said no actually! Quite the opposite! Whenever he pulls into his subdivision, his neighbors all smile and give him the universal 💪🏼💪🏼 air horn gesture, asking if he’ll toot it them haha
I bought the equivalent of the $18 yeetech(spelling?). At first I installed it with the relay to work off the reg horn button in my truck. I got all done and went to give it a quick toot, and the relay welded itself on!🤯 after that, I decided to wire it directly off the battery with an inline fuse and high amp rated push button. This worked good. After a while I got curious and ordered a second kit, wired the pump in and spliced it in to feed both pumps in one horn! That definitely made it louder and improved the tone a bit... but it blew the 30amp fuse. I put a 40amp in and it seemed to be OK, truck since been sold...
thank you for fixing the sounds to make them easier to listen to, it surprises me how few youtubers edit the audio on their videos in 2022 but im glad to see some people are still doing it 😆😆
I appreciate the audio adjustment, but I really love the use of an actual decibel meter and standardized testing. It's really subjective whenever anyone reviews a horn, exhaust, etc. on the internet. You're often relying not only on the varying quality of the recording equipment, but on the individual viewer's playback equipment and even their personal hearing quality and opinions.
@@rebturtle I agree, a decibel meter is much more accurate than a persons ear, especially with all the damage a persons ears can take throughout his/her life.
You need to test the ones that hook up to an actual air source...that have a compressor and air tank.
I can tell you my friend had a 3 horn kit on a truck with air ride, and it would mask the sound of a rifle in the city if we ever needed to get rid of raccoons or skunks in the yard lol.
That's clever!
This is one of your best videos.. At first I was starting to wonder about the long Krakatoa explanation, but as soon as it hit the first horn advertised Db, it made it all the more hilarious!
The dinosaur toy egg box could very well have been a comical error, but its also against the law in some countries to even import certain aftermarket car accy's that increase volumes/noise/performance etc.. Other countries hit you harder on tax for auto parts vs. household goods, childrens items, or other "necessities" too. I have bought a couple electronic things (one being a very high watt laser) off wish that came in kit form, and one was shipped in 2 separate boxes, because theyre most likely not legal in assembled, ready to go form. All of them were labeled as something else on the outside. If it slides by on x ray, and the shape similarly matches the label and they dont see anything obviously contraband (like pills, powders, plants stuffed inside), it likely gets sent on without hardly a consideration through a busy customs port.
Question for Americans - what is the legal limit for an aftermarket horn? I see youtubes of guys driving around with "train horns" at massive power levels making people jump etc. Guessing the coppers can pull you over?
Another fantastic video from you, thanks very much! Really enjoyed your flashlight one. Its clear that Amazon pays no attention to these advertising claims and that these companies prey on the lack of knowledge by consumers. We can bet that average consumer seeing "600db" is gonna be all over that. Now multiply that hundreds of times and these companies are laughing $$$. Very glad I found your channel!
Customers that bought this also bought, Sure-Blind 1000 Watt halogen headlights, Bootleg Calvin peeing on major automotive manufacturer logo sticker and Truck Nuts. I think its called the Douche Deluxe Package
I'd love to see more of these, and If you could add reaction time as a test feature please!
I have some air horns that take a full second to fire off an actual note, making them useless for traffic.
Would be hepful to know the ones that are more instantatious
Good stuff haha and the commentary and volcano info is what really made this a gem! Thank you for quality vids that you have obviously put some effort into❤ ❤
this might be me hearing it wrong, but it sounds like you only used one supertone. those Hella horns are really meant to be run in pairs to produce the right sound and I bet if you had 2 of them you'd see closer to 118 dB since that's right around +6
These companies will complain that you weren't using a proper sound chamber!
I remember fondly my Dad called out to the garage. He said he cleaned out the horn on my 71 Subaru wagon. So I hit the horn. Scared me half to death. Back in the early 80's. My favorite car ever. Handled better than new ones