Testing & comparing a bunch of after-market horns

[Miguel!]

I've been wanting to improve the horn on my BMW touring bike from a meep-meep to something commanding attention with an authoritative presence like the Stebel Nautilus that I shoe-horned into my Vespa GTV 10+ years ago.

I was just going to go buy another Stebel Nautilus but decided to do a bit of research on options. I'm glad I did. The Stebel was not the best choice to my ears and has gotten a number of bad reliability reviews, for example webbikeworld.com horn review.

I had three criteria for horn selection:
1. Its got to be hidden under the bike's fairing (and there's not a lot of available room under there)
2. Its gotta be loud. I know horn loudness or even using a horn at all is controversial with some members but I use my horn liberally. I always give people who can pull into my path and aren't looking at me a little toot. I sometimes get a little wave acknowledging me and sometimes a look that says, "I see you asshole". But I'd rather get a scornful look than get hit. 
3. Its gotta have a rather pleasant sound, and that usually means multiple horns with sounds that blend harmonically. Most car, truck and train horns, for example, usually have 2 or more horns. 

After reading a bunch of specifications for specific horns and listening on-line, I realized I wouldn't be satisfied till I could listen to them all live in the same afternoon. Fortunately, Amazon provides free returns through Kohl's Department Stores and there's one about a mile from my house. So I bought a bunch of horns to test.

The horns fell into two categories: 
o Diaphragm horns that creates air movement with a vibrating speaker-like membrane. Most cars and small trucks use these types of horns. 
o Air horns that blow air past a reed like a clarinet or a saxophone. Trains and large trucks use air horns.

Both horn styles usually have a trumpet-like bell that shapes the sound characteristics and focuses the energy in a forward direction. While there's a lot to be said about the acoustical physics of horn design, I'll leave it there. 

A note on sound and perception: These horns all operate between 300 Hz and 500 Hz which describes the fundamental pitch. Orchestras tune at 440 Hz just to give you a sense of the range we're talking about. Car horns are in that same range. Train and large truck horns tend to be a bit lower in pitch. Meep-meep style scooter and motorcycle horns tend to be a bit higher in pitch. 

The picture below shows the horns I auditioned. I'll describe each of them starting in the upper left corner with the Fiamm AMS80.

o Fiamm AMS80S Dual Horn system: This kit consists of two diaphragm horns with a snail-looking bell, virtually identical to the Fiamm Freeway Blaster horns shown below the AMS80S box. Its two horns are described as "Low" and "Hi" and centered at 400 Hz and 500 Hz. They are quite loud. Fiamm sells another kit called the AMS80SX. As far as I can tell, the two kits are identical. 
o Fiamm Freeway Blasters 72012, 72112 and 72102 horns. These are all individual horns. Fiamm didn't provide much description of these horns so I just bought them knowing I could return them. The 72102 is identical to the Low horn in the kit and operates at 400 Hz and the 72012 and 72112 are identical to the High horn in the kit operating at 500 Hz. I don't know why they have two model numbers for it. Once I realized the single horns were identical to the horns in the kit, I ignored them for the rest of the tests. Had Fiamm's website been more descriptive, I would have known I didn't need to purchase them. But you'll see the 500 Hz horn played an important role later.
o PIAA Sports horn consist of two diaphragm horns operating at 400 and 500 Hz. They are a bit higher quality in the hand than the Fiamm horns but are virtually the same design. They are a bit louder than the Fiamm kit horns and have about the same pitch, as you'd expect. 
o PIAA Superior Bass horn consists of two diaphragm horns operating at 330 and 400 Hz. It has a lower sounding pitch than the PIAA Sports horn and I liked the sound better than the Sports horn. 
o Stebel Nautilus: This seems to be the go-to loud horn when I installed it a decade ago on my Vespa  so it had to be part of the test. It is an air horn and the silver cylinder is an air compressor. It has two horn frequencies of 400 Hz and 500 Hz.
o The Wolo horn is virutually identical to the Stebel but about 2/3rds the cost. They sound nearly identical tho the Stebel was about 2x heavier. Not sure why. 

Surprisingly, the diaphragm horns are louder, smaller, lighter and probably easier to mount than the air horns, so I decided to stick with the diaphragm horns. They also took less power.

