Quote from logitekg25 :

my driveway is almost a quarter mile long, uphill the whole way, and you cant plow to the ground cause its all gravel. so after a snow storm its snowy, then it just turns to ice.

unless i get studs, pretty sure i need 4x4 for the first day or 2 after a storm, either that or a better way to pull myself up.

id be willing to bet that i could get up that drive in any hatchback on summer tyres
gravel tends to never give you sheet ice so you always have plenty of traction unless youre stupid

Quote from thisnameistaken :

My experience was a bit different. Most of the guys who drove trucks were tradesmen - roofers, builders, chippies, etc. I only came across a couple of people who really had no reason to own a pickup. They weren't as bad on the road as Brit white van drivers because most of them were driving their own trucks, not trucks that belonged to the company they worked for.

The worst drivers were state troopers and - as in every other country - taxi drivers.

My main complaint from driving in the USA* is that most drivers don't seem to know what they're doing, or they just don't take driving very seriously, and consequently it seems pretty unsafe to drive over there. Nobody's wearing a seat belt, everybody on the interstates is driving nose-to-tail at rush hour, they're just ****ing nuts over there.

Maybe it's the popularity of christianity - they actually want to die.

* I'm sure this doesn't reflect your average American LFS racer - you're enthusiasts so I would imagine you drive to a higher standard than most of your countrymen/women.

To be fair my first run in was my own fault, I'd forgotten that you can turn right on a red light. But the clown in his lifted truck that shined more than the sun didn't need to start pushing me forwards with his truck. Getting out and walking towards him defused the situation as it turned out to be a skinny kid in daddies truck.

But I mostly came across guys who had trucks just because they wanted one as it is "the American way". There were plenty of traders but I'd say for every 2 traders, I saw 4 trucks that were being used as cars.

I will never get the American attitude to driving, it was bloody scary though.

Don't get me started on white van men. They are massive dicks as is anyone who drives a van.

Quote from logitekg25 :

not so much a "party wagon" but yeah something among those lines.

but i plan on (dont flame, me and everyone around me love music) putting sub's and speakers in it to get amazing sound outta it. i talked to a guy who does car audio and he said an suv would take so much money to get good sound out of it. something with a smaller cab (like a civic he used as an example, or cobalt) would be relatively cheap to get good sound.

so obviously the truck's cab is smaller then the suv, and would be far cheaper.

What you want is an Estate (Tourer, Station Wagon). They make great party wagons, enjoy healthy economy and if you buy a good one, are a bast to drive when the time comes to hoon it.

Quote from Shotglass :

id be willing to bet that i could get up that drive in any hatchback on summer tyres
gravel tends to never give you sheet ice so you always have plenty of traction unless youre stupid

Damn, all I had to do is call you yesterday and you could have just driven my car out of my driveway instead of me chipping away at the ice for 4 hours? You ever see what continuously packed down snow turns to after a couple of months of constant snowfall? My driveway is level, about as level as can be, then it rained and turned everything soft, and there my car sat in 8 inches of semisoft ice not moving forwards and not moving backwards after it sunk down in.

It is getting to be that I need to put my feet up on the desk every time I read this forum because the shit really gets deep around here.

Yes, for the record, my driveway is gravel, and I'm more interested in that gravel staying in my driveway rather than being chucked through my neighbor's window with the snowblower, thus I have to leave an inch or 2 of snow every time I clear it. Get 8 or so good snowstorms and you're talking 8 inches of ice packed down total.

You select folks really need to quit talking out your ass as if you are such superior intelligence over everyone else in the world. You all get 2 cm of snow and can't cope in one thread, then talk how superior you are and how you could drive in snow measured in feet over here. Come on over and show how great you are then.

Quote from mrodgers :

Yes, for the record, my driveway is gravel, and I'm more interested in that gravel staying in my driveway rather than being chucked through my neighbor's window with the snowblower, thus I have to leave an inch or 2 of snow every time I clear it.

That's not clearing it, that's just reducing it. If the gravel is the problem I suggest you stop being such a lazy redneck and finish surfacing your ****ing driveway.

