M. Adam Davis wrote:
> User perception is very interesting.  Car manufacturers spend a
> significant amount of time tailoring the sound of the car door to the
> vehicle and the segment they are marketing the vehicle to.  Luxury
> vehicles get a nice, muffled, 'weighty' woompf sound, while the
> cheaper compact cars get the quick, light, tinny slam.  There's a very
> specific audio signature over time that is tuned by modifying things
> around the whole vehicle - a car door slam gives a lateral force tot
> he vehicle frame, and other parts rattle, vibrate, etc elsewhere on
> the vehicle.  All these parts are affixed not just for mechanical
> stability, but for the sound they make when the various doors close.
> The type of gasket around the door, where it's placed, etc makes a
> bigg difference in whether you hear the door latch clicking, and
> whether the door travels noticably far beyond the latching point.
>
> And all this so the consumer can _feel_ the difference between the
> vehicles and believe they are getting something of greater or lessor
> value even though it's largely artificial - a way to segment the
> market and extract the amount the consumer is willing to pay for a
> product, rather than the lowest amount that will meet their needs.

Adam, this sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory, of course only if you 
meant to imply that manufacturers make the cheap cars "sound" cheap on 
purpose, to differentiate them from the luxury cars. Or even just that the 
cost is insignificant.

It seems logical that on luxury models the manufacturer can afford to spend 
the extra time to make sure nothing rattles when you shut the door. It makes 
sense why they do it -- they don't want customers saying "I just spent $60k 
on this thing, and it rattles like an old rusty bucket!".

I'm not so sure about your theory re: weight = quality as applied to 
laptops. Some of the higher end netbooks I recently looked at, are very 
light.

By the way, I ended up buying a Toshiba Portege A605 -- a laptop that 
pretends to be a netbook. :)

Vitaliy 

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