I liked the PIAA Bass Horn sound best because it sounded more like a train or large truck and less like like a car horn. 

Finally, I tried combining the PIAA Bass Horn kit at 330 Hz and 400 Hz with the Fiamm 72102 operating at 500 Hz. The sound of all three together was incredible and definitely has a very large presence.So that's the way I'm going.

I tested the horns by setting up a work bench (plywood on saw horses) next to my car which has a 260 amp-hour battery (this a large and powerful battery). I set up a sound pressure meter on my iPhone and measured the freuqency spectrum for each test about 8 feet away. Its not worth the time to post the spectra of each horn. I used it to verify what my ears were telling me. I wore ear protection during all testing. I ran the horns directly from the battery but on a 20 amp fused circuit.

All told I had about $275 in horns on my work bench. There are other horns out there but I think I had a good sampling and, unless something comes up that's really compelling, I have found my horn setup. I'll be returning all the horns tomorrow.

 

I have figured out how to mount the three horns and I'll have it done by tmw. It required that I run a separate 20-amp circuit but that's pretty easy once I figured out how to route the wires. You have to do this becuase the stock horn circuit wires on the R1100RT cannot supply the enough power for the horns. It will blow the fuse and the wires aren't sufficiently large to increase the fuse size. The R1100RT is notorious for undersized wires. The designers of from the early 1990s made them "just big enough" without much excess capacity.

 

I hope to have it completed by tomorrow and I'll post pictures in another thread in the Oilhead forum since I'm installing the horns on my R1100RT. I'll post a link in this thread once I complete it. I did get the horns installed, wired up and the wiring secured on the bike today. I just need to reinstall the glovebox, both side fairings, secure the dashboard and reinstall the windscreen.  

 I'll do a follow up once I get the horns installed and will provide and A/B sound comparison. So far I'm pretty happy.

Hope this helps someone!!

Best
Miguel 

[Pappy35]

That's awesome. I installed a Denali SOundbomb air horn and, though painfully loud, drivers don't really seem to react to it. I suspect it's precisely because they sound different that it doesn't trigger a response. That and there's a short delay that I don't like. I run it in parallel with the OEM biscuit and just don't really like the combo. I'll be very interested in your results. I could replace the biscuit with one Fiamm and the Soundbomb with the the other. There's a lot of room under there.

[Miguel!]

I considered the Soundbomb. My independent BMW mechanic installs them on oilheads - he charges about 4 hours to do it. He uses the split version so the compressor and the horns themselves can be separated.He didn't tell me where he mounts them. Webbikeworld liked them too. To be honest, I don't remember why I didn't order one of them. Seems like a good product. 

 

Regarding the short delay when you hit the horn button, It's likely you have a small air leak so the horn needs to build up a fair bit of pressure before it makes a sound. Maybe you should check that. That happened on my Stebel. 

 

Regarding the OEM "biscuit" horn, I debated installing it back on the bike. After all, it is already separately fused and the mounting and electrical connectors exist. Unfortunately, I used the space of the OEM horn so I'd have to modify its mounting to fit it back in. Based on your comment, I think I'll just pass on trying to fit the OEM horn. I'm anxious to wrap this project up and move on to other things. Unfortunately, we're going to have on-off rain for most of the next week so I'm grounded (I don't ride on wet roads.) Hopefully one day will be clear and I can get out for a ride and a road test. 

 

Regarding room under the fairing, the R1100RT doesn't have a lot of room. Rearward of the steering post is occupied by the gas tank so you can't use any of that space. Under the steering post is where the OEM horn mounts and I took over that space for the two PIAA horns. While there is space forward, its unusable because the forks swivel in that space. So it its all pretty tight. Your profile doesn't say what bike you have but it looks like a new-ish RT. I guess it has more space. 

 

Cheers. Miguel

[Skywagon]

thanks for this.  My wethead came with a single horn.  It sucks.  My 1150RT had great dual horns.  I bought a set of those to replace the one on my wethead.  Unfortunately the wethead would not drive both horns.  It would make a quick chirp, then the circuit would go off-line.  I know I can wire in a relay and probably get them to work. The bike was new at the time so I just left it factory so no BMW warranty issues.  I may look into wiring it up again.  I made a custom bracket that worked well for both.  I don't want a separate button so will have some work to do.