Quote from mrodgers :

You ever see what continuously packed down snow turns to after a couple of months of constant snowfall? My driveway is level, about as level as can be, then it rained and turned everything soft, and there my car sat in 8 inches of semisoft ice not moving forwards and not moving backwards after it sunk down in.

Yes, because of where I live I got feet of snow, not millimetres. And it rendered the 4Runner useless. Partly because the tyres on it are all seasons and partly because it has open diffs.

After battling ice, snow and slushy ice (on foot because driving was neigh on impossible). I then had to climb this hill. Doesn't look much but it is a 16% gradient.


The only vehicle that could get down semi-safely it was the game keepers ATV. But then couldn't get back up. So had to go via the forest road which was hard packed snow, powdery snow and ice.

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

Yes, because of where I live I got feet of snow, not millimetres. And it rendered the 4Runner useless. Partly because the tyres on it are all seasons and partly because it has open diffs.

So, you're an idiot too? Because Shotglass could climb that no problem in a car with summer tires!

Whoop, sorry, re-read Shotglass' post, you're just stupid, not an idiot....

It's only Shotglass, we just ignore him anyway, aside from the odd comment which is genuinly very funny.

Quote from mrodgers :

So, you're an idiot too? Because Shotglass could climb that no problem in a car with summer tires!

Whoop, sorry, re-read Shotglass' post, you're just stupid, not an idiot....

I am really, I didn't plan for the winter so didn't get suitable tyres and underestimated how bad it would get. I was told you never get cut off for more than a day. I was cut off for 4 weeks.

That photo was taken weeks after the snow had cleared everywhere else in the UK, once I got to Cropton (around 2-3 miles up the road) you wouldn't think there had been any snow at all.

Could be worse, last snow we got I tried to drive my car.. I didn't seem to realize that my tyres had been worn down to be slicks... that was an eventful trip

Quote from thisnameistaken :

The first thing a professional would do is treat the room - or in your case, car. The least extreme thing you could do is improve the fixing of the door panels to doors, fill the voids inbetween with foam, provide acoustically-beneficial cushioning for any rattly moving parts and so on. Then if you manage to dampen all the lousiest parts of your car that aren't required for actually driving it, you could think about speakers. But a sound engineer would want to cover most of the windows too, if not all, which would make it difficult to drive.



I do a lot of live gigs and I put up with a lot of shitty venues and shitty sound men. Trust me, if you care about music then you will tire of lousy reproduction very quickly. Bad sound (humpy frequency responses, phasing issues, probably obvious mid scoops due to you having expensive gear and not knowing what to do with it) are the sort of things you're going to get, and they are tiring on the ear.

And you can add compression to all of that. Sadly, inhuman amounts of compression are commonly added in mastering studios these days, but if you put out inhuman sound pressure levels from your car stereo your own personal ears are going to be compressing the sound too. The first five minutes of your music might sound awesome to your untrained ears but it will get steadily worse, it will sound distorted, to the point where all you can hear is a rushing sound where the bass ought to be and a tonne of hissy treble content.

That's your ears telling you that you shouldn't expose them to those sorts of levels, and it can lead to permanent damage.

It's worth telling you this stuff because you're young and you apparently love music. Look after your ears, most people don't appreciate how delicate they are.

the rattles are the biggest fault, and i can hear those..but other then that i guess il try the foam.

il get in my friends truck for more then 5 minutes to let my ears get the feel for it, and tell me what they think.

and i take amazing care of my ears, ipod never goes past half volume, which is very good (good enough i like to think :shy

Quote from logitekg25 :

and i take amazing care of my ears, ipod never goes past half volume, which is very good (good enough i like to think :shy

I was told by a doctor that if anyone else can hear your music with headphones in, it is too loud.

It is especially more damaging if you use earphones as the audio can get in, but can't get out, so just bounces around inside your ear causing damage. You suffer a similar problem if you don't put earplugs in correctly.

Chris, what part of "CARS ARE THE WORST PLACE FOR MUSIC TO SOUND GOOD" do you not understand? All your foaming and new speakers will still sound wrong?

Quote from XCNuse :

you don't have to let everyone at your intersection know you have horrible taste in music; but no one seems to understand that...

Tell that to the **** in the CRX who comes down my road EVERY DAMN NIGHT between 8pm and 11.59pm, his sub makes our ears hurt every time he walks on by the sound physically hurts your ears when you hear it through bricks and glass. It's horrendeous.

