Oh such devious ideas I get from posts like this. No easier way to piss off the people in the dorm next to you than using super-amplified speakers.

Posted at 4:46 pm on Sep 23rd, 2008 by Yoshi

Why buy a Bose Wave when you can make one of these?

Posted at 4:58 pm on Sep 23rd, 2008 by Spi Waterwing

i can’t find a link, but herrington or hammacher schlemmer or one of those ‘fancy stuff’ catalogs had this gramophone-styled ceramic horn amplifier that you set your earbud headphones on and supposedly provided pretty significant projection.

Posted at 5:37 pm on Sep 23rd, 2008 by dirk

i remember reading somewhere that inaudible low-frequency sound was experimented with as a means of crowd control or even a lethal weapon. supposedly it makes people extremely nauseous, and at high enough power could theoretically rupture internal organs.

Posted at 8:01 pm on Sep 23rd, 2008 by kevin

@ kevin…

yeah, but bullets are way easier to manufacture.

Posted at 8:33 pm on Sep 23rd, 2008 by spadefinger

Nice post hack-a-day guys.

takes me back to my first car stereo.

but it wasn’t nearly as cool

Posted at 8:36 pm on Sep 23rd, 2008 by spadefinger

Correct on the experiments with sound. They had “the brown noise” which made you have to take a poo… and when i have subs rumbling in my car, it does work, but not to the degree they would like. And technically you could create a sound wave “loud” enough to stop your heart, basically like a controlled directed explosion… you die from the blast wave next to a huge bomb, not from shrapnal or fire… just the sheer force on your body… but to direct that and reproduce it, requires too much energy and cannot be focused well enough, so alas it is a failure… but to stop your heart… you can technically buy subs on the car audio market that will do that. but to find the right sound/series of sounds to do so would require much research.

ps: always a fan of excellent acoustics. just living proof that a concert is only as good as the space/room it is set in.

Posted at 8:56 pm on Sep 23rd, 2008 by nachowarrior

The brown note, you say? You’ve been watching too much South Park.

It’s a well-known and well debunked urban myth.

Posted at 12:30 am on Sep 24th, 2008 by Mr Poo

This takes me back.. as a teenager a group of my friends discovered that by curling your hand into a particular horn shape (make a tight circle with your pinky, larger circle with your third finger etc) you could make the speakers on phones about twice as loud, a trick I still pull out occasionally.

As for the brick sub-floor horn… I’d love to hear that one in action. I wonder how it compares to that variable-pitch-fan subwoofer that they claimed would go down to 0Hz?

Posted at 2:59 am on Sep 24th, 2008 by PKM

meh is right. Try one made from snow…

http://junkies.wordpress.com/2007/02/10/snow-horns-college-style-20000-watts/

Posted at 4:47 am on Sep 24th, 2008 by fartface

@ Kevin
I’m pretty sure I remember reading about cruise ships (especially those passing down the east side of Africa ;)….) have directional deterrents which use sound on would be pirates.

Posted at 7:00 am on Sep 24th, 2008 by andy

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Farticle.php%3Fid%3DD8DNUV2G3%26show_article%3D1&ei=b2XaSNXuH5eSeZOBvb0G&usg=AFQjCNE-ri3QaebPxsFxELBqglueQ-nexQ&sig2=yOFS8Afhfu_bYQO2mAq-BA

Here you go, sonic pirate blasting!!

Posted at 9:07 am on Sep 24th, 2008 by w00tb0t

@ andy
I heard about that, but there was nothing magic in the waves. It was just a very directional, very loud, siren designed to breach the threshold of pain for their hearing. If a band of deaf pirates were to attack, they would be none the wiser.

Posted at 9:11 am on Sep 24th, 2008 by Solenoidclock

that’s no orc horn…

Posted at 9:21 am on Sep 24th, 2008 by strider_mt2k

this is the great thing i admire this

Posted at 11:53 pm on Dec 20th, 2008 by shams