[Pappy35]

The Soundbomb has to spool up a compressor so a slight delay makes sense and really, it's so short it's not much of an issue. I agree that It's very well built.

 

I've had a few incidents where I'm laying into the horn (in each case the thing was four feet from the idiots ear) and they had like NO response. I really think that since the horn doesn't sound like a car it doesn't register - odd how the mind works (or doesn't in the case of these Darwin Award winners). Or maybe it's that I left the biscuit installed and together they sound odd? Regardless, I'm going to try a dual FIamm (or the 1150 OEM horns since they use the same connector) next time I have the beast apart. I'm using a EZCan so all the wiring is already there.

[6speedTi]

Here is one that sounds good and loud. Great for motorcycle applications. 

 

 

[Pappy35]

Funny, looks just like a 3D model of the Denali (or a Stebel, or a "Viking", or a bunch of other compact air horns...) with a relay bolted to one side. Yawn...

 

On Amazon, "Marco" says one of their horns makes 150 dB. Bwahahaaa!!!! The freaking Falcon 9 measures only slightly louder than that at takeoff! If they market their product like that I wouldn't trust them to work. Cheap? Yes, but I want my hor to actually work when I need it to. 

 

Is the Falcon Heavy as loud as the Space Shuttle or Saturn V ...

https://space.stackexchange.com › questions › is-the-falcon-heavy-as-loud-...

Feb 3, 2018 - Expected noise levels can be found in the environmental assessment. For Falcon 9: 156.1 ± 4.9 dB (unweighted) at 125 ft. For Falcon Heavy: ...

[Miguel!]

14 hours ago, Skywagon said:

thanks for this.  My wethead came with a single horn.  It sucks.  My 1150RT had great dual horns.  I bought a set of those to replace the one on my wethead.  Unfortunately the wethead would not drive both horns.  It would make a quick chirp, then the circuit would go off-line.  I know I can wire in a relay and probably get them to work. The bike was new at the time so I just left it factory so no BMW warranty issues.  I may look into wiring it up again.  I made a custom bracket that worked well for both.  I don't want a separate button so will have some work to do.

Sky, Yup.I presume you wired them in parallel.  The wires are just too small to carry enough current to the horn(s). You need to use a relay that is triggered with the horn button that is how I wired mine up. I'll be posting about that tmw when I have a bit more time. 

 

Miguel

[Miguel!]

3 hours ago, 6speedTi said:

Here is one that sounds good and loud. Great for motorcycle applications. 

 

I looked at the Marco Hurricane and the Tornado. They are VERY similar to the Stebel Nautilus and Wolo Badboy. WRT to air horns, there's really only two variable: 1) The frequency of the two tone it will generate which is determined parameters designed into the horn (just like a flute can play multiple note with changing in the fingering and how you direct air at the mouthpiece; and 2) the loudness which is determined by the amount of air pushed into the horn by the compressor which is determined by the size of the compressor and maybe a few other things. The air volume is directly to the electrical current they draw.  Virtually all the motorcycle-style airhorns draw about the same current, are about the same size and have about the same frequencies. The Marco airhorn reviews on Amazon were about the same as other airhorns so I skipped it. If I found that airhorns were louder than the diaphragm horns, I'd have ordered the Marco Hurricane and Tornado airhorns to compare to the Stebel and Wolo. But since I found the diaphragm  horns were louder, I dropped further interest in the airhorns. 

 

See my next post down as well. 

 

Best

Miguel

[Miguel!]

1 hour ago, Pappy35 said:

Funny, looks just like a 3D model of the Denali (or a Stebel, or a "Viking", or a bunch of other compact air horns...) with a relay bolted to one side. Yawn...

 

On Amazon, "Marco" says one of their horns makes 150 dB. Bwahahaaa!!!! The freaking Falcon 9 measures only slightly louder than that at takeoff! If they market their product like that I wouldn't trust them to work. Cheap? Yes, but I want my hor to actually work when I need it to. 