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

I was told by a doctor that if anyone else can hear your music with headphones in, it is too loud.

It is especially more damaging if you use earphones as the audio can get in, but can't get out, so just bounces around inside your ear causing damage. You suffer a similar problem if you don't put earplugs in correctly.

I also never understood why people put their volumes up, as long as you can hear it clearly, why put it full volume? I just don't understand. Also with earphones, I don't use the full volume, cos I would like to hear the guy behind me about to stab me in the back. Rather than just walk around with a tinny noise externally following me.

yeah my headphones with the sound insulating dont count i guess, cuase they always keep the sound inside

and not sure why, but i do agree. loud music does sound better

Quote from logitekg25 :

yeah my headphones with the sound insulating dont count i guess, cuase they always keep the sound inside

and not sure why, but i do agree. loud music does sound better

He meant earphones and I was arguing the point that loud music DOESN'T sound better, it just sounds.... louder... and distorted if that.

Quote from BlueFlame :

I also never understood why people put their volumes up, as long as you can hear it clearly, why put it full volume? I just don't understand. Also with earphones, I don't use the full volume, cos I would like to hear the guy behind me about to stab me in the back. Rather than just walk around with a tinny noise externally following me.

In a perfect world you want to hear music "as the artist intended".

Sometimes the artist wanted mellow tunes to chill you out, and sometimes they wanted to rape your ears... it's part of the experience.

Theres nothing quite like a bass drop you can literally feel in your heart.

Quote from Jakg :

In a perfect world you want to hear music "as the artist intended".

Sometimes the artist wanted mellow tunes to chill you out, and sometimes they wanted to rape your ears... it's part of the experience.

Theres nothing quite like a bass drop you can literally feel in your heart.

^this^

i guess i dont have much of choice when listening to angerfist. FULL VOLUME

lets get back to post your car again.

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

I was told by a doctor that if anyone else can hear your music with headphones in, it is too loud.

It is especially more damaging if you use earphones as the audio can get in, but can't get out, so just bounces around inside your ear causing damage. You suffer a similar problem if you don't put earplugs in correctly.

That advice is a bit generalised because it depends on the type of headphones you're using. Open-backed headphones are going to be a lot more audible to bystanders than closed cans, for example. Even closed headphones vary a lot in the amount of sound they bleed out - it's why most recording studios use DT-100s (well, and because they're modular so they're cheap to maintain), otherwise you start hearing stuff like click track bleeps that got tracked in your drum overheads and other such irritations.

There is often detail in music that you might not hear unless it's at a good volume level (assuming you've got decent reproduction equipment), and certainly bass frequencies benefit from more power, but yeah it's also true that too loud sounds worse than too quiet.

Incidentally has anyone worked out why live gigs are always so loud? I still can't figure out why. The bands and the audience both end up wearing ear protection - why not just turn the ****ing PA down? Stupid.

honestly its the image of the "im at a concert, and its cool having the speakers extremely loud!!"

Quote from mrodgers :

So, you're an idiot too? Because Shotglass could climb that no problem in a car with summer tires!

Whoop, sorry, re-read Shotglass' post, you're just stupid, not an idiot....

yes because obviously a 16% incline is the same a a level or slightly elevated drive
also he doesnt have winter tyres so thats hardly surprising

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Incidentally has anyone worked out why live gigs are always so loud? I still can't figure out why. The bands and the audience both end up wearing ear protection - why not just turn the ****ing PA down? Stupid.

It is quite loud, but I've never put on any ear protection myself. I also like to listen to music a little louder than normal though (not the type that you hear at every redlight however), so my ears will probably be fried in 30-40 years.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Incidentally has anyone worked out why live gigs are always so loud? I still can't figure out why. The bands and the audience both end up wearing ear protection - why not just turn the ****ing PA down? Stupid.

please tell me my sarcasm detector is running low on credit. you weren't for real with that question were you?

The little bit of plastic on the right is what my clutch quadrant should look like.


This is what it looks like on Vanessa as of 11am this morning.


What genius at Ford thought making the quadrant (or ratchet if you'd prefer) out of plastic was a good idea?