The Sound and the Fury: Hooniverse Reviews the Soundracer (with video!)

Are you ready to UNLEASH THE FURY?

Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Ol’ Billy Shakespeare (college hip-hop name: “DJ Shaky P”) wrote this when he was going through his rebellious teenage phase in Macbeth. But the quote is surprisingly accurate: this world, being the stage that it is, is far too short to drive a 1998 Honda Accord LX with enough miles to recreate the first two days of the Apollo 11 mission, especially when you really lust after a Zonda. What happens if you might not have the $350,000 to afford the fine Italian/Argentine stallion? You can either take an senior analyst position with a leading financial firm and run the company into the ground over the course of a decade for a lucrative severance package, or—for an option that won’t result in a Senate hearing—you can recreate it for 0.1% of that price with the Soundracer.

Maybe.

Amaze your friends! Impress your wife! Get that promotion you've always wanted!

Seemingly targeted at the 1995-Civic-owning demographic that still thinks LED windshield wiper nozzles are a terrific investment, the Soundracer is a device that plays the sounds of a faster car through your own speakers, like some bizarre post-production redux of C’était un Rendezvous. From the driver’s seat, it’ll turn your 1.6-liter Zetec into “a throaty 5.0l V8,” as one Amazon reviewer proudly boasts. An engine swap in a box! Turn every trip to Hardee’s into a Grand Prix! Seldom has the motoring world witnessed such a instant life-changing transformation since Kid Bush fell off a Segway.

The Soundracer comes in a carbon-fiber-patterned cardboard box promising the catchy slogan, “CAR FM TRANSMITTER WITH SUPER SPORTS CAR SOUND!” Like a Volvo, it’s designed by the Swedes and made in China. It comes wrapped in—adorably enough—a checkered handkerchief. After plugging the Soundracer into the cigarette lighter, rev to 2500 RPM to sync it with the car’s alternator; a beep follows, telling you to drop it to 1000 RPM. Two beeps here then signal that the device is ready to fill the cabin with sweet, voluminous baby-making engine lovin’.

Those looking to impress the ladies (i.e. us) should be sitting up and paying attention right around now. And that’s why I got into my buddy Lev’s 1998 Honda Accord LX with 218,000 hard-fought miles, and went for a drive. Did we pick up chicks? Did we streetrace a couple of Chargers? Watch and find out:

[youtube width=”720″ height=”565″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBTVjw5eqsc&hd=1[/youtube]

This one is the V10 model—V8 and V12 models also exist, preferably sounding like the motor from a glorified Italian exotic and not, say, a Jaguar XJS with a faulty EGR valve. Sadly, though, unless you mount some speakers on the outside of your car, only the occupants inside will appreciate the newfound power that’s graced your car; bystanders will still hear the 1998 Accord with a hole in the exhaust the size of a Voit softball (just repaired!). Those looking to impress the ladies should get them into the car first.

As for the sound—nobody was playing Need for Speed V-Rally ’99 for Game Boy Color in the backseat; everything you were subjected to was the same thing we were subjected to. It’s a caricature of an engine’s sound, the auditory equivalent of running one of those street artist portraits through a copier and passing it off as a photograph of Angelina Jolie. In no way was it accurate. Despite the initial timing, revs would slip and stay put, and they wouldn’t kick in until a couple thousand RPMs had passed. If we wanted to truly self-flagellate ourselves we could have blown the engine past redline just to find out how high-pitched the Soundracer goes. I believe the CIA came under fire for doing the exact same to prisoners.

The key, supposedly, is to invest in a killer sound system, something that those ’95 Civic owners have probably done already. We only had a four-speaker stock stereo to play with. And no matter how much we fiddled with the bass and treble settings, changing the Soundracer’s range from VTEC to Austin Maxi, it still gave off an unearthly banshee howl that didn’t cease until the radio lost range, which flooded us with ear-bleeding static. Those looking to impress the ladies are advised to stay within a five-mile radius of radio towers and their parents’ houses. Mercifully, you can plug Beastie Boys into the bottom with the included AV cable, which makes the product somewhat bearable. As we demonstrated.

And then, on the way back to Hooniverse HQ, the Soundracer stopped working.

Sadly, the ladies were not on hand to demonstrate their impressiveness.