 

Is the Falcon Heavy as loud as the Space Shuttle or Saturn V ...

https://space.stackexchange.com › questions › is-the-falcon-heavy-as-loud-...

Feb 3, 2018 - Expected noise levels can be found in the environmental assessment. For Falcon 9: 156.1 ± 4.9 dB (unweighted) at 125 ft. For Falcon Heavy: ...

Sound intensity level is an objective measure that can be made with a meter. Several parameters determine the sound intensity level but the most important one here is how far away from the horn the sound pressure meter is. Many of these horns that claim 150+ dB measure the sound 4" from the horn. Other companies state the sound intensity at 1 meter, which is more standard. Then you get the marketing spin on top of that. Loudness is a perceptual measure related to sound intensity but it depends on your hearing acuity. A deaf person will not hear sound at all but it might be very loud for someone with normal hearing. 

 

These are exactly the reasons I decided I needed to listen to all them in my setting, not some far away lab which is then (mis?)quoted by a marketing person. Also, since it's difficult to remember how loud something is, I made sure the horn tests were back to back. 

 

Miguel

[Miguel!]

I wrapped up the horn project today. I successfully installed all the fairings but ended up with one extra fairing screw. Despite looking the bike over for an empty screw hole in the fairings,  twice, I can't figure out where it goes. I'll look again tmw.

 

I took the bike out for a ride to have a listen. My trio of  horns is VERY loud, sounds good and really stands out. It's almost as loud as a semi trailer truck horn but not quite. It also has a pretty nice sound too, as far as horns go. The sound emanating from the horns was very musical instrument-like and had a depth to it like a train horn which also has multiple horns at different pitches.  I'll do some recordings this week and post an A/B horn comparison. Overall, it was an intense and time consuming project that came out well. I knew I could make the mechanical and electrical modifications ok but I didn't know how it was all going to go once I got inside the bike. I also learned a bunch about my bike. I'd never had the fairings off. The most challenging and time-consuming task was figuring where and how to mount the horns. 

 

I'll be posting my installation procedure and details in the Oilhead forum this week. I'm putting it there since my procedure was unique to the R1100RT (which is an oilhead) but installation on most other bikes should just be a variation on my procedure. I'll post a link in the install thread when I get it online. 

 

I think I'm finally done with modifications to my R1100RT. In the last year, I installed a heated seat, retrofitted BMW heated grips (my bike didn't come with them surprisingly but fortunately, it was wired for them), painted my side cases to match the bike, fixed a few damaged or blemished parts and installed a cellphone RAM mount. I'm really not interested in performance mods. The bike goes 0-60 in less than 5 seconds and will do 125 mph. That's plenty fast for me. 

 

Thanks for all the kind comments. Cheers

Miguel

[Miguel!]

Here's s link to the installation post I did on the Oilhead Forum. Miguel

[elkroeger]

My old man had a mid 70s Alfa Romeo.  I remember it had a real attention getting horn.  You know the kind.  It just screams red Italian sports car... (and coming at you quickly too).  If anyone knows how to do a car horn, it's the Italians.

 

After some investigation, I found that they were Fiamm horns, and basically the same as the current Fiamm hi/lo kit.  Install on my RS was pretty easy, and it's saved my bacon more than a couple times.

[JamesW]

Yup, Fiamm hi/lo horns on both my bikes.  I think all NAPA auto parts stores carry them.  Add to that high intensity automotive fog lamps and head light high beam modulators with a Signal Minder kit for the BMW.  Oh, and a high intensity yellow low profile strobe light connected to the brake light circuit and mounted on the FJR trunk.  They see and hear me!  Also put Fiamms on our Ford Escape.  Just don't think you can make too much noise or cast enough light on the subject.

[JohnH]

Here's a pair of Hella horns I installed in place of the stock horn on my 2012 R1200RT. They've worked fine without a relay.

[Pappy35]

49 minutes ago, JohnH said:

Here's a pair of Hella horns I installed in place of the stock horn on my 2012 R1200RT. They've worked fine without a relay.

Hella Horns.MOV

 

Hi John, where did you mount them? 

[JohnH]

I mounted them in the same location as the original. I have some pictures on my computer. PM me your email and I’ll see if I can find them tomorrow and send them to you.

[Miguel!]

