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Focus groups are asked to listen to a variety of engine sounds and choose the ones they like and the ones they dislike.
Motorcycles have every different number of cylinders that you can imagine: singles, twins, triples, fours, and at least a couple of sixes. Single-cylinder engine? Generally speaking, an uninteresting sound, like a lawnmower. British twins fired at 360 degrees-an even firing order-and made a kind of droning sound. Lovers of British twins like that sound.
Possibly a more interesting sound is made when you move those cylinders apart to make a V-twin. Now you have a difference in the firing order so there is a quiet time, then a cylinder fires, a shorter quiet time, and another cylinder fires, which is why V-twins have more like a V-8 sound. Triples usually have their crankpins at 120 degrees, and they produce a wonderful musical sound, which I have enjoyed since the first time I heard a Kawasaki H1 in 1969.
Most inline-fours have a so-called "flat" crankshaft with their crankpins at 180 degrees so the cylinders in the middle are at top dead center when cylinders one and four are at bottom dead center. As a result, the engine fires twice per revolution and the firing interval is always the same. On a high-revving engine, a flat-crank inline-four produces the famous GSX-R screech. MotoGP rider Valentino Rossi liked a 90-degree crankpin angle better than a 180 so that's what Yamaha gave him in 2004. A 90-degree-crankpin inline-four makes a throatier, more V-8-like sound.
BMW's touring six is one of the smoothest engines there is, and it also produces a very smooth sound, like that of a Jaguar inline-six or a Merlin V-12. They all have a quite civilized purr. The Honda Gold Wing is a flat-six, the aim being to have enough cylinders that they can cancel each other's shaking forces, leaving the engine smooth enough for touring.
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