Whoa, this is heavy: brain equates weight with importance

Re:Whoa, this is heavy: brain equates weight with importance by bouncingsoul on Thursday August 27, 2009 @11:24AM (#789364)

A lot of extra thought that goes into high-end cars. I remember reading an article about how the sound of the door shutting is carefully tweaked to make it feel substantial and expensive.

Edit: Found this: http://soundinthemachine.org/2009/01/21/the-swaying-car-door...

Few things sound like they actually do. The sounds made by technology are more a story about what it should sound like than what it actually does.

Because drivers don’t get the sensation of a “real” car in a hybrid electric car, speakers are now being placed in the cab to play synthetic engine noise for the driver. And, because it’s synthetic, the noise piped into a Prius can be made to sound like a Lamborghini.

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Re:Whoa, this is heavy: brain equates weight with importance by jws on Thursday August 27, 2009 @12:58PM (#789534)

Yesterday's BMW article had in interesting section on how they made a special dual mass flywheel to dampen vibration at lower RPMs so the sound would be more agreeable and people would not downshift as early.

A lot of effort and expense to work around a misprogrammed driver.

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Re:Whoa, this is heavy: brain equates weight with importance by philwelch on Thursday August 27, 2009 @06:36PM (#790280)

God, I wish you can turn off the synthetic engine noise. Part of what's exhausting about driving is the constant droning noise.

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