2 hours ago, JohnH said:

I mounted them in the same location as the original. I have some pictures on my computer. PM me your email and I’ll see if I can find them tomorrow and send them to you.

JohnH, why not just post them here for us all to see. Just click this "choose files..." link button below, select the picture files \, then hit ok. Simple. Alternatively, you can email them to me and I'll post them for you. PM me and I'll send you my email address. Miguel

 

[Corazon de Pollo]

I have a Fiamm horn out of Mercedes Vito van on my RT-LC. Nothing fancy, it was cheap and people now think a van is coming instead of a bike, which makes all the difference.

It required a lot of trial and error to go where the original horn went and I had to use a bracket from the scrap heap but it does its job well and no permanent modifications were needed. I used a cable adapter from Nippy Norman to avoid cutting and splicing.

[John Bentall]

I mounted a single low tone horn from a BMW car. It makes a "bigger" sound but possibly will not carry as far the higher-pitched standard horn. 

 

Of course it plugs straight into the bike harness, but access to the mounting bolt is tricky. 

[PatM]

I got a kit from Hornig, it includes a Stebel and all the needed wires, relay and hardware to mount it in the original horns place.

https://www.motorcycleparts-hornig.com/BMW-R-1200-RT/Alu-High-grade-Steel/Nautilus-Stebel-Horn.html

 

[Miguel!]

9 hours ago, PatM said:

I got a kit from Hornig, it includes a Stebel and all the needed wires, relay and hardware to mount it in the original horns place.

https://www.motorcycleparts-hornig.com/BMW-R-1200-RT/Alu-High-grade-Steel/Nautilus-Stebel-Horn.html

 

That's pricey at $53 + shipping. Amazon's price with free delivery in US is $29+tax but it doesn't not include the wiring adaptors which are easy build. My testing showed that the Stebel wasn't as loud as the horns I selected. I had a Stebel on my other bit. It is loud but not as loud as the PIAA and Fiamm combo I cited in my opening post. 

 

Cheers. Miguel

 

https://smile.amazon.com/Stebel-11690019-Nautilus-Compact-Black/dp/B00CMX20H4/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2O084XY52TWR5&keywords=stebel+nautilus+compact+horn&qid=1577331810&sprefix=stebel%2Caps%2C194&sr=8-1

[Miguel!]

I finally did a video of the horn. IT IS LOUD!! I rode out to a farm area so I could play it a relatively long time without attracting attention. When I give it a toot, people pay attention and look at me which is what I want. If I lay on it, it sounds like an 18-wheeler. 

 

The YouTUbe video description provides a link to a train video. My horn trio has a pitch similar to many of the trains but obviously not as loud. 

 

Best

Miguel

 

 

[Pappy35]

Sounds great. Re-reading through this I'm not clear on which one's you ended up installing. Was this with two or three horns (and which ones)?

[Miguel!]

1 hour ago, Pappy35 said:

Sounds great. Re-reading through this I'm not clear on which one's you ended up installing. Was this with two or three horns (and which ones)?

Pappy,

I used three horns total. Two horns come in the PIAA Superbass kit that operate at 330 Hz and 400 Hz and I used the Fiamm #72012 which operates at 500 Hz.

 

And for the record, Hz is an abbreviations for Hertz (said "hurts") which defines the frequency at which the horns operate. It's equivalent to pitch of the horns. A lower number is a lower pitch. Orchestras tune to 440 Hz.  Car horns operate in this same range. Hertz was a German scientist and we honor him by using his name to define frequency in most engineering and physics disciplines. 

[Pappy35]

Got it. What size fuse are you using (asked a different way, have you measured the current draw)?

 

I ask because of something I noticed a couple of weeks ago. I was installing the wiring for my heated gear and wanted to power it off my EZCan. I popped open the software to configure the new circuit and found this status screen where you can see the instantaneous current draw of each circuit. Blowing the horn because I was curious about it's draw I was surprised to see it drew north of 35 amps which, combined with the other loads (lights), was more that the rating of the fuse on the supply. The EZCan says the total draw should be less than 40 amps total. 

 

Anyway, long story short, I think the soundbomb draws way too much current for what it is and so I'm going to try a setup like yours.