I know one thing for sure.. I can holler louder than the horn on the savage..
After the horn had no effect, I screamed at some broad in a pasrking lot and she woke up.

Then why bother with a muffler at all? You need to make all the noise. Be heard man. Save a life.

Just when the ''oil wars'' cool down a little, we get a new ''LOUD PIPES WAR''.
I often ride 10 - 12+ hour days, so loud pipes are out of the question.

The test of your pipes being too loud is-

1- Do your neighbors throw rotten fruit or vegies at you?
( or do they want to )

2- Can you still hear anything over that ringing in your ears?

I won't ride near bikes with really loud pipes, but that is not a issue for long as most of them think 10 miles is a LONG trip.

BUT, I will admit if you are not paying attention to EVERYTHING & EVERYONE around you at ALL times,( like you should IF you want to make it home without bleeding ) loud pipes annoying everyone around you MIGHT help them know you are there.

And it might give them a reason to do something bad.

Just ride like everyone else on the road is sooner or later going to try to kill you!

Hey, sorry to have started a fire storm here. Just trying to pass some advice to someone considering a VooDoo exhuast. For the record, there is a difference between louder and loud. Many have made the Dyna swap, why, often for some, a more dignified sound. But it is louder then the stock muffler.

I stated right up front that the VooDoo is loud and obnoxious. That is why I have put not 1, but 2 additional baffles in mine. As it is now it is louder then a Dyna, but not exceptionally. I actually built and installed the first baffle so as it is not a stright shot. It is now set up so there is an offset in direction of all the various inward bent diversion baffles in the set-up, you can not see any light through the thing. At the back end I added a second catalytic baffle to quite it more.

I have spent most of my life in the sound industry. I have worked as a live mix engineer and speaker cabinet designer and builder and custom fabricator to the sound and stage lighting industry. One thing I will bring up, and I did mention this in my post was the issue of directionality of sound. As a quick explanation, sound is actually the propagation of a wave and waves move in direction based on the source of the energy that created it. In the case of a muffler that would be the exit of the tailpipe. On most tailpipes that is straight out the back, so the wave is projected out away from where you actually sit on the bike and hear it. The point being your pipe may be loud you just don't get the full effect of it unless you are behind the bike.

The thing with a turn out (like the VooDoo) is just that, the source of the wave is pointed outward towards the side, hence why I recommended it also must be modified to be a partial turn down. Proprogation as a turn down is not out into the open air but more down towards the pavement. Often exhausts (turn outs or straight fire back are perceived as excessively loud because they are broadcasting the waves directly outward. So what I am saying is the direction of the exit of the exhaust can also influence the perception how loud it is.

My VooDoo with the mods is not too loud when at idle, or low rpm cruising, but it does annonce you when you accelerate in passing through the blind spot in a cars rear view mirror.

I agree with the concept that nothing replaces responsible attentive riding practices. But noise is a factor that does get people to realize there may be a motocycle in their peripheral. In the era we all ride in today cars have become more vacuumed sealed, climate controlled, internet connected isolation boxes. It's not like the old days where people drove around with their windows down and exposed to their surroundings. With the windows up, A/C on and stereo blasting in my Lexus, the outside world could conceivably not exist. As a rider, I have trained myself for when I drive to exercise extra caution constantly looking for and listening for motorcycles and driving in accordance with how I would hope all drivers would do around me when on my bikes.

What I see though are far too many riders who do not do the same when on their bikes. The reality is there are a lot of bad riders out there so if they feel a loud bike helps protect them, maybe it does, or maybe it makes them less cautious, can't answer for that. But if it does keep them from becoming a victim of some inattentive driver reading a text while driving or fiddling with the info system in their car, I guess that could be considered a good thing. As I think we have all been there I will quote Srinath on this "Nothing but sound saved me and someone from me". As a preference I don't necessarily promote the concept of "Loud Pipes, Save Lives", I prefer "Ride Loud, Ride Safe".

Hopefully we have come to a cease fire in the ''LOUD PIPES WAR, without bloodshed!
Everyone rides a little differently, and has different likes & dislikes. (that is why they make more than one motorcycle )

SoC,  You provided the OP with a lot of great info, not apologies needed.  I just wanted to rant.

philthymike wrote on 05/14/20 at 15:36:04:


many years ago there was a guy at a house down the street who thought the intersection by my house was his personal drag strip for his loud Sportster. So I took my Benelli Barracuda with it open megaphone exuast and rode by his house making sure that I only opened up the bike at his property line.  
He eventually stopped...

The OP, Jasongibby94, has not been back since declaring that we aren't "actual" riders since some us don't like to make a lot of noise. I can clearly see how making a lot of noise is the very essence of motorcycling, just as smoking is the very essence of breathing. It all goes together, don't you see.