For $37.99, is the Soundracer a good buy? If it doesn’t break beforehand, then its novelty will wear off quick. But if you have as many speakers as, say, this guy, and if you find yourself laughing as you’re losing to some steroid-huffing, cap-wearing, neckless beefcake in a 31×10.5W-tired Fox Mustang at the lights, then you might be able to wrangle some fun out of it. Maybe. I dunno. Ask Willie Shakespeare.

Thanks to Eric Tingwall for shamelessly dumping this onto me and ensuring that $37.99 went to buying Miller High Life instead. Lev’s photography portfolio can be viewed here.

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  1. rkw Avatar
    rkw

    Dear Blake,
    That is the best opening paragraph I have ever read on this site.
    Love,
    rkw

  2. FЯeeMan Avatar
    FЯeeMan

    It is with much sadness that I read of your dismissal of the packaging material as "It comes wrapped in—adorably enough—a checkered handkerchief." Do you not realize that that "adorable" checkered handkerchief could be the most incredible do-rag this side of Little Havana?
    And you call yourself a well-versed writer. Pfft!

    1. bzr Avatar

      Yeah right, that is way too small to fit as adequate headwear, especially considering my massive bobble head that blocks out the sun for small children sometimes. Pah!

    2. FЯeeMan Avatar
      FЯeeMan

      >poof< ?
      well, e-mail says there's a reply here… 🙁

      1. ZomBee Racer Avatar

        >poof<
        Oh wait…

  3. acarr260 Avatar
    acarr260

    When I was in high school, I had an S-10 Durango with an old Kenwood tape deck that had not been properly grounded. If you switched it over to the AM band, the interference going through the radio would sound like a dragster engine. As an added bonus, the revs matched precisely. With two 10" subs behind the seat, it was easily audible from many feet from the truck. It was fun for 10 minutes…

    1. ZomBee Racer Avatar

      Back in the 70's and 80's folks would put a PA speaker under-hood hooked into their stock AM radio. It almost sounded like a blower or set of timing-gears on certain cars, enough to make you stop and listen for a second. I think there was even a piece showing it in Hot Rod or something. (I vaguely recall a 4-banger T-Bucket feature?)
      Unfortunately, most of the ding-dongs doing it were driving Dodge Colts, Gremlins or Honey Bees. No one was fooled except for our, ahem, I mean their egos.
      (kicks Kraco box-speaker back under the desk)

  4. FuzzyPlushroom Avatar
    FuzzyPlushroom

    I just drive around with only one (of two) mufflers in place and no exhaust behind the rear seat, give or take. Makes for a great fighter-plane impression.

  5. skitter Avatar
    skitter

    I think they would find a far larger market if they did the reverse, and used it for active sound canceling.

  6. Alff Avatar
    Alff

    Toyota is now offering a similar factory option – it's a device that feeds soothing whalesong to your car's speakers as it careens out of control.

  7. rollinon13z Avatar
    rollinon13z

    Oh snap, I seen this on the UMass forum last night. Does this make me an insider?
    Good read. Keep up the good work Blake.

    1. Alff Avatar
      Alff

      Were you, by chance, dodging your english homework to surf the 'net?

      1. Smells_Homeless Avatar
        Smells_Homeless

        Droll, Alff. Very droll. And I love it!

  8. SSurfer321 Avatar
    SSurfer321

    Meh, we've had more fun in the past attaching a duck call to a friends BOV. HILARIOUS if you can do it without the car owner knowing you put it on there.

  9. dustin_driver Avatar
    dustin_driver

    You guys got all kinds of vim goin' over there.
    So what's the story? You sellin' some? I could use me some vim right about now.

    1. ptschett Avatar
      ptschett

      Good news, vim is free!

      1. Thrashy Avatar

        I prefer Emacs.

  10. RichardKopf Avatar
    RichardKopf

    Wherein art thou good, but to taste sack and drink it? Wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? Wherein cunning, but in craft? Wherein crafty but in villainy? Wherein villainous, but in all things? Wherein worthy but in nothing?

  11. jjd241 Avatar

    The Bard in his truest form…
    [youtube bXId5jOTxdg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXId5jOTxdg youtube]

  12. Foolish Avatar
    Foolish

    I would LOVE to secretly install this in my wife's Mazda5, using the rear power socket!
    …Not enough to bother buying one, mind you, but I'd borrow one, for the amusement value…