Annoying sounds from cars at stop light

kalali asked: " dill, are you saying you need to be 28 feet away in order to “fully” hear a 40Hz tone?"

Yes and no, you can divide those wavelengths into halves, quarters, etc. for excellent results in designing a listening space. A 40Hz tone would sound very good in a 14ft. long room, but the best in a larger room. A 20Hz tone is 58ft. long so one could get very good results with a 24ft. room. All this is really not a big deal for home use, I just wanted to use this as an example on why we hear more bass from the car near us, than they do inside the car. A vehicle is the worst place to to have a sound system, sound quality wise.

dill 

You are correct about very low bass notes having very long waves. Not sure those 6" speakers in the door or even a 12" sub in the trunk are pumping out 30Hz bass loud enough that I can hear it from my car in open air.

I get very low bass from my headphones and Walkman CD player. What’s up with that? 

Good question geoff, I have no experience with headphones.

I’ve been inside one of those cars, actually a full size Cadillac SUV that one of my much wealthier than me friends owns. He has a mega dollar audio system at home and spent serious money to upgrade the system in the SUV and I must admit the sound quality - with all the windows rolled up, is really excellent. The bass is clean and layered and very warm and pleasant even at moderately high decibels. No shaking or vibrations whatsoever. Never heard it from the outside though. I guess it all depends on the quality of the car and the